boze

had a rough weekend. been getting around 100miles/week for the past three or four weeks, plus a few hikes for recovery. feeling great, doing great. and then out of nowhere i had really strange squinty-eyed achey-neck hot feeling misery ruin my last two rides. i still feel pretty bad today.

the only thing i can think is that it's dehydration. was spending $20/week on gatorade so this week i tried making a homemade sports drink out of some water, raw sugar and Emergen-C packets from Trader Joe's. First ride out with that stuff was wednesday's 35miler and i think they were too sweet and made my stomach hurt. maybe i just didn't catch up on my hydration - or maybe i'm not drinking enough off the bike in the evenings.

this weekend was awful though - saturday was that same ride from wednesday only i felt like hammered ***** and even my easy flat 22mile ride today was making me feel like i had some strange kind of hangover.

gonna try a day or two off with plenty of fluids and ease back in. having a great summer of riding otherwise, but it's spooky to be illin in a way that doesn't relate to anything you've experienced before.

now i'm off to sleep for as long as possible - hopefully that'll sort me out some as well.

drink up everybody!

Jakey

Buy the gatorade in powder form... MUCH cheaper. And just drink tons of water...

Pat

You talked about it being too sweet. I just drink water and nothing but. Many people who drink electrolyte drinks dilute them 1 to 1 with water or carry a water bottle with water and another with the drink. Other people drink water and just get the electrolyte drinks at rest stops.

When you are on the road and exercising, as you have discovered, things taste a lot sweeter and nastier then you would expect when you are cooking them up in the kitchen.

RonH

The best thing to drink to prevent dehydration is water. Gatorade, Powerade, etc. replace electrolyes but are not the best thing for dehydration.
I ride with a Camelbak full of water and a bottle full of Gatorade and never have dehydration problems.

ManBearPig

At my first mountain bike race I made the mistake of filling my Camelback with orange gatorade. Due to the intense heat and activity, it became almost unbearable to drink. Tasted thick and nasty in my heightened state of exercise. Gatorade may taste good and quench thirst when you are sitting in your car after exercise, but I agree water is best for staying hydrated during activity.

And what were you thinking with sugar water? Sure-fire way to bonk. If you need energy on extended rides, take along a powerbar or some packs of goo. You need water frequently, but probably should not need food until an hour or two of riding.

supcom

It sounds like you are overtrained, not dehydrated. Your plan of taking a couple days off will probably help more than anything.

brunning

gatorade is a poor excuse for a sports drink. i consider it more of a soft drink, even.

serious sports drinks (like powerbar drink, my new favorite) are very carefully designed to deliver a specific level of carbs (6-8% i think?) - a rate at which the body can optimally absorb, they are not too sweet so they don't upset the stomach, they have enough salt to replace the electrolytes you lose when sweating, and replace glucose, fructose and all that stuff.

just drinking some sugary, salty stuff with unknown concentrates and ingredients is not a good plan and water is not enough if you are sweating a lot. you can overdo the carbs and sugar and salt easily and your muscles are going to feel it.