Electrolytes & Hydration, Part Last

The main moral of the story. I repeat…

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If you take in enough isotonic mixture, your body will keep what it does need and flush out what it doesn’t need, either through your bladder or your bowels.
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Of course, it is not a perfect world, and a 100-mile running event, at high altitude, with monster 1000ft+ climbs, in weather flipping from cold to heat to cold again, is going to stress your system to the max. Trying to guess what your body needs exactly is nearly impossible. The aid stations are handing out completely erratically mixed beverages. It’s up to each runner to figure it out.
When in doubt, drink a known neutral mixture. This is one of the things having your own drop-bag is essential for. Your drop-bag is a reliable source for controlled-ratio mixtures. If you have a crew, then your bottles need to be marked clearly and your crew instructed clearly which-is-which, and when to hand you what. If you’re in a stupor, your crew needs to figure out if it’s from hypoxia, dehydration, hyponatremia, or low blood sugar.
(As for the latter, have any of you considered using a diabetic glucose tester in the later stages of a race to see if you're heading toward a glycemic crash?)

Many of us have finished a race during summer months and after our sweat dries, we’re covered by a comical streaking of white salt. It might be worth it, to judge the quantity of salt you’re expending, to open an electrolyte capsule and spread the powder on your clean, dry arm. See how much surface-area the contents will cover, leaving it as white and thick as you usually are at the end of these events. Then extrapolate for your body. THAT is how many electrolyte capsules you have coating your body. And that is how much more salt you need to consume (in addition to the usual urine) during a race to stay neutral.

Some of us sweat more than others because we’re all pushing at different intensities, and some of us have lower conditioning. An elite runner won’t burn as many calories to go the same distance, even at a faster pace. Fewer calories means less heat (byproduct of calorie-burn is heat) which in turn means less sweating, which means less breathing, lower rate of dehydration, and less loss of electrolytes. The worse shape you’re in, the more you hemorrhage electrolytes, water, and calories, and the more you build lactic acid. Even small reductions in weight and increases in systemic efficiency have a significant difference in the snow-balling long-term effect it has on your physiology. The lower your rates of expenditure, the easier it is to stay on top of your rates, levels, and ratios. When you end up with a deficit, it can cause serious problems, which lead to DNFs and/or much slower finish-times and unnecessary pain. Add to that, the first-place runners only have to be on their feet for half the time that last-place runners are out there.

Everyone has different strategies for maintaining optimal ratios and levels. Some prefer to keep everything separated into measured doses so they can count calories, electrolytes, and water ounces accurately. Some people can’t do math very well during a race and insist on drinking pre-mixed isotonics. Some drink isotonics without any calories, and then eat measure calories. The simplest way of all, is to mix isotonic sport drinks with adequate calories such that you don’t have to eat anything nor take any electrolyte supplements, but that tends to leave a slight mucous in your mouth. You might not be bothered by such a thing walking around town, but during a race, it’s bothersome. Most racers seem to prefer sport drink that is half-strength, and then eat some food and take some electrolyte supplements.

If you have a history of bad race experiences where you just can’t seem to nail the ratios or levels, there is something you can do.
Warning, this is gross, but it is clinically sound…
At the point of collapse, at the end of your rope, pee into a bottle – like an empty sport-drink bottle. Try to fill either a full quart, or exactly half a quart. Then let it evaporate. When all the water is gone, what is left is mostly salt, including ammonia salts and phosphate soda. Remember blood has about 2tsp of salt per quart (~10gms/qt). Pee reflects what your blood was like at the end of the race. If there’s less than 2tsp/qt, then you needed more electrolyte supplements. If there’s more than that, you took too much.
You can use a scale designed for light-accurate measurements, like a digital food scale that can flip from ounces to grams. Measure the whole bottle with the dried contents, then record the weight. Next, clean and dry the bottle thoroughly and weigh it again. After subtracting your bottle weight, you should have an accurate weight for salt. Then finish by multiplying, if you needed, to extrapolate a full quart.
Don’t ever forget the lesson from the sea – no matter how much sea water you drink, you will die of dehydration. If you pop electrolyte supplements like candy, you are basically drinking sea water and your body will react accordingly.

Electrolytes & Hydration, Part 2

Collation 2
Now let’s collate the other extreme from the sea – travelling in a desert. To get across a desert, travellers used to take in extra quantities of salt before the journey – but not just salt! They have to follow it up with large quantities of water. First salt, to trigger the body to want copious amounts of water, then satiate that thirst immediately after, without over-doing it. This causes your body to temporarily hold extra water, until your body is able to return both quantity and ratio back to the optimal levels. But if you suddenly increase both, then set out across a stifling hot, dry plain, you will probably sweat out much of that excess before your body can pee it out. Thus you have given yourself an extra hour or so of comfort before things start to deteriorate.

Any state of “extra”, with either salt or water, is temporary, but if you don’t have enough water, your body will still rob your dehydrated body of as much water as it can to return the salt ratio back to optimal levels, even if it means dropping the hydration level dangerously below optimal levels. But of course if you’re dehydrated as your body is robbing even more water, then your blood becomes even thicker and it becomes a hopeless vicious cycle that leads to stomach cramps and collapse.

Collation 3
Many of us have heard of the Master Cleanse. This is a strict diet that consists of drinking fresh-squeezed lemonade with grade “B” maple syrup and cayenne pepper mixed in. It’s not delicious, but it’s not as nasty as it sounds. Grade “B” maple syrup is loaded with vitamins, plus fresh lemonade is loaded with vitamin C. Vitamin C is acidic, and cayenne pepper is caustic. Still, the mixture is somewhat mildly acidic and caustic, and causes no discomfort to drink for days on end. The mixture gradually corrodes the “gunk” that can build up on the insides of your intestines. This gunk is what leads to cancers, ulcers, and many other conditions. It will also kill all the bacteria and viruses living in your gut.
So first you loosen up the gunk, then you try to flush it out. Here’s the chemistry lesson in this… You mix 2tsp of salt with 1qt of warm (body-temperature ~98.6F) water, then you guzzle it real fast. If the solution is the same saline ratio as your blood, and you’re not dehydrated, then it will flush through, sometimes violently. It is stressed very clearly to anyone starting the Master Cleanse to be close to a toilet when they do the salt-water flush. It will gush right through from mouth to toilet with surprising speed. This is what blasts the “gunk” off the walls of your intestines during the Cleanse.
No doubt, if you aren’t taking in any other source of salt, then all your daily salt will come from this salt-water Flush – not all the salt will flush out, but the water sure will.
The Master Cleanse achieves bowel-flush through a combination of body-temperature water, empty intestines from no solid food, and the osmosis of salt from the Flush into your slightly hyponatremic system. If you try the Flush when you’re not on the Master Cleanse diet, then there will be plenty of digesting food in the way, so there won’t be any violent results. It takes about two to three days to empty all your intestines. It’s only after the intestines are empty that the Flush truly starts to do its work. The less food and “gunk” in the way, the more violent the Flush will be. When you achieve MC nirvana, clear water runs all the way through you. Nearly all the maple syrup and lemonade absorbs into your blood-stream.
FYI: When finished with the Master Cleanse sessions, you have to rebuild the healthy microbes that are supposed to be in your gut by consuming probiotics for several days. You can’t just start eating regular food again.
I guarantee the MC will cure you of serious flatulence. Flatulence is caused by undigested food (carbs are the worse) getting into your lower intestine. This happens when you over-eat. When the wrong kind of bacteria start colonizing in your lower intestine, then it doesn’t much matter what you eat or how much, you have chronic flatulence. Taking antibiotics is a less-perfect way of killing the bad bacteria, but won’t give you the cleaning.
If you don’t follow the post-MC plan of rebuilding your good-bacteria, and you start dumping hardy foods into your system, then you won’t be able to properly digest. You’ll end up with undigested food in your lower intestine again, which defeats many of the reasons for doing the MC in the first place.

- If your hydration and salt levels are both low, and you guzzle a neutral mix (such as Pedialyte, for example), your body will retain it all – because it needs both.
- If you’re well-hydrated but your salt is low, and you guzzle a neutral mix, your body will retain salt and flush out the water – not necessarily through your bowels, but also through your bladder.
- If you’re dehydrated but your salt is fine…
See the trend? Your body isn’t stupid, even though it sometimes acts that way. It knows what’s best and will do its best to bring all levels back to optimal. This only fails when you don’t give the body the resources it needs to return things to optimal levels.

In a perfect world, all the fluids offered at an ultra event will be mixed at perfectly balanced ratios. It may not taste good, but it will allow your body to adjust to healthy levels, even considering that some people expend either water or salt at different levels. One optimal mixture for all is actually good. If you take in enough optimal mixture, your body will flush out what it doesn’t need, either through your bladder or your bowels. You don’t need to worry about how saline your pee is – your body will make the correct decisions there. It won’t accidentally excrete too much salt through your pee.
If you drink too much water, and you don’t have enough salt, then your body will not be able to drop the excess water very efficiently. This state of hyponatremia can kill you. No one ever developed hyponatremia from drinking an isotonic mix.

On the cellular level, if you add plain water (hypotonic), the cells being saltier, osmosis will cause the cells to fill with water until they burst, thus killing the cells. This is why you shouldn’t try to clean a wound with plain water.

If you subject cells to hypertronic solutions, the cells will get the water sucked out of them, and will shrivel up. Traumatic shrivelling will kill or damage many of them.
Luckily, our stomach and other systems do a fine job of buffering what we consume to introduce substances in a controlled way, so there usually aren’t any traumatic cellular responses. But just the thought of these cellular responses should clue everyone in to how limited their use of water should be during a grueling event, and how important it is to not go hog-wild with the electrolyte supplements.

Electrolytes & Hydration, Part 1

There are a lot of misconceptions and confusion around ultra-running electrolytes and hydration. There are also many fads or trends that go off on tangents, without collating data already learned from other sports.

Everyone already knows we need to maintain a certain quantity of electrolytes and hydration. The argument is how much? What makes this harder is that everyone is somewhat different.

The last part, about everyone being “different”, has to be taken with a grain of salt (no pun intended {well, maybe a little bit}). What causes everyone to be different are usually measurable things like heart rate and breathing rate. Otherwise we aren’t as different as most people imply. An elite athlete has an astoundingly low Resting-Heart-Rate, incredible VO2Max, and plenty of oxygen-carrying red blood cells. To run up the exact same stretch of trail, at the exact same pace, an elite weighing 130lbs will have a very low heart rate and breathing rate, because they aren’t working very hard. But a 180lbs runner, with twice the RHR, lower VO2Max, and not as many red blood cells, will be gasping for air. Regardless the altitude, the lighter elite athlete will not have to breathe or work as hard.

Unlike calories, electrolytes don’t “burn up”. Calories burn and escape the system via heat. Electrolytes don’t burn. They flush out via sweat and urine. Therefore, an elite who sweats less, wastes less. Urine is going to come out either way. Your body will try to maintain a healthy hydration and electrolyte balance, but if you flood the system with too much or not enough, of water or electrolytes, the body will have a harder time balancing. Way more than optimal salt and too little water – you’re in trouble. Way more salt and way more water, maybe not bad at all, but still making the body work extra to maintain “optimal”. Too much water and too little salt leads to deadly hyponatremia.

Collation 1
Everyone knows that people stranded at sea should never drink sea water, or they’ll get stomach cramps, delirium, and then die. Allegedly, you die of dehydration, no matter how much sea water you drink. The sailors who have lasted the longest aren’t the ones who drank only the survival-ration of on-board fresh water. The ones who lasted well beyond historical expectations were those who mixed sea water with fresh water. Only the optimal ratio is argued today. But why argue? We already know the optimal salinity of human blood. To maintain optimal water-to-salt ratio, you need to drink that same ratio. Each body may react slightly differently to sun and heat. If you sweat more, you’ll lose both water and salt through your pours, but some will lose more salt than others. So what is “optimal” for one person may not have enough salt for another. But sitting still in a boat, humans don’t vary much – only a little. The conditioning of athletes cause wild variations from one person to the next, but sitting still in the shade, people are very similar.

This should be a lesson for ultra-runners who are rabid fans of electrolyte capsules. Too many runners take electrolyte supplements based on the clock, while ignoring their bodies and their environment. It should be no mystery that they eventually drop or crash. They may still finish their race, but only after gutting through hours of self-inflicted agony. If the salt/water ratio is too saline, it’s like drinking sea water. And no matter how much sea water you drink, you’ll be killing yourself.

When you drink sea water, your body will attempt to re-balance the ratio of salt and water in the system back to optimal levels. The only way the body can rid salt is to flush it out with water. That’s why drinking sea water leads to dehydration – it takes more water to flush out the excess salt than was in the volume of water the sailor drank.
Sea water is about 3x’s the salinity of optimal human blood.
Blood = ~2tsp salt/qt (~10gms/qt)
Sea water = ~6tsp salt/qt (~1oz/qt)

Ultra-runners aren’t sitting still in a boat. The harder you work, the faster you breath, which dries you out. Breathing causes you to lose fresh water, but no electrolytes at all. Theoretically, if you didn’t sweat at all, and you were gasping like the Little Engine That Could, you would only have to take in as much salt as you peed-out - not much. (But of course, we always sweat some, even on frigid winter excursions.)
The recommended daily dose for average people is only 500mg/day, but the average person also only needs 2qts/day of fluids. What mainstream people refer to as “active” still ranks as “sedentary” to the average ultra-runner. During a 100-mile event, a middle-of-pack ultra-runner can consume two or more gallons of fluids in a 24hr period. If they get their electrolyte ratio wrong, they can do lots of damage.
FYI: Real (whole) sea salt, from evaporative mining, contains many of the minerals our body needs for optimal health. Salt mined from inland sediments, even if they originated from evaporated seas, often are missing these elements. Many salt-mining companies get most of their profits not from selling salt, but from selling the extracted, refined individual minerals. Beware what you pay extra for – just because its labeled “Sea Salt”.

Race-to-Driving Calculator

In light of the 2000-mile-plus distances I accumulated in the Calico 50K drive, I decided to set a formula to calculate whether or not a race is worth the expenditure. Alene N has been using a formula for years. I can't remember what her's is, but it's probably like mine.

I figure divide the driving distance (one-way) by 10, and the race distance better be equal or greater. So for a 50K distance, I better not drive more than 310 miles.
The Red Hot 55K is coming up. I'm allowed to drive 341 miles. It very barely qualifies, since the race is north of Moab and I sleep in my vehicle 1/2 mile from the start area.
The Goblin Valley 50K is too far.
Jemez Mtn 50M is well within the limit. So is the San Juan Solstice 50M.
The Silent Trails 10M race near Laramie is well beyond the limit, but 140 miles is close enough, and I hardly ever see my northern friends, and so I made a judgment-call to go beyond the rule. Since I camp and hike additionally, not to mention 1-3 miles of warm-up before the race, I actually get more than 10 miles of travel out of the weekend.

This formula has a lot to do with arguing when people insist on doing races well beyond these limits. So here's the deal...
For a 50K, I'm willing to drive 310 miles for myself, and I will pay for that much gas. If one person carpools with me, I'm willing to go 620 miles, and pay for half. And for three people, 930 miles, but still only pay for 310.
So this 2000+ mile trip to Calico, with an added excursion to Ely, NV won't be happening again, not even with four people in the car. It's just not worth it, no matter how great the race was.
If they start doing a Calico 50-miler, and I get three passengers, then it would be worth driving that far.
The Bandera 100K is 903 miles away, so I will have to have someone to carpool with to make it worth it again.

Flying is out-of-the-question, since there's no such thing as splitting the cost of one ticket, or taking turns getting frisked by TSA. Although everyone on a plane is plane-pooling together, in a sense, planes are horrendously expensive and burn so many thousands of gallons of fuel that even after factoring in per-passenger, each passenger is causing the burning of a LOT of fuel.

Yes, in spite of leaning right politically, I am a bit of an environmentalist. I've been surprised by how many ultra-runners will run through pristine wilderness, appreciating it, and complaining about wear-and-tear, litter, etc., but they think nothing of burning horrendous quantities of fuel annually driving hither-and-yon to all our races.
There's another aspect too... gluttonous cost. Sure I can "afford it", but to me there's more to the equation than pure availability of cash. There's a certain amount of, "Should I be expending quite this much on my hobbies?" It's not like my passion is working to cure cancer, or bringing about world peace. I just like to run a long way, and races allow a support system for my long runs. So the money spent on races and traveling is pretty much purely selfish. I'm not Ghandi - I will allow myself the luxury of running races, but not without limits.
To a certain extent, I have to run. Keeping your life in order is too often not a matter of being perfect. We all have flaws, and I think ultra-runners might be the extremists they are because they are "odd". Being successful - not a train-wreck - is a matter of managing your tendencies. I manage my tendencies by redirecting all my unhealthy energies into running. Since I have a lot of unhealthy tendencies, and even quite a lot of unrequited healthy ones, I redirect all this energy down the ultra-rathole, instead of becoming a bitter alcoholic, or drug addict, or anything else.
Management requires rules and limits. Even with good things, nothing is healthy without limits. (Boy am I gonna get flamed for this!)

Calico 50K

I had my arm twisted a bit to run this one. It's too far away, but it was still a good time.




I carpooled with Dave Black and his son. We slept on the ground - never once getting a motel.

First night was near Ely, Nevada, at a friend's place in the mountains. We spent the night in a shed at around 7000+ feet. It was 30F at that altitude, but only 17F miles away in any valley, so we lucked-out.

The next day was spent driving south, stopping in Pioche for lunch. I've never heard of Pioche, but it is a very cool little dot of a mining town.

We arrived in Calico at dinner time. The pasta dinner was very good - not the usual cheap pasta but some hardy gourmet stuff.



I never thought of California as a friendly place, but we were all surprised at how incredibly nice everyone was. not just the other runners, but Calico Ghost town employees, rangers, sheriffs, volunteers, etc.



I didn't race with my camera. For one thing, the vast majority of the terrain was very repetitive desert lifeless distant hills and creosote. The rugged parts were very rugged, but most of the race course is very runnable dirt and sand 4x4 roads.



We couldn't have asked for better weather. It was 47F when we woke up and probably 50F at race start. I was wearing a short-sleeve shirt, shorts, and a cap. No fleece, layers, or gloves! I also wore my Mizuno race flats. This ended up being a very wise decision. I didn't need better protection, since most of the course is sand. The small amounts of rock were very rough, and often scary-steep, but these shoes kept me nimble. By the time I reached 30M, my legs were fresh and I was sprinting full-speed towards town.

Joe Black got 2nd in his age group in the 30K, and an award! His coach is Jamie Donaldson. Not a bad deal!

I came in 20th overall in the 50K. Here's where I'm extremely confused...
They had the awards, and they completely skipped the 50-59 age-group. The guy in my age group who won asked and got his award. I simply looked at the board and it appeared I was clearly 4th. But the posted stats on the Internet today say I was 2nd male 50-59. So I guess they screwed-up the awards presentation and I have an award in California. Would have been nice to receive, since I was standing right there, but at least I had a great time and took that home with me.

On the way home, the good weather finally came to an end - We barely made it over Vail Pass before they closed it, and spent hours in a traffic jam creeping up to Eisenhower Tunnel. It took 4 hours to drive what is normally 50 minutes. But at least we made it home alive.

Calico Ghost town, in spite of being an incorrigible tourist-trap, is a fun place. I wish I had been given the time to explore it.

If I lived in California, I'd definitely run this every year. The race was fantastic, and again, I wish I could run it again, but it is just too far away to justify spending that much gas driving to and from. The Bandera 100K in Texas is slightly closer, and twice as long of a race, and just as well supported, so it's a better value. But Bandera is too far also! I'm glad for the experiences at Calico, though, and the great people I met before, during, and after the race. Maybe if I can go in the future, and spend time there, with my son and others, then it would be worth it. I can only hope. Maybe when I get older, I'll move around, like a transient, living a different place for a year at a time?

Hardwater Snowshoe Race 2011

I think wearing feathers is cheating. It's an unfair advantage. But I found a feather on the ground and stuck it in my cap. So there!



Started with my fleece vest on and expected to have to take it off a quarter mile into the race, but the race start coincided with a cold-front and precisely matched my warm-up. So I was perfectly comfortable the whole race.



I fell down multiple times, but no injuries.


Minimal ice build-up. My duct-tape repairs totally failed. Lucky my shoes didn't disintegrate.

Leadville New Years 2010/2011

Cross country skiing on the Mineral Belt and the Leadville railroad


East of Leadville




Mt of the Holy Cross