Is it a good strategy to prepare for, say, a 10K race by pre-hydrating through water retention? Like say, if I eat a big bowl of adequately salty chicken soup for dinner, I know my body will be carrying 4 extra pounds of water the next morning. This seems to me a better idea than trying to drink the right amount of water without having to urinate too much (always a problem with the ol’ enlarged prostate).
There’s not a lot of need to pre-hydrate for a 10K, it’s just not that long of a race unless you plan on running it in the summer in a desert. Using salt to retain water doesn’t seem like an effective strategy as drinking enough to keep hydrated while running isn’t that much of a problem. I’d worry about confusing my body pre-race and upsetting my stomach.
OK, so let’s generalize beyond a 10K, for example a marathon in temperate weather. Does it serve to safely eliminate any water stops if I consume extra salt & water the day before?
Edited to add… I’m not talking about anything like force-feeding salt or eating something heavy like Chinese food. Just the same amount of water retention I normally get from a big bowl of chicken soup. No stomach upset involved.
Taking salt tablets has been a common practice for atheletes for a long time.
I’ve used salt at times when I see water is passing right through on hikes and other activities and that does seem to help and also reduce the number of urnination breaks. In those circumstance I do feel better after though I don’t know if I am preforming better.
Another trick I have used is to go low carb during the day of the activity, as one depletes glycogen they free up lots of water that the glycogen was stored in which helps keeping hydrated without drinking. Also I do very well on lowcarb, not everyone has such experience.
On a long dayhike in hot weather I can go through 6-8 liters of water easily. In my only marathon run I consumed something like 4 liters, even with plenty of pre-hydrating with just water. A friend who runs 2-3 marathons a year eats salty food for 2-3 days before a race and pounds water and claims it helps her but I’ve never tried it.
How much sodium is in a big bowl of chicken soup?
Some of the canned soups out there are obscenely high in sodium; a can of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup has nearly 100% of the amount of sodium you should consume in a day, but only 156 calories (I remember eating it as a kid though, with no dilution(!), but not having any adverse effects). Note that reduced sodium versions replace some of the sodium with potassium (sometimes a lot; I have seen over 1,000 mg per serving, not for chicken soup though), which has the opposite effects on water retention.
My friend swears by drinking tons of Gatorade before the 24-hr Yom Kippur fast. I always thought that that was weird, drinking salt before 24 hrs of no drinking. One year I did it, though, and I seem to remember that it was an easier fast.
Force of suggestion?
Probably not Gatorade, it has too much sugar in it. But lo-cal and non-cal version might do more good, but their not really high in sodium.
It seems to help me. I add a little salt to flavored water (like sugar-free kool-aid) and drink this before and during long bike rides when it’s hot out.