Maverick Musings | Hydration and Me

Posted on Fri, Sep 27, 19


Written by Jayski

Ok so let's talk about hydration, actually let's talk about Me, and how much I sweat. I would like to point out that I even think its gross no matter what everyone else thinks, the only thing I'm grateful for is I don’t smell with it. At the end of a mile run or a 50 mile race, I’m soaked through, by this I mean all my clothing and even through my race vest. To the point you can ring it out with your hands.

So… My story of me and my sweating

I’m not exaggerating with this, I can actually run down the road to catch a bus, and by the time I’ve got to where I need to be, the back off what I’m wearing will have a beautiful little sweat patch lurking, regardless of the season. Bristol in Winter with snow on the floor, sweaty. Chamonix in the height of summer, obviously sweaty. Snowdon on any grey and rainy day, sweaty. It’s got to the point where I need an all over anti-perspirant! A Tad ridiculous right?! The problem with sweating like this, apart from looking a little bit gross all the time, is that it makes me feel queasy and during races I tend to feel a little sick or hit the wall quicker than other people. 

Back when I had no idea about electrolytes all I used to do is drink water and lots of it! Now I’ve learnt that I can take the right hydration tablets and even salt tablets to counter act the vast amount of sweat. I always get asked which are the best electrolytes, is this one better than the other and the main question, which one tastes the best? In all honestly it can be a bloody minefield out there. There are so many options with numerous different brand seemingly promoting THE BEST! 

I tried a few brands and I always thought runners would take them during a race, so I went out on a 55k race smashing my way through 500mls of water and the same with electrolytes. As this was in the middle of summer, and in Spain, I was drinking a lot, so much in fact I got to about 35k and couldn't drink anything anymore apart from the good old Red Doctor ( coca cola)  for a quick and easy sugar kick. Turns out you can take too many electrolytes…

So, after giving up the ghost on taking them, I went back to one bottle full of water and one bottle full of squash. (Orange and mango firm fave of mine) and carried on like that. The sickness returned, and my god did it return, and I found it would last a few days after too, basically dehydration and depleting all my salts. After bitching about this considerably to the guys from Maverick he got me to take a salt test online by  PH hydration, and surprise surprise it told me I'm a sweaty human, but after years of this I have become a very proud sweaty human, I just sweat and I'm ok with it.

The test recommended me taking the higher level of tablets, so after my issue of feeling damn sick after drinking too much at races, I began to drink the (1500 tabs ) in the days leading to the race and a 500ml bottle the morning before the race… and guess what? Bye bye sickness, bye bye cramp, bye bye feeling like utter crap days after racing. Surprisingly I've been able to perform better during races so far this year, and I’ve even bagged a 1st, 2nd and 3rd in marathons and ultramarathons. Even at race to the tower where I was 9th female, I was sick and that was generally because I'm ginger, and I got sunstroke on my birthday well done Jay. To solve this my crew met me halfway with a bottle of the PH mix and made me down it half way round, solving the issue. 

Electrolytes do work, and the sweat test will help you find out how out what works for you. 

Click here to take the sweat test

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