WORKING OUT, OR MISSING OUT?

After returning from a 2-hour run the other day I was stopped by my coach - “Kate, you should be wearing a water bottle with sport drink in it…”

I had gone early in the morning and run on a shaded trail, just so that I wouldn’t have to run with water bottle. How obnoxious is a bouncing bottle on your back that cuts into your waist and gives you a sweaty butt? I don’t know about you but I am NOT into it. Being the sassy athlete that I am, I asked why… In my own words (aided by Stanford), this was his response:

The body uses glucose to fuel muscle use. The body eats up the glucose in the blood first, which can easily be replaced by consuming simple carbohydrates like the sugar (found in sport drinks). Once these stores are depleted, the body gets into the liver glycogen stores. These take more time than a sip of sport drink to restore, which means recovering from the workout that depletes liver glycogen stores takes longer. Drinking sport drink apposed to water, decreases the risk of getting into these liver stores.

Kate, refueling prior to the 2006 Madison City Sprint

The purpose of a workout is to literally break muscles down so that they can heal better, stronger, faster, et cetera. If it is possible to speed up this recovery process…sign me up!

The moral: Deal with the tight, bouncing, swamp-ass encouraging bottle and make sure there is more than water in it. Water hydrates but does nothing to replenish glycogen.

We all know that athletes live penny to penny and that sport drink is expensive. Here is an at-home recipe for sport drink that contains everything that the leading brand has and costs pennies to the glass.

Katorade:

- 8 packs of sugar-free Kool-Aid
- 5 c. sugar
- 1T. Salt
- 1t. salt substitute

Ingredient breakdown (with help from Medicinenet): Sugar is a carbohydrate. The body turns sugar into glucose to feed its cells. Salt is sodium and chloride, aka the electrolytes that aid water absorption in the body, which is why salt makes you thirsty. Salt substitute tastes just like salt but is actually potassium (another electrolyte). Potassium regulates heart and muscle function. If you have ever had a muscle cramp or spasm, it was likely due to a potassium deficiency. The Kool-Aid is flavoring. I use Kool-Aid's "invisible flavors" because they don’t contain any coloring.

So now I know, and you do too.
Have fun mixing flavors, making your own sport drink and training right.

Reid Pletcher "sliding" into home in this afternoon's game of slip-n-slide whiffle ball (photo credit: Chris Holmquist)