It's hot out there

Yes, summer is upon us.  That means it is hot.  Really hot here in Atlanta.  What does it mean for all of us athletes training hard for our races?  Dehydration.  Chafing.  And additional planning.

During these high temperatures, you need to plan.  Maybe should should plan to train in the mornings until you are more used to the heat.  As you get more acclimated, you can adjust to later workouts.

You will need to really fight dehydration more then ever.  Water is good,  However, too much water will actually wash out your body's salts.  So, I recommend something like Gatorade or Powerade to drink during the day.  The taste is nice and it includes a decent amount of electrolytes.  You cannot drink enough during the day.  Potatoes and other foods with high potassium are also recommended.  If you like to salt your food, now would be a good time to be liberal.

During training, you really need to focus on drinking.  This is both practice and practical.  You still need to be shooting for the calorie count recommended by your coach for your racing distances. But your total fluid intake on the bike should be 2 aero drinks per hour.  Most water bottles are 24 ounces.  I would shoot for 2 of these per hour (assuming 1 is nutrition).  Yep, 2.  That is a lot.  But if you get used to this volume you will train longer, harder, and recover faster.

I will post my salt article under separate copy, but 1000mg per hour is a sensible target.  You can flirt with as much as 1500mg in this heat. That would be 1 of my recommended NaCl tablets and 1 dose of my Infinit Nutrition formula per hour.  Sounds like a lot, but see the other article.

When you are done training, I strongly recommend Ultragen as a recovery drink.  At the least, get on the water as soon as you are in the car/home.  Your hydration plan for your next training sessions starts as soon as your current session is over.  Planning.

One more item.  You are going to sweat a lot.  It will have a lot of salt.  It will cause chafes.  Use BodyGlide liberally.  Hit all the usual spots.  You don't want a training day cut short with a chafe or a cut that could have been stopped by a second of BodyGlide.

Good training!