Hello,
I sweat a LOT and live in Miami. Not a good combo.
After hearing so many good things about Pedialyte before races, I decided to give it a try and started drinking it two days before my race last sunday.
Result: awesome! never felt better dealing with the heat.
So, I want to know if someone here has experience using Pedialyte on a daily basis, if so, how do you use it during the day? How much do you drink before, during or after training?
Thanks
Cheers!
I used it several years ago pre-race and a bit during races (sprint / Oly). It was fine. You can drink IV solution too (if you can get it) and have same results or you could mix your own drinks. Essentially, you’re getting a (relatively) balanced amount of electrolytes into your system (e.g. blood plasma, muscle cells) and maintaining ‘homeostasis’.
Pedialyte is a dehydration prevention solution. It has a lot of salt–way more than Gatorade. There is great debate as to how bad salt is for you, but frankly, I’d just use it for races. I drink it with green tea (I use the powder) before races and I take some along on the run in a Hammer 5 oz bottle for Olys. (I use the water at the aid stations to throw on myself.) For longer races, you really want something with more calories, esp for IM.
I would just drink water or tea the rest of the time. (Drinking some before a hot day run, might not be a bad thing.)
The problem with Pedialytes for most serious athletes is that you dehydrate differently while sweating vs non-sweating (GI losses.)
Sweat is a HYPOtonic solution, which means low salt content. I know, it tastes crazy salty, but it’s a lot lower in salt content than your blood plasma and closer to water. The better athlete you are and more heat acclimated you are, the more hypotonic your sweat becomes, as your body tries to conserve the valuable salts and just outputs water for cooling. This is why when you rapidly lose tons of water (like doing sprints) you’ll reach first for water rather than Gatorade, which will actually taste ‘too salty’ compared to water. Your body is just telling you to replace lost fluid with similar fluid to stay in balance.
In contrast, pediatric dehydration is usually not due to sweating, but due to GI losses like diarrhea or poor oral intake. In those cases, you aren’t losing more water than salts, and thus you will need a balanced salt solution to actually keep the fluid onboard (the salt is what keeps the water where it is, by osmosis.)
On the bright side, with functional kidneys, you can take in extra salty solution in training/race day, and as long as you have enough water to drink to thirst, you’ll pee out all that extra salt & water. But drinking Pedialyte instead of water throughout a race will likely be on the salty side , and will likely make you thirsty enough to drink water to offset the extra salt unless you’re sweating that much.
Tim Noakes has posted a lot about that. But, unless an athlete is eating a nearly zero salt diet and his/her body is well acclimated to that, he/she will still have salty sweat–another reason not to drink or eat a lot of unnecessary salt.
FWIW, while Pedialyte is salty it’s only about 1/3 normal saline, so it is quite hypotonic. And, most Chicken soups have way more sodium than that. Also, pedialyte is only a fair rehydration solution. The WHO rehydration solution is a bit more than twice as salty and work much better for severe vomiting and diarrhea. Pedialyte used to make Pedialyte RS which was between WHO and regular pedialyte, but it tasted like hell and never sold. I believe it has been discontinued. In any case, I never see it in the stores.
I personally find that the saltiness encourages me to drink a bit more and refreshes me more than water. Water also just sits in my belly and Gatorade has too much sugar and gives me a stomach ache. The sodium and low concentration of glucose in Pedialyte (2.5%) promote faster absorption of the fluid, so I don’t get that heavy feeling in there on hard running, like an Oly. An easier run, like IM, more calories can be consumed without upset stomach, since more cardiac output is available for the gut.
Tim Noakes has posted a lot about that. But, unless an athlete is eating a nearly zero salt diet and his/her body is well acclimated to that, he/she will still have salty sweat–another reason not to drink or eat a lot of unnecessary salt.
FWIW, while Pedialyte is salty it’s only about 1/3 normal saline, so it is quite hypotonic. And, most Chicken soups have way more sodium than that. Also, pedialyte is only a fair rehydration solution. The WHO rehydration solution is a bit more than twice as salty and work much better for severe vomiting and diarrhea. Pedialyte used to make Pedialyte RS which was between WHO and regular pedialyte, but it tasted like hell and never sold. I believe it has been discontinued. In any case, I never see it in the stores.
I personally find that the saltiness encourages me to drink a bit more and refreshes me more than water. Water also just sits in my belly and Gatorade has too much sugar and gives me a stomach ache. The sodium and low concentration of glucose in Pedialyte (2.5%) promote faster absorption of the fluid, so I don’t get that heavy feeling in there on hard running, like an Oly. An easier run, like IM, more calories can be consumed without upset stomach, since more cardiac output is available for the gut.
Good call - I agree on all. I find that for more moderate efforts, I also don’t mind the salty stuff - it’s the sweat major buckets on hot day max effort sweat that has me reaching only for the water.
Tim Noakes has posted a lot about that. But, unless an athlete is eating a nearly zero salt diet and his/her body is well acclimated to that, he/she will still have salty sweat–another reason not to drink or eat a lot of unnecessary salt.
FWIW, while Pedialyte is salty it’s only about 1/3 normal saline, so it is quite hypotonic. And, most Chicken soups have way more sodium than that. Also, pedialyte is only a fair rehydration solution. The WHO rehydration solution is a bit more than twice as salty and work much better for severe vomiting and diarrhea. Pedialyte used to make Pedialyte RS which was between WHO and regular pedialyte, but it tasted like hell and never sold. I believe it has been discontinued. In any case, I never see it in the stores.
I personally find that the saltiness encourages me to drink a bit more and refreshes me more than water. Water also just sits in my belly and Gatorade has too much sugar and gives me a stomach ache. The sodium and low concentration of glucose in Pedialyte (2.5%) promote faster absorption of the fluid, so I don’t get that heavy feeling in there on hard running, like an Oly. An easier run, like IM, more calories can be consumed without upset stomach, since more cardiac output is available for the gut.
Good call - I agree on all. I find that for more moderate efforts, I also don’t mind the salty stuff - it’s the sweat major buckets on hot day max effort sweat that has me reaching only for the water.
Thank you very much for the insight and advices. Like with everything else, I will try and use it for a few days/weeks in training and see how it goes!
Really appreciate the time you guys took writing such in detail reply.
Have a great one.
Cheers!