Hey Slowtwitch,
When I do long endurance events toward the end and after I have to pee every 10 minutes. IMLOU 2014 ( crazy hot day) at the end of the bike I stopped to pee, pee’d in transition , then on the run I had to stop every mile after mile 3. At it was just “oh I could pee” It was I NEED to pee.
Same thing after the Triple Bypass in Colorado last year. After I was done, every 10 min I had to stop the car and go. Same thing Sat at Lutsen 99’r this weekend. About mile 80 I stopped 6 times before the finish.
I’m not over drinking. And since it’s happened a lot I’ve really watched what I drink. Mostly water and some Skratch lightly mixed in twice on an event. I’m 57, 5’9 160.
Well part of it can be nerves, before my track races I’ll pee 5-6 times within like 20minutes and it drives me nuts. Really have no idea where it comes from. Besides that my best guess would maybe be the way your consuming your fluids. I for one tend to drink water too quickly which will make me need to pee within the next 10-20min. When I drink at a slower pace (just a sip or two than put it down rather than the whole bottle at once) I find myself not having to pee at all, even after finishing the entire bottle.
I think some of it might be due to what the other commenter above said about drinking too much at a time rather than just sipping. But another thing is what you’re drinking. Are you just drinking water? If you drink something like Nuun or something else with a high salt content, my understanding (and pretty much my experience) is it helps your body actually absorb the fluids more. This is why I’ll hydrate with Nuun throughout the day in the days/week leading up to the event (depending on the length of race and heat/humidity expected). The salt helps your body/muscles absorb the water. And if you just drink water itself, it can actually dilute the electrolyte levels in your system. Also, you can take salt tablets (personally, I like the saltstick chewables) while racing to help with fluid absorbtion.
46 here.
By age 41 I was able to pee at will.
I don’t even have to plan anymore if I think the doc is gonna want a specimen.
I just pretend it’s 2 in the morning and off I go.
Hey Slowtwitch,
When I do long endurance events toward the end and after I have to pee every 10 minutes. IMLOU 2014 ( crazy hot day) at the end of the bike I stopped to pee, pee’d in transition , then on the run I had to stop every mile after mile 3. At it was just “oh I could pee” It was I NEED to pee.
Same thing after the Triple Bypass in Colorado last year. After I was done, every 10 min I had to stop the car and go. Same thing Sat at Lutsen 99’r this weekend. About mile 80 I stopped 6 times before the finish.
I’m not over drinking. And since it’s happened a lot I’ve really watched what I drink. Mostly water and some Skratch lightly mixed in twice on an event. I’m 57, 5’9 160.
Any thoughts ST ?
It’s a physiological paradox of dehydration. Especially if you sweat a lot of salt and are drinking plain water.
Your body keeps track of concentration of salt. If you are sweating it out and drinking water then your body determines that you need to up the concentration of salt. It can only up the concentration of salt by pulling water out of the system…it does this through your bladder of course. So even though you may be dehydrated you will be peeing nice clear urine.
I have found that if I up the salt in my drinks then I have to pee less frequently.
I found it really confusing as I saw this clear pee and thought I must be hydrated when in fact the opposite was occurring.
I agree with BGNole97. Maybe its because kidneys are trying to keep a sodium balance in the blood, but whatever the explanation, if I drink a lot of water with no salt it tends to right back out.
Thank you. That’s a great way to explain what may be happening. And it describes it perfectly ! Totally clear urine during my events and after. That’s what was confusing me.
OP said ‘crazy hot day’, so he’s def taking in plenty of water (+Skratch as he said).
Your body needs enough salt to keep the water in the body. Normally, we eat enough salt in our diets to do this, but in an IM race where you’re not eating normal salty foods for 10+ hrs, you can fall behind on your salt intake.
Hence, late in the game, on a hot day, OP was likely taking in a lot of ‘free water’ (nonsalted water) which expectedly went right through him into his bladder. Added salt tabs would help keep some of that water in the body.
(Also note that you can overdo the salt intake - if you take in extra salt, your body will pretty quickly trigger thirst reflex to drink water to dilute it properly. This in itself isn’t dangerous since you’ll eventually just pee out the extra at some point later, but you could make yourself totally bloated in the process, which will ruin your race day. Think salty Chinese Buffet bloated feelings in the middle of your race.)
Only asking because I have a similar issue, caffeine send my kidneys into overdrive. I only know because when I overload on it during workdays, I’m in the bathroom every 45mn until it clears, regardless of whether I drink little or a lot of water. Then I’ve been having issues in my longer events with a need to pee all the time, and it lined up with me relying on caffeine more and more during the race. Like my last long race, I think over the whole day I took in something like 500mg of caffeine, probably more. I had to pee 5-6 time in the first half, absolutely clear urine, and then finished completely dehydrated despite continuing drinking (albeit less than at the beginning). So, caffeine load could be one issue, guess it could vary between individuals.
I’ve experimented with this myself - had water going straigt through after 4-5-6-7 hrs in ironman-races. Started paying more attention to salt- and Body manages to absorb it. Improves performance to - seemingly you can get dozy, dizzy nauseaus etc fro æm dehydration!
Also, when it’s a hot day, you have to be conscious of not drinking water/cold fluids simply as a means to “cool down” or else you get the need to pee like what you’re talking about. It should be for hydration/fueling purposes. In order to cool down, put ice/wet sponges inside your kit or in your hat. On long hot races I’ll wear a hat rather than a visor in order to keep ice in. I also wear cool sleeves during hot races and pour water over them and stick ice inside them. Right on the inside of your wrist and on the inside of your bicep is great. I also just take cups of ice and just pour them inside my kit–especially on my thighs. I live in Houston and pretty much all of my racing is in hot weather, so this is just normal race-day procedure for me at this point.
As for caffeine, it’s apparently not that much of a diuretic if you normally consume caffeine. So it won’t necessarily pull all the water out of your system. What it does do, in my experience, is make me feel like I really have to pee when my bladder’s only half-full.
I read an article a few years ago musing that almost every mammal empties a full bladder in a bit over 20 seconds, whether dog or human or elephant. So I started counting, and sure enough 20 seconds is close to a magic number. Sometimes, in dire circumstances (long meeting), I approach 30 seconds. Sometimes it’s only 8-10 seconds. The 8-10-second times are always after a coffee. Bladder thinks it has to pee when it doesn’t. (Yes, I’m over 45.)
So consider counting how many seconds it takes to pee. If it’s closer to 20, it sounds like your body is really pumping out a lot of water, maybe because of the salt-balance thing. If it’s under 10 seconds, it could be nerves or caffeine.
It could also be a bunch of other stuff, I suppose. I’m not a doctor.
I know it’s not nerves. So we can rule that out. But I never do caffeine till race day. I drink a small coke before the event and then my gels have caffeine in them. And later in the race I’ll so some cups of coke at the aid stations. The more I think about last weekend it really started after I had a couple cups of coke at one of the aid stations.
