How to hydrate while running

According to the American College of Sports Medicine, a 2% dehydration is enough to worsen your performance by 20%. Often neglected, how to hydrate while running is actually a central part of professional long-distance running.

Renowned athletes such as Eliud Kipchoge are bullish on hydration. But you might be wondering what the fuss is all about. Why is it so important to learn about hydration while running? Why should you care?

Let me explain…

How crucial is it to drink water while running?

Why is hydration important? How crucial is it to drink water while running? What are the consequences of neglecting hydration while running? Read on below to find more.

● Increased performance

Proper hydration while running is great for your performance. When you run, your muscles are working their hats off. Naturally, you'll begin to sweat. All that sweat rolling off your skin means your body is losing water.

On its own, losing water isn't bad. When you start losing more than you're taking in, however, you run into dehydration. Dehydration eventually leads to extra physical exertion, which in turn leads to a lessened performance.

You want the water you're losing and the water you're taking in to be equal because that keeps your body super balanced.

● Faster recovery

You might be feeling fresh and ready to conquer at the start of your run, but the stress of the course will eventually catch up. If you go from start to finish without any refueling or hydration, the toll on your body will be immense.

It's necessary for you to refuel as you go to reduce the eventual strain on your body. You want to keep your hydration levels up throughout the run so that your body doesn't need to do much for recovery. Learning how to hydrate while running will help your body recover faster.

● Clear brain function

73% of the human brain is made up of water. Water carries nutrients up to the brain cells and takes away any waste. Dehydration will eventually lead to reduced mental efficiency. In extreme cases, things will start to get fuzzy around you and you might faint. Your view will become something like the picture below.

● Joint lubrication

You use several joints when running, from your shoulders and elbows to your knees and ankles. To keep these joints moving smoothly, your body produces synovial fluid. The thicker the synovial fluid, the more friction in the joints.

Water helps thin out the synovial fluid and reduce friction. This makes running much easier with smooth joints.

● Less injury exposure

If your joints are lubricated and moving smoothly, your chances of injury reduce. With less friction, there's a lower risk of a sprain.

Clear cognitive function is essential to avoid careless accidents and ensures a straightforward recovery process. The runner in you would hate having to wait ages for recovery.

Learning how to hydrate while running is so important since your body depends on water so much. You need hydration for a great performance and minimal recovery time. It also helps with keeping your brain clear and your joints smooth. Water helps to improve your overall body health and reduces your exposure to injury as you run.

How to hydrate while running — a step-wise guide

You now understand how crucial it is to drink water while running. That said, this isn't a haphazard practice. There's science behind it. I'll show you…

1.  Monitor your sweat loss and hydration level in real time

Surely you don't want to lose more water than you're getting because that's dehydration. At the same time, you don't want to take in more water than you're losing because that's over-hydration. You want to take in exactly what you need.

To do that, you must monitor your sweat loss and hydration levels in real time. The only way to know exactly how much you should replenish is to know how much you've lost, and technology has provided a solution.

Liipoo AbsolutSweat hydration biosensor is the perfect answer to your hydration monitoring needs. It's a non-invasive device that tracks your sweat to derive a variety of relevant data. The monitor analyzes the composition of your sweat to figure out what's going on in your body. Sodium, potassium, and glucose levels are all gotten from your sweat.

The sensor can alert you when you're approaching bonking and need a refuel. And at the end of your run, you'll also get a detailed performance report. Metrics include physical stamina, dehydration endurance, exercise efficiency, calorie consumption, electrolyte balance, and lots more. To crown it all, the monitor will also give you recommendations for replenishment based on the recorded data.

Professionals can ditch regular fitness bands for the AbsolutSweat biosensor for more detailed insights into their performances and data-driven hydration plans for greater efficiency.

Here's a short guide explaining how to set up and use the monitor.

Step 1:  Setting up

The Liipoo biosensor is super-easy to set up. When you unbox it, you’ll find three parts: a patch, a tracker, and a charging port. Take the tracker and put it into the charger until the light turns green. Once activated, you want to link the tracker to the app on your device. The easiest way to do it is to scan the QR code on the tracker.

Next, you want to connect the patch to the tracker. Once done, all you have to do is wipe yourself dry and stick it on your chest. Make sure your clothes won’t pull it off as you work out.

Step 2: Working out

As soon as you’re set up, it’s time to work out. Hit the “Start the Workout” button and start running. The magic will start to happen as you run. As you sweat, the sensor will track all your relevant hydration data.

From nutrient concentration to dehydration endurance, nothing goes unnoticed. You will get real-time alerts if there’s any need for replenishment as you run.

Step 3:  Get the feedback

After the run, you will get a full breakdown of your performance and a rehydration plan to go with it. Once done, clean the patch with an alcohol-based cleanser and put it back in the charger for next time.

Here’s a video demonstration if you need more help.

2. Decide how much water you need to drink while running

You've learned how to use the Liipoo AbsolutSweat biosensor to monitor your sweat and calculate your hydration needs. That leads to the next question. How much water do you need to drink while running?

Well, If you wear Liipoo AbsolutSweat biosensor during your training or running, it will track your performances and come up with exactly how much water you need for the whole run.

This is the most scientific way to identify your hydration gaps.

3. Decide how often to drink water while running

It's not enough to know how much, you also need to know how often to drink water while running. You can't chug down the entire amount of water you need for the whole run. It will weigh you down. You want to space out your water breaks for the best results. Guess what?

The Liipoo AbsolutSweat biosensor provides you with a complete hydration plan from total amount to recommended stops. Because the monitor has charted your physical performance and dehydration endurance, it knows exactly how to prehydrate, and how often to hydrate for efficient absorption.

4. Decide what to drink

Yet, drinking regular sports drinks isn’t always the right solution. Consuming a beverage with higher concentrations of sodium (Na+) or potassium (K+) than your body fluids might result in water being pulled out of your cells and into your bloodstream. Unfortunately, that leaves your cells even more dehydrated.

The Liipoo AbsolutSweat biosensor has you covered here too. It recommends what type of electrolyte drinks, gels or food you should consume for optimal recovery.

5. Prepare for hydration

If you are a frequent Liipoo user, by now, the Liipoo AbsolutSweat biosensor would have helped draw up a prehydration plan for you, based on your recent electrolyte and water loss patterns. All you have to do is act on it.

Once you start running, make sure you get your water bottle or camel pack all set up. If you know there will be vendors along your route, you can just bring some cash instead. The plan is there. Make it happen!

Hydrate scientifically for every run

As a professional, hydration is not a haphazard practice for you. As it plays such a huge role in the performance of runners, it's important to be as precise and detailed as possible. There's a whole science behind hydration for running.

The process starts before the run with pre-hydration. It's generally advised that you need 500-600ml in the hours leading up to the run.

During the run, keep topping up your hydration levels as needed. On average, it requires 150-350ml of fluids every 20 minutes.

Post-hydration starts immediately after you finish the run. You want to load up on water and electrolytes to replace everything you lost.

However, these are all average figures. If you want exact measurements for yourself, the Liipoo AbsolutSweat hydration biosensor is for you. By analyzing your sweat, the device measures your water and electrolyte levels and physical performance metrics. All that information is analyzed and suggestions for replenishment are churned out.

It's non-invasive, easy to use, and improves your running experience.

FAQs

1. How to stay hydrated while running long distances?

You can stay hydrated while running long distances by tracking your hydration data and making adjustments as needed. Knowing exactly what you need at every point in your run will make your life much easier. Liipoo AbsolutSweat hydration biosensor is a great way to stay on top of your water loss data for the best decisions. That's the beginning of knowing how to stay hydrated while running long distances.

If you want to take your running up a notch, it’s a great investment to make.

2. How long does it take to rehydrate after a run?

This largely depends on how far and intense your run was. If you were properly hydrated during your run, you'll recover quicker than if you didn't pay attention to hydration while running. According to the University of Hawaii, it takes about 12 to 24 hours and requires you to take 24 ounces of water for every pound lost.

The Liipoo AbsolutSweat hydration biosensor is a great way to monitor exactly how much water you lost during the run. By tracking your sweat, it measures your water and electrolyte loss and is able to recommend exactly how much refueling you need.

3. How to hydrate for a 10K run?

Learning how to drink water while running starts with being able to monitor your hydration levels and fulfill the electrolyte and water gaps in time. Liipoo AbsolutSweat is a great tool for tracking your sweat loss and hydration needs.

It will capture your sweat and measure water and electrolyte loss throughout your training. You will get detailed performance reports after every session and a tailor-made hydration strategy for the big event.

4. How long can you run without hydrating?

It all depends on your dehydration endurance, that is the ability of your body to keep going despite dehydration. The best practice is to find out your dehydration endurance level so that you know what your limits are, and how you can push them.

That's where Liipoo AbsolutSweat comes in. It tracks your sweat in real time and derives data that it uses to evaluate your dehydration and fatigue endurance among other metrics so that you know exactly how long you can keep running without hydration.

5. What happens if you don't hydrate before running?

Starting a run without proper prehydration is a recipe for disaster. The effects of dehydration include early fatigue, joint pain due to friction, and a severe strain on your body that will take a longer time to heal. You also risk reduced mental clarity and expose yourself to injuries.

So you'll get tired faster, take longer to recover, and put your body under unnecessary stress. Don't do it.

You can use Liipoo AbsolutSweat and get a personalized prehydration plan to avoid bonking.

6. Should I drink water during my run?

Absolutely, yes! Proper hydration while running is a great way to keep your energy levels up and refresh the body. Take care not to over-hydrate and weigh yourself down, however. It's important to know exactly how much hydration you need at every point.

By using the Liipoo AbsolutSweat hydration biosensor while training, you can get accurate data of your water and electrolyte loss and physical endurance metrics. Using these metrics, the biosensor goes a step further to prepare a hydration strategy that will keep you in the best possible condition throughout the run.