We had a great weekend at Chesapeake to start off the fall series with a wow. It was seven games of quality ultimate in extreme heat on Saturday and average weather on Sunday. The first thing I learned, the hard way, is the importance of salt.
Pictured Above: Looks like a good read from Open pool play at CUC'07 (photo courtesy of Marc Hodges)This is even trickier as a diabetic. Before, I used to drink Gatorade to at least replenish some of the sodium I was losing, but now the high sugar content in Gatorade makes it a useless product from my perspective. In the 37 degree Celsius weather, I was sweating constantly, and by the third game on Saturday against BAT, my calf started to cramp. I stopped the cramping with some food and massage so I could get out for a point, and then the top of my hamstring craped (I've never felt that before).
That's when I remembered a lesson that I've learned ages ago, but needed to be reminded about with the importance of salt and the benefit of salted nuts. Nuts are low carbohydrate, high protein food that I can eat, somewhat, for free and get some salt and nutrients to replace what I lost. Plus the nuts are cheap and high in calories (mainly fat).
Those simple lessons of eating well, drinking, keeping cool, and replacing salts are so simple, and yet, so important.
PJ
5 comments:
Hey Pete, not sure if these would be helpful or not... they've still got some carbs, but a lot less than an energy drink relative to the amount of salt & potassium.
http://www.medioncorp.com/hm/zonecaps/inside.php?id=100&sid=46
The photogenic individual with the nice read on the disc in that picture is Sean Madigan, co-captain of the NADS.
Potassium is more important to recover than sodium, mostly because it's harder to get. You can find sodium in anything salty (I also use nuts), but it's not enough. I bought a package of "no-salt", which is a potassium based salt. it tastes awful, but when I feel a cramp coming, I just sprinkle a bit on the palm of my hand and lick it. Works realy great.
Who needs potassium and salt packages? By simply licking your bare hand while playing ultimate you can "recover" all the salty goodness that your teammates and opponents have sweated onto the disc...
http://www.ultimareplenisher.com/
there are other similar drinks as well. that weekend was ridiculous.
just rediscovered your site. i forget things.
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