Maintaining good hydration is vital to all athlete performance and when it comes to trail running it is equally important. When we get our trail running we are often far away from a store where we can stock up on water. This makes getting dehydrated out on wilderness trails potentially dangerous. Here are the 10 signs that you need to be aware of that indicate that you’re starting to become somewhat dehydrated.
- You Feel Constant Thirst
- You Have Dark Colored Urine
- Poor Skin Health
- Persistent Bad Breath
- Constant Hunger And Sugar Cravings
- Dry Eyes
- Muscle Cramps
- Headaches
- Poor Concentration And Brain Fog
- Mood Swings
Let’s take a closer look at each one of these signs so that you can be sure that you are maintaining sufficient levels of hydration to be able to successfully complete your trail run.
You Feel Constant Thirst
I know that it seems as if feeling thirsty is an obvious sign that you haven’t been hydrating enough. The thirst that you feel is triggered by the hormone ADH, otherwise known as the antidiuretic hormone. It is released by the pituitary gland and triggers the thirst reflex as well as signaling to the kidneys to conserve water.
What I’ve noticed is that when I’m starting to get dehydrated and this ADH-type thirst reflex kicked in, I can drink water and still feel thirsty after having drunk water. I take this as a sure sign that I’m starting to get dehydrated.
You Have Dark Colored Urine
I just mentioned the kidneys and one of the primary roles that the kidneys have is to remove waste products and toxins from my bloodstream which are then flushed out of a system as urine. When the hormone ADH has been triggered it tells the kidneys to conserve water by returning water to the bloodstream rather than releasing it into the urinary system.
This means that the kidneys continue their function of flushing toxins and waste products from my bloodstream but do so with less water being released. As a result, my urine will have a concentration of toxins and waste products and hence be a lot darker in color and smell really bad.
In order for optimum athletic performance, we want to make sure that our urine maintains a light color so that we know that our state of hydration is good.
Poor Skin Health
Our skin requires hydration to look and function at its best. When we become dehydrated our skin’s health declines. Our skin can become dry and flaky. All those fine lines and wrinkles that we may have will become far more pronounced if our skin is dry.
This is because when we are dehydrated, our body tries to retain moisture and releases less water to the skin. On hot days we lose a lot of water because it evaporates from the skin surface.
When I have dry flaky and irritated skin it’s a sure sign that I haven’t been maintaining sufficient hydration for a fairly extended period of time.
Persistent Bad Breath
My saliva is responsible for maintaining the balance of the bacteria that exist in my mouth. As I become dehydrated saliva production is slowed down and less saliva means less ability to maintain the balance of bacteria in the mouth.
This means that the bacteria levels in my mouth increase, especially between my teeth and gums and that creates bad breath. Brittany line this isn’t bad. Therefore persistent bad breath is a clear indication that you have been under-hydrated for a Fairly long period of time.
Constant Hunger And Sugar Cravings
Water plays a key role in our ability to convert glucose into energy. If we are dehydrated it means that our bodies convert glucose to energy at a much slower rate.
As you can imagine when you’re out trail running and if you’re dehydrated it means that you are not converting glucose to energy at a fast enough rate. Your body’s natural response to this will be hunger and sugar cravings because it recognizes the lack of glucose getting to the muscles.
So what I do is keep a bottle of water at my desk while I’m working. That way every time I start feeling hungry or start experiencing any sugar cravings I drink some water. Most of the time that hunger and sugar craving goes away after having drunk some water.
Staying hydrated seems to be a far better solution than shoving extra and unnecessary calories into my mouth.
Dry Eyes
When I start getting dehydrated, less water is channeled to my tear ducts which means that I’m less able to keep my eyes moist. This is when my eyes start getting itchy, scratchy, and irritated from dryness.
So when my eyes start feeling irritated I know that it’s time to reach for the water bottle and drink some water.
Luckily I don’t have to face this but I can imagine that the situation of dry eyes would become infinitely more uncomfortable when wearing contact lenses.
Muscle Cramps
When I am on a long trail run and especially in hot and humid conditions my sweat rate increases dramatically. In my case, my sweat rate is higher than the rate at which my body can absorb the water that I drink. This means that as I run further I gradually become more dehydrated irrespective of the volume of water that I drink.
As I become dehydrated the electrolyte balance in my body is negatively affected. This sometimes leads to muscle cramps.
In the past, I would swallow a salt tab when I started to feel the onset of muscle cramps. However, just taking on more electrolytes without fluids when I was already dehydrated made my electrolyte balance more concentrated and still caused cramps.
What I did find helped was that when I start feeling the onset of cramps, I would take a walk break and drink some water with electrolytes and then chase that down with even more water. That would get my hydration levels up as well as balance out my electrolytes. Most of the time this would cause the cramps to dissipate and I could start running again.
Headaches
Dehydration headache is something that I have definitely experienced on more than one occasion. When we start becoming quite seriously dehydrated we start losing fluid from our brain. This causes the brain to shrink slightly and pull away from the inside of the skull. This is extremely painful and in some cases, it feels almost as if I’m coming down with a migraine headache.
When this happens to me, all I do is increase my water intake end most of the time my headache dissipates within 15 to 20 minutes without the need for any pain medication.
Poor Concentration And Brain Fog
Severe dehydration causes the headaches I have just mentioned. However, moderate dehydration can give us poor concentration and a bit of brain fog.
In the context of trail running, this makes us prone to trip over way more things when we start getting somewhat dehydrated. When I am out on technical trails I need to make sure that I keep my hydration levels up so that my brain function and focus are at a way better level.
Mood Swings
Besides impaired levels of concentration brain fog and feeding generally lethargy, another side effect of being dehydrated is my mood oscillating. I find that especially when I’m starting to get brain fog and my productivity levels are falling, I start becoming more irritable simply because I’m not being as productive as I know that I can be.
When I start getting my hydration levels up and the brain fog eases and I’m able to be much sharper in my mind and my thoughts. My mood generally improves as well once I feel my productivity levels increasing.
