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Butcher's Dog! Regular outdoor fitness tips from the
canine on creatine. Cold wet nose and glossy coat
guaranteed.
Winter Hydration
Matters Too
Most of us assume that
dehydration's mainly a summer problem - obvious really, it's
hot, you sweat lots, you get dehydrated, but it's a lurking
winter spectre as well. There may be a load of water falling
on your head and running into your boots, but hey, guess
what, it's not inside you, so it doesn't count.
The bad news is that
you're still losing fluid at an alarming rate in winter.
Here's why:
• lots of
mountaineers and walkers dress warm for the cold, too warm
when they hit a steep slope. The result is excessive heat
production followed by reflex sweating to cool down.
Nasty.
• remember that
attractive steaming breath thing? Well hey Mr Hiker, that
steam is water vapour. Particularly when it's cold and dry,
your body moisturises and heats the air you breath, so every
breath is losing fluid. Just go breath on a cold mirror if
you don't believe me.
• with heavy boots
and socks your feet sweat half a pint of fluid or more per
day, in fact they do that even without heavy boots and
socks. High intensity activity makes it worse.
• it's tempting to
top up with tea or coffee, but both are diueretic and
promote fluid loss
• finally for some
reason, we simply don't register dehydration as fast in
winter. Remember, your body lags behind and by the time you
feel thirsty you're already dehydrated.
Why does it
matter?
Tests have shown that as
little as five per-cent dehydration can decrease your
physical performance by as much as 30 per-cent. In winter
when conditions are hard and days short, performance really
matters and anything that reduces your ability to function
is a potential risk to your safety.
What to
do?
Just as in summer, you
should drink little and often to maintain hydration levels -
see my earlier
article on
hydration - a minimum of 500 ml per hour and preferably more
if you're working hard. Start off well hydrated and keep
sipping away. The colour of your urine is a reasonable guide
and snow makes it easy to check as well. Ideally it should
be as pale as possible - the more yellow it appears, the
more dehydrated you are.
Carrying
Fluid
Winter has its own
problems - hydration systems have a tendency to freeze up,
but you can improve things by using an insulating tube cover
to protect the vulneralble narrow feeder tube and by blowing
as much fluid back into the reservoir as possible. In
seriously cold conditions the whole thing will freeze
anyway, but there are now some winter specific systems aimed
at minimising that possibility.
If you're using a bottle,
carry it inverted so that any ice forms at the bottom of the
bottle and not at the neck where it will obstruct the
opening. Wide necked bottles make this less likely to be a
problem as well. If it's really cold, stow bottles in an
internal pocket where the warmth of your body will keep
things fluid.
Eating snow is generally
a bad idea. It's very cold, so it lowers your body
temperature it could also be contaminated, which isn't
great. If you do have to use snow as an emergency water
source, try and melt it with your body heat or better still,
boil with a stove. Always leave some water in the bottom of
the pan to speed up the melting process.
Oh and don't you go where
the huskies go and don't you eat that yellow
snow...
Woof
The Canny
Canine
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