Snowed In

There was a pretty shocking story on Google News today: A 28-year old mother of three died just after a radio show promotional event, called “Wee for a Wii” in which she and other contestants competed to see who could hold out the longest without peeing, while drinking gallons of water.

Jennifer Lea Strange died of water intoxication, which is the result of an imbalance of salts in your bloodstream caused by drinking too much water. The contest organizers probably didn’t know about water intoxication, but apparently a nurse called in to the radio show to warn the station of the risks and was ignored. Either way, the contestants were not warned of the health risks, and I imagine the contest organizers will be held liable for negligence in the courts, and possibly criminally charged.

The risks could’ve easily been mitigated by having contestants drink Gatorade or eat salty foods while drinking. EMTs should’ve been on hand. And contestants certainly should’ve been informed of the danger they were getting themselves into.

The article got me thinking about sports drinks and how I really ought to incorporate them more in my workouts. I’ve often brought salt with me on long runs, to choke down periodically, and I’ll often eat potato chips or salted nuts at races. But there’s no way in hell that I’m going to spend $2-10 on Gatorade just for a long training run. And buying the bulk powder is not a hell of a lot of savings.

I poked around on the net, found a recipe for a homemade sports drink, and tried it out. Sort of.

I followed the recipe as indicated, except I am saving my lemon for tahini sauce, so I left it out. The end result tasted like salty sugar water. Probably because it was salty sugar water. It wasn’t heinous, per say, but I wasn’t dying to gulp it down during the run. That’s probably a bad thing, so I’ll probably grab some lemon juice the next time I’m at Trader Joe’s. Although since trader Joe’s is about 10 blocks away, that might be never. I’m that lazy.

In which case, keep an eye out for a bearded man in Balboa park raising a bottle of salty sugar water to his sweaty lips.

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P.S. The sugar and acids in sports drinks can contribute to tooth decay. But we need ‘em to exercise healthily, so just drinking water isn’t a great option. The best thing is to brush your teeth twice a day, as normal, and flush your mouth by drinking a glass of plain water (with swishing action!) after exercising. Brushing your teeth right after will apparently exacerbate enamel damage.