Today I had a great workout, but that will follow in a separate blog. One thing I learned while running in the heat is to find the hydration spots in the city. I am fortunate enough to live in Vienna, where there are nice parks, dog runs and drinking fountains. All a source for good hydration. I am here for nearly 4 years and now only on a super hot day, I started looking for them and enjoying them. They definitely will be used by me more frequent.

I can’t stress how important hydration is. I am not talking about plasma hydration, but real deep muscle hydration and then topping up regular on the route. I had a bit of a fail in the Vienna City Marathon because of that. I managed to run my best time, but bombed out at 32k, due to hydration.

My strategy was to drink lots of water the day before and as little as possible on the race. Oh boy was I wrong. I later learned that what I did was plasma hydration. Lots of water flooding in you blood stream, diluting and washing away the necessary nutrions. Also I hardly topped up during the race and I paid dearly for that.

So the new strategy would be to do more muscular hydration, by drinking water at least a week in advanced with magnesium, sodium and other goodies. Also in the race I will top up more and drink more regular. Peeing next to the road will cost me a few minutes, but not the race.

I am tying this out in my training runs and it makes it easier knowing where to drink. I also don’t need to schlep a fuelbelt along. Plus in this heat it helps to cool down your core temperature by soaking your hat.

Summer is here for sometime and I am looking for improvements in my strategy.