Today I had a horrible pain just under my ribcage. As I was driving my kids to school I was wondering if I was even going to be able to walk them to their classes, the pain was so intense. I made it to each of their classes, but then doubled over in the hallway while chatting with another mom (and fellow cyclist). It was this squeezing yet sharp kind of pain that I knew wasn’t a tummy ache and wasn’t the result of anything I had eaten. It just felt different… and terrible.
I slumped into one of the couches in the teachers’ lounge and called my husband at work. He was so sweet, offering to cancel a meeting and take me to a doctor, and then the thought of dehydration occurred to me. I thought about how much water I consumed the two days before during each of my rides and thought I drank enough. But did I drink enough after the rides?
My friend, who was still with me, brought me a glass of water and I got off the phone, promising to check back. The school’s director told me to stay as long as I needed and checked on me several times as I sat in agony. After about an hour and a half, and a few glasses of water, I felt a little better. I shared my hypothesis for dehydration with the director who suggested I get a bottle of Gatorade. I drank some more water, ate a banana I had in the car and drove off. About 15 minutes later I was drinking Gatorade and maybe 10 minutes after that I was back to normal.
I went about my day, drinking more water than usual, (which is a lot) and when I dropped a bike off at the bike shop I shared my experience. And there I learned that my sports drink of choice (Accelerade) does NOT have electrolytes. All this time I thought I was covered, but, actually, I wasn’t putting something back that my body needs. Yikes! I am so thankful I made this discovery today and not in between my two rides of the MS 150! And I’m also glad I figured it out and was able to take control of the situation before something worse happened. I’m pretty good at drinking water. But evidently that’s not enough.
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