Like many, I picked up what I'll politely call the stomach bug that's been going around. One of the joys of working in the ER is I'm exposed to all kinds of yuckiness; despite copious Purell and soap, I do occasionally 'take my work home'.
Gruesome details: Projectile vomiting for about 5 minutes.
After that, I noticed my heart was POUNDING. I felt very tachycardic; when I checked, my heart rate was between 90-100. I laughed to myself - my fast is some other peoples' normal - but it led me to two thoughts.
1. When you're in decent shape (read: middle of the pack) and your resting heart rate is low 50's, 90 feels miserable when you're sitting there.
2. I must be borderline dehydrated at any given time. This isn't good.
While I try to keep up on my fluids, and I do pretty well before a race, my day-to-day hydration must be suspect. 5 minutes of hurling should not throw me into a dehydration that 2 liters of IV fluid couldn't fix. I had mutliple signs of dehydration - heart rate, sucken eyes, pale - the diagnosis wasn't in question to anyone who saw me. How is this affecting my performance and - more importantly - my health? I've often said that good hydration will fix a lot of bad habits, but what if I'm dehydrated WITH those bad habits?
It really opened my eyes. Despite attempts to stay hydrated, it stands there with training, rest and nutrition as something I need to keep track of as I am obviously falling behind. So I'll ask: how's your hydration?
Off to the water cooler...
No comments:
Post a Comment