The importance of drinking...

[Elfric]

... or where Lance went wrong on stage 12.

Chris Carmichael's post-stage report from [url=http://www.letour.com/2003/us/index.html]letour.com[/url], reproduced in full because their silly frames hinder direct linking to articles.


Stage 13: Recuperating from Dehydration

An elite cyclist has three main obstacles on the road to success: crashing, bonking, and getting dehydrated. Lance Armstrong lost over six kilograms of body weight between waking up and finishing Stage 12 yesterday, all of it fluid. That's 8% of his body weight! The fact that he lost some of his power was understandable, and the facts he rode as well as he did yesterday and today are remarkable.

Of a cyclist's three main obstacles, crashing is sometimes preferable because if it is a minor fall, once you chase back on you can continue racing at full power. On the hand, once you run out of either fuel (bonking) or fluids (dehydration), there's no way to regain your power until you replenish what you're missing. A 2% loss of body weight due to dehydration leads to a 10-15% drop in sustainable power. If you lose 5-8% of your body weight, you can lose at least 20% of your power. Such extreme fluid loss also puts you at serious risk for heat exhaustion, a condition characterized by a rise in core temperature due to a decreased ability to cool the body through sweating.

Dehydration has other, more far-reaching effects on performance as well. In an effort to continue racing at high speed, a dehydrated rider has to dig very deep and expend more energy per unit time than normal. That means that even though Lance was slower than usual during Stage 12, his effort level was higher than normal. Recovering from such an effort, and replenishing his lost fluids, takes time.

Lance Armstrong knew today was going to be tough. Your body is more efficient at pulling fluids out of your body than it is replenishing them. It takes more than 24 hours to recover from dehydrating to the extent he did, no matter how much you drink. Following Stage 12, Lance consumed a lot of water and a lot of sports drink in an effort to regain the fluids, electrolytes, and energy he lost earlier in the day. By this morning, his waking body weight (measured after using the bathroom) was nearly normal, but he knew he would feel the lingering effects of the ordeal during Stage 13.

While Lance lacked some of his customary punch today, he diligently consumed fluids throughout the stage and managed to contain his rivals. Finishing seven seconds down on Jan Ullrich and passing Alexander Vinokorouv in the final 500 meters of the stage was a great performance, all things considered. Even more encouraging is Lance Armstrong's amazing ability to recover from hard efforts. Part of what makes him a champion is his ability to put in huge efforts on one stage, and then recover to be able to do it again the following day.

Lance should be able to fully recover from the past two days and have a strong performance during Stage 14. His goal is still to find opportunities to attack and gain time on Jan Ullrich before Tuesday's rest day. Though his legs may have wavered, Lance's will and character never do, and with a strong team around him, he knows what he has to do to keep his yellow jersey.

[rollerskate skinny (sylv)]

What was he thinking about?! Sounds like a beginner's error. Get a flipping' Camelbak!

[AodanH]

I do feel as if I'm not getting the full story here. How did he manage to dehydrate so much on a short stage? Was he not drinking the same as his team or any other rider ?

[Elliot M]

I know, it was only an hour!

"Armstrong lost over six kilograms of body weight between waking up and finishing Stage 12 yesterday, all of it fluid. "

How the hell did he lose 6 litres? I note Carmichael says between waking up and finishing not between starting and finishing. Some sort of "accident"?

Camelbacks are illegal I think because of possible aero advantages, but ISTR Lance uses a water tank in his bike's frame...

Can TT riders not take a bottle on the way, I can imagine it slowing you down a bit but in an emergency surely it would help?

[Elfric]

The event was only an hour, but I get the impression a lot of the loss was during the warm-up rather than the TT itself. Lance didn't have a sudden slump during the event, but lost time to Ulrich right from the start (he was downat the first checkpoint and gradually slipped further behind).

Regarding taking a bottle--at the pace they're riding it would need to be passeed from a car, which would run foul of the drafting rules.

[Randy_Ramon]

Did hear that Ullrich warmed up in an air-conditioned room at a local bike shop while Armstrong did it beside their camper van. Surely top professionals should be aware of not drinking?

Anyway, Armstrong seems to be back and won't make the same mistake twice?

[AodanH]

I think he must have had a dodgy curry the night before. I can't think of any other way he could lose 6 kilos in a morning.

[Randy_Ramon]

Could explain why he's riding out of the saddle so much!

[David Lombari]

He's obviously still hungry.....even trying to nick the spectators' musettes!!

[Dan B]

I think Lance was just a bit foolish before the TT. Someone even quoted him saying (I paraphrase this): "If you drink a lot of water you just piss a lot."

True, but not drinking before a hot stage will get you nowhere, and he oughta know that. A loss of 2% of body fluids leads to a 5-10% drop in performance.

I find it hard to believe that he didn't: a) pre-hydrate like mad with extra electrolytes and metabolites; and possibly b) superhydrate using glycerol, as some triathletes do.

Even if you've got a bladder on overload you can piss your skinsuit. Takes talent, but you can do it, and which would you rather be - smelly for as long as it takes you to rinse off, or in arrears by 90 seconds and have your Tour in doubt?