[BlackSunrise]

Originally Posted by Malone

Thank you to all the QP's for your advice! It is greatly appreciated!

I believe you are correct BlackSunrise, I was not myself after the ruck and on the 5-mile run. We were given a rice-based hydration mix called Cerasport. The night before the ruck I was drinking Pedialyte and water to rehydrate from the previous day's exercise and ate an entire MRE. The morning of the ruck I did not eat much and during the ruck, I opted to not use Cerasport until the end. I find it does not agree with me for one reason or another and has upset my stomach in the past (Used it in airborne and air-assault schools as well). I believe this was a mistake now, but as you said, experience is the best teacher.

From the symptoms, I believe I was experiencing the early stages of Hyponatremia (I'm no way qualified to actually diagnose myself, I'm a soon-to-be Ph.D., not M.D., and if any 18D's want to chime in and educate me I welcome it). Common symptoms include dizziness, nausea, disorientation. After a certain amount of sodium loss, your body cannot absorb water effectively and attempting to rehydrate with just water is futile and even dangerous. I sipped a Cerasport/water mix after the ruck and drank more Pedialyte after the day's events were complete. Even with these efforts, I was still very dehydrated and 4 days afterward I have only now returned to my pre-SFRE body weight.

Hyponatremia is something I have heard about previously from David Goggins' book "Can't Hurt Me" in the world of marathon/ultra-marathons but I did not think I would experience in my training. I thought I just wouldn't experience the extreme conditions that would lead to something like Hyponatremia. However, looking back on the SFRE weekend, I realize we easily exceeded 30 miles total running/rucking in heat and I lost nearly 7 pounds throughout the weekend, so we definitely dipped into the marathon-range distances (though definitely nowhere close to ultramarathon distances).

I have since done a little bit of research on Hyponatremia and how to prevent it, to include calculation of my sweat rate in the heat. I lose quite a bit of sweat and I believe I need to do everything I can when going through the next SFRE or SFAS/SFQC to ingest as much salt as possible before, during, and after the ruck. My understanding is that supplements common for marathon runners like salt tablets aren't an option for SFRE/SFAS, so I must find other ways to make up for the deficit.



On another note, I have a team deploying soon and their send-off is tonight. I'll put that running hungover and puking on-the-move to the test tomorrow!

This is the first time I have heard of Cerasport. Riced-based, made with simple sugars and supposed to balance carbohydrates, sodium, chloride and potassium intake, all natural and non-GMO. Interesting enough it is suppose to help the body absorb electrolytes easier without causing stomach distress. Wonder why it causes you problems?