Did people walk around with water bottles or sports beverages in 1960’s and 1970’s? Over hydration is a serious prob

I'm the same way. I believe this makes you stronger during training and that carries over to a race. Which for marathoners is pretty key part of the training block. Nutrition/fueling needs during a race will be less than someone who depends on gels/hydration during every training run.

Back in the day I never took gels on any training runs ever (even 20-22M long-runs in sweltering heat, where i live it gets up to 105 F every day in July-August). The only adjustment I would make is get up earlier to lessen the effect of the sun.

Nowadays, I do gels on any LR over 15Miles but usually only 1. I still don't drink anything during a training run, ever. If its particularly hot i'll get a drink directly after the run, but most of the time wait til i get back home.

During a race (26.2), I only take up to 3 gels max. A half I'll take 1. There are guys these days taking up to 6 gels a race these days, thats ridiculous to me.

Now, all that being said everyone is different and you have do what works for you i guess.

Indeed. Sports drinks were more like a rare novelty back then. Fancy Schmancy stuff. I won't deny, I loved them when they cam on the market. I can recall yellow or orange colored Gatorade. An elite guy I knew gained quite a bit of weight drinking that stuff.

No, Used thermos with cups

I wouldn’t recommend doing a lot of the things I do.

I do laugh when I see someone running a 5k with a fuel belt full of water and gel. When the race has aid stations each mile on course.

Late ‘70s/early ‘80s in the summers I had a long run route that went through downtown Ottawa so I could stop at the water fountain by the National Arts Center at about 4.5 miles in. But if I had time and access to a parent’s car I’d drive to the trails in the Gatineau hills and run a 10- or 12-miler with a jug of water or lemonade or a 26-ounce bottle of Coke in the car for when I was done. Late fall through late spring, no matter how far my long run was any hydration came at the end. It’s funny to see people heading out for a 5-miler with their water bottle strapped to their waist.

Yah I see people put on runs with the belts that have 8 little water bottles on them. I always way to ask if they’re running 50 miles or something. This generation thinks they have to have bottled water and can’t fill a water bottle up from the sink! It’s crazy. I also ge Tired of this whole preworkout stuff that some people feel they have to spend 100s of dollars on to get some energy for their “leg day”. Just drink a little coffee or or coke and save yourself $$$$. And don’t post a pic or a video and talk about your preworkout.

Fact is, there's a lot more sodium in our diet than there was in the 60s/70s, largely due to processed food. In addition, we eat fewer fresh fruits and vegetables, meaning we're deficient in other electrolytes such as potassium and magnesium. Even the most steadfast contrarian on letrsun will agree that most people consume an unhealthy amount of sodium these days. That's going to make you feel thirstier.

I don't blame the youth for a carrying water bottles everywhere. Their muscle tissue is basically being turned into prosciutto by Big Junk Food.

It's a hiking group, what do you expect?. Given their pacing, they're probably out there for as long as you are on a 20 mile run while exerting more energy because they're out of shape office workers. Most trained athletes aren't trying to join a damn hiking group.

Sounds like a reasonable guideline.

Overhydration might be a problem with young runners who carry around water bottles thinking that drinking a gallon the day before a three-mile xc meet is somehow necessary or will make them fast. By and large though, it seems like recognizing the importance of proper hydration is a positive thing. Unless I see some convincing data, I can’t really believe that we’d be better off returning to the 1960s or ‘70s or ‘80s. If we were able to line up the best US mid- and long-distance runners of the ‘60s-‘80s against the best from the past 30 years (all at peak fitness, all or none in super spikes, and all using the (legal) training methods/nutrition that they actually employed at their peaks, I would take the more recent runners over the earlier elites simply because of nutrition, training, and general approach to the sport. Today’s hydrated kids are, on the whole, better than yesterday’s (probably) non-hydrated runners—not because of differences in talent or competitiveness, but because of a bunch of factors like proper hydration/nutrition and better understanding of which training stimuli produce the biggest fitness gains.

Yes, thirst is the measure....which is why you carry around a water bottle so you can quench it.

Look, there is an optimal water intake and survival intake. Yes, obviously there are people still alive that don't drink much water. There are also people alive eating nothing but ramen. It's not about survival it's about what's optimal

Nobody is "creating" anxiety about water intake. We are having a conversation about the benefits of water. Might want to get that rampant paranoia checked dude.

Also, air intake is already monitored (it's called altitude training)

"Studies show that even mild dehydration, such as the loss of 1–3% of body weight, can impair many aspects of brain function" - looks like I'm trying to have a rational conversation with a bunch of drunks, I'll excuse myself now.

I'll share a datapoint, not because I care about this thread but because I happen to have it, and why not? I had Covid and isolated from my family for a week (for a specific reason, before the snowflakes jump on that). Anyway, all my food/drink was left outside the door and I didn't have a tap, so I knew precisely how much water I drank. It turned out to be a very consistent 2.45l per day - mostly drunk as water and some boiled to make tea. I don't know if that's a lot but there it is.

Oh, and to state the obvious, I wasn't running during that week.

I am not too concerned about the folks walking around with water bottles getting hyponatremia.

I started working with high level athletes in 1997. We emphasized hydration (in part because we were at altitude and it is dry). When I went to work for a specific sport the youth at camps would not have water bottles during meetings (although the sport is pretty well known for its water bottles). I would do hydration and nutrition presentations. Seems like in 2000 or 2001 I looked out and every kid at the camp had a water bottle at their desk.

It made me think about being a kid and playing youth football. It seems like it was 5th grade that football coaches were screaming that drinking makes you cramp (and weak!). Then the next season there was Gatorade at every practice. The shift was pretty dramatic (and it was the same coaches).

In the 70's the idea of actually carrying water simply did not exist. We did something called "camel-up" where you drank a lot of water prior to the run. Only on 20 miler's did I drive out and stash water at the 10 mile mark. We did not have water fountains in our rural area. A very few times I did knock on someone's door and ask for water, but that was rare and only if I really needed it.

When I grew up and played sports in the early 80s we always had big round coolers and paper cups. This was true of soccer, football, basketball and baseball. We often had a big bowl of sliced oranges too and sometimes the water jug had Gatorade in it.

The big difference is no one drank bottled water in individual sizes nor did many people have their own water bottle unless they were hiking / camping and then we were more likely to have a round canteen.

PepsiCo (Aquafina) and COke (Dasani) along with Nestle did a great job marketing bottled water.

As others have said there was also the water fountain in every school and park and that was also common for kids to use during pick-up games or even organized sports.

I think people put more emphasis on hydration now but it wasn't like we weren't drinking water in the 70s and 80s.

Interestingly enough Nalgene water bottles started to become popular before disposable water bottles in the late 80s and early 90s, when I was in college everyone had one and people weren't drinking a lot of plastic water bottles yet as they usually had to be bought by the case as most stores were selling only soda and the plethora of Snapples that were all the rage then. It really wasn't until the mid-90s that water starting getting shelf space in invidual sizes but not like today where's a whole aisle at the supermarket you usually had a couple of brands at most.

Hell no we didn't go around drinking bottles of water in the '60s and '70s...

That's what beer was for.

they are in with the gel companies. how else are you supposed to wash down that GU without a cup of water? Luckily one of the gel companies has a fair amount of sodium in their mix to help combat the over hydration.