alcohol1Oh holy hangover.

You know exactly what I’m talking about.

Maybe last night started with one drink but somehow it became two, and then three. All of a sudden it’s the next morning and you’re cursing that third PBR as a woman old enough to be your grandmother sails past you at a  geriatric pace and your stomach threatens to do something humiliating.

It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that you should refrain from nursing your next hangover with a jog. If you manage quell your hangover headache long enough to consider running, read what Joe English, had to say on his blog before groggily lacing up your shoes.

I have often spoken of my “Four Hs of Hurt,” which are Heat, Humidity, Hills and Head-winds. There is actually a fifth member of this terrible group: Hangovers. The problem with drinking alcohol, is that your body has to get rid of it. In the process of metabolizing the alcohol, you lose a whole lot of fluid. When you’re hung-over, you are in essence, quite dehydrated. That’s why you’re peeing all night long when drinking beer. And that’s why you feel so bad when you wake up in the morning.

So if you’ve got a hang-over, you’re going to start your run dehydrated. And as I said in my column “10 things you need to know about hydration”, if you start out dehydrated, it just gets worse from there.

And for a little more science behind the toll drinking can take on your performance, take a look at what the National Strength and Conditioning Association said in an issue of their Performance Training Journal had to say about the detriments of dehydration.

If an athlete is thirsty, they may have already lost 1- 2% of body weight through dehydration (4). Performance can be decreased up to 10-20% at this level. Alcohol can cause the body to  lose 3% more body fluid in a 4-hour  period, leading to dehydration even  quicker (5).

Happy hydrating, folks!