Bethanie Brown is a senior at Waterville HS. She ran under 5 minutes for the mile last winter becoming the first Maine HS girl to do so. follow Bethanie as she competes in her final outdoor season. Brown is the defending New England champion in the 1600m & 3200. Check out her blog in her final HS season
Blog #12 Water Blog
It’s been a HOT past few days. I guess summer’s really here! Going into the state meet, I admit, I was nervous. Running the 1600, 800, 3200 and 4 x 400 is a TOUGH day even if you are running in normal weather. Running it on a day when the temperature is higher than it’s been all year, and humid, was another challenge. However, I think I handled the sweltering heat pretty successfully. I’m proud of that accomplishment in itself.
One of the reasons I was kind of nervous going into such a hot day was because I’ve dealt with some hydration issues in the past year. At New Balance Outdoor Nationals last June I overhydrated, and at the New England Championships this fall in cross country I was trying not to overhydrate and ended up really dehydrated. What’s really weird is that even though they are completely opposite, they feel the same. In both cases you feel dizzy, sick, shaky, and strangely enough, thirsty.
The story from New Balance Outdoor Nationals is actually kind of funny when I look back on it. In the moment it was really scary though. It was the third day of Nationals, and I was about to run my third race (I had run the 5000 and 2 mile already) but I really wasn’t feeling well. I finally decided I would skip the mile, even though it made me sad to do that.
I was with my Aunt Hoa last year at Nationals. When we got back to the hotel, I was feeling really dizzy. I thought maybe I was dehydrated, so I drank more water. But then, when I was walking, the floor started to move (or appeared to move) under my feet in a slightly spinning fashion. This was when I got the feeling that something was REALLY wrong with me, and I just didn’t know what. I sat down in the lobby with my aunt, and then after a few minutes, it wasn’t getting better. I asked the person at the front desk if there was a doctor nearby, and he said they could call an ambulance. I said, “Yes, please, could you call an ambulance?”
I was pretty calm about it, and the guy at the desk looked kind of surprised and was like, “Okay, yes, I’ll do that.” My aunt and I went to sit down in the lobby. Minutes later, I was feeling worse and started having whole body tremors. My arms and legs started shaking uncontrollably, and at that point I felt really scared. I heard the manager of the hotel talking on the phone with someone at the hospital and he said, “I don’t know if it’s an emergency.” He looked over at us and asked, “Is it an emergency?” At that point I was really scared and feeling dizzy and shaky and I just nodded my head. Then he looked really surprised, and told them to come.
When the ambulance got there they put me on a stretcher and took me outside. They didn’t know what was going on with me and thought I was probably some teen drug addict, and so they took away my water bottle, thinking it was spiked with drugs. I didn’t know that at the time. My aunt told me later that she said, “You obviously don’t know this girl. She definitely doesn’t have drugs in her water.”
I didn’t know what was going on and I was kind of delirious so I said, “I want my water,” and, “I need water,” and, “I’m thirsty,” because I really did feel THIRSTY.
I had also recently heard about a man dying on an ambulance in Maine, and so that freaked me out too. Since they wouldn’t give back my water, and I was shaking uncontrollably and was dizzy and sick and thought I was dehydrated, I thought that I was going to die on the ambulance, so I fought my way off the stretcher. The ambulance ladies were trying to pin me down, but in my deliriousness, I had decided I no longer wanted to go on this ambulance so I pulled myself from their grasps and jumped off the stretcher. I was definitely not helping my cause in terms of their suspicion that I was a drug addict. One of the ladies promptly ran over to me, grabbed me, and looked into my face with wide eyes saying, “Did you take something? What did you take?”
This was the first I had heard of drug speculation but I promised her I had not taken anything. She was trying to get me back on the ambulance when my aunt called my mom. I talked to my mom on the ambulance ride, and that calmed me down. Then the ladies on the ambulance told me I was probably having a panic attack. I guess maybe drug addicts don’t usually calm down after talking to their mommies.
Once I got to the hospital some doctors hooked me up to an IV and did some other random stuff with needles and figured out that my sodium levels were dangerously low. They filled me up with a saline solution and decided to keep me overnight. I was so tired, and they kept waking me up to poke me with needles. The people were really nice though. I liked all of the doctors a lot. They had southern accents and they called me “sweetie” and were really friendly. They wouldn’t let me drink any water even though I felt really thirsty. I’d had way too much water and had suffered from what is called hyponatremia, which actually kills runners. Overnight I lost 9 pounds in water. It was crazy. Even though they wanted to keep me longer, my aunt pushed for them to let me go so that we wouldn’t miss our flight. I felt weak, but so much better than the night before. I got on the plane, flew safely home, and met my nervous parents at the airport.
So, Nationals last year was very exciting. I learned that you can overhydrate, and that it can be very dangerous. Then at the New England XC Championship, it was a hot day and I was trying not to overhydrate, and I ended up being dehydrated. At the end of the race my legs felt really bad, my head felt really funny and dizzy, and I felt so nauseous. I drank lots of water and Gatorade after the race, but still didn’t end up being able to use the bathroom for at least 8 hours after the race. It was really weird and scary. Running on too little fluids also took a toll on my body, because it was a hard to recover after that race. My muscles felt pretty worn down.
At States this weekend, I did my best to drink a combination of Gatorade and water, and to drink a good amount after my races. So in addition to the exciting accomplishment of earning 4 state championship titles in one meet, I was happy to make it through a busy race schedule on a hot day – with enough energy left over to run a victory lap with my team.
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