I'm stiff, I'm sore, I'm.....

On many organised trips away the most common complaint is of stiffness, soreness and general aches and pains. My experience of this is that it is 9 times out of 10 caused by dehydration. This is typified by the participation by novices on long distance cycles that I assist at every year who do not drink enough water because of the difficulty in drinking it while on the move.

On one particular event the participants were cycling in 26degree temperatures and peddelling frantically to keep up with the lead cyclist despite it not being a race but rather a sponsored cycle. On the first morning several participants retired into the luxurious air conditioned coach complaining of aches, pains and headaches. All of them were very quickly diagnoised as having not drank enough fluids so were dehydrated. They improved enough by lunchtime to go out and cycle some more but sure enough the same problem arose again in the afternoon. Again the same “treatment” was administered and they all felt well enough by the time the evening came.

At dinner that night everyone was told to increase their fluid intake while cycling (although some took that to increasing their alcoholic intake at and after dinner but thats a blog entry for another day to spare the blushes of certain people, you know who you are!!!)

Unfortunately the next morning it was obvious that enough fluids were still not being taken and drastic measures were called for. During the lunch break I adopted a jarhead style education namely insisting that everyone finish the water they had on them then refilling their bottle, finishing THAT before cycling and finishing another whole bottle WHILE cycling. The good news is that this method worked and everyone came to me that night saying that it had been so much easier to cycle that afternoon and that they were really glad they had listened to me.

Now if only I could get them to listen to me when I say to stop drinking three bottles of vodka each......