Re. Hydration

We had a busy weekend so only time for a short walk yesterday afternoon (7 miles), which was mainly for testing out our new 'hydration' kits.

During the longer walks we've been doing we worked out that we really weren't drinking as much as we should be and thought that it was probably because of the hassle of getting the bottle from the rucksack, drinking whilst not tripping over, then putting the bottle back in the rucksack and trying to maintain a steady walking rhythm at the same time. In July we will need to drink a lot more than we are now so we decided to try out drinking tubes. Sam favoured the normal drinking bottle with tube attachment: the bottles sit in the side pockets of the rucksack and the tube attaches to the bottle cap then goes up over the shoulder and through loops on the straps. On the plus side, one bottle can contain water and the other isotonic drink but, on the downside the drinking tube needs swapping over at some point during a section.

I opted for the bladder type of hydration system. This is a large plastic sack which can be filled or part-filled with drink and slides into a purpose built pouch inside the rucksack. Then the drinking tube goes out through a purpose built hole in the shoulder strap and clips onto the front of the rucksack. The bladder can take up to 2 litres which means that it will only need to be refilled at every other checkpoint but I will need to make sure I drink isotonic drinks at the checkpoints if I am only drinking water en route. On the walk yesterday we each got through nearly a litre of drink in little under 2 hours which is about the recommended intake.

They both worked well and we are very pleased with them.

Today we took advantage of a day off work and the spring heatwave to do a bit of cross-training... 13 miles on the bikes... first ride of the year so we took it a bit easy. The plan is to get out for short rides a couple of evenings a week because weekends will be largely taken up with walking.