Dehydration and Blood Pressure

on Saturday, January 6, 2007 at 9:41 AM

On thursday I headed to the gym to try and do 6 miles. It was raining semi hard so doing it outside wasn't in the cards. I haven't been there since last year (ha ha). Actually middle of November. Another reason I hate running on a treadmill is that it's so warm at my gym. Even though I was running relatively slow, keeping the HR low, I was sweating like crazy after 1 mile. I guess my body just got use to running outside in the cool weather and didn't like being back in 25C temperatures. Anyways I cut the run short and did about 4.5 miles.

Just got back from a short 4 miler outside. Couldn't keep the HR down. Got back and weighed myself and i was down 3 pounds from my normal weight. In my experience, this is usually because I'm dehydrated and anytime I have a crappy run, I can usually correlate it to a lower body weight. I usually drink a lot of fluids so this usually isn't a problem, but I've been reading a bit about blood pressure lately and mine have are a bit on the high side. Not hypertensive, but in the 135/85 range. Normal is 120/70.

Two years ago, I was normal, in fact is was exactly 120/70 cause I remember the nurse saying it was perfect. It has creeped up slowly over the past few years to its current level. Anyhow, I was reading that dehydration can cause low blood pressure, so I started thinking, that over hydration can probably lead to higher blood pressure which because I drink a lot of fluids could be a partial cause of the higher blood pressure. I've started to cut back on the fluid intake, but of course, it leads to dehydration that results in crappy runs. I just measured my bp and it was 120/80. The bottom number is a bit high though acceptable and I'd like to maintain it at this level. Hopefully I won't have to be at this level of dehydration to maintain it though.

I'm going to try and do 14 miles tomorrow. Will try to drink a bit more today.

Thanks for reading.

4 comments:

SRR said...

Lower body weight for me correlates to a happier RR, screw the running performance.

Banking Miles said...

Sorry to hear about your crappy run. Staying well hydrated usually should not cause high blood pressure. But not getting enough fluids can get you in trouble as you know. Fuel it up for your upcoming med-long and I am sure you will feel much better. Good luck.

Kristi said...

That's an interesting theory about the overhydration leading to higher blood pressure. I'm not sure how much you're drinking during the day, but I know that overhydration has detrimental effects on other body functions as well...I'd be interested to see what you find out as you continue to adjust your fluid levels, as I've recently noticed a spike in my BP as well (interestingly enough a spike which correlates to my cutting out caffiene last spring and trying to drink 64-70 ounces of water per day). Let's ask WebMD!

Sonia said...

We all have some of those! Hope the next run went well! =)

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