When you finish a race or a tough workout, remember that you need to rehydrate yourself. Otherwise, you will be tired and may get sick later in the day. A tough workout or a race can lead to overextending yourself and becoming dehydrated, no matter how well hydrated you are at the start. It is difficult to drink enough water during a workout or especially during a race to keep yourself completely hydrated. It is not hard to keep yourself hydrated enough to not have to worry about a drop in performance and to finish your event, but you still need to drink a lot of water afterwards.

As an example, I ran the Beach to Beacon yesterday. Despite drinking plenty of water after the race, I knew that I was a bit dehydrated but I did not have an opportunity to consume more liquids for a few hours once we had left the finish area. When my fiance and I got home, she had a headache and took a nap, but I stayed up and neglected to consume enough liquids. Yesterday afternoon, I was exhausted and had a headache of my own. Some nausea and tight muscles in my back and shoulders also accompanied the headache. Had I drank a few more glasses of water or Gatorade, I probably would not have felt so terrible for most of the night.

The moral of this story is to try to remember to keep yourself hydrated when you finish your race or workouts. Most of the time, we only consciously think about staying hydrated before our races, and it is only an afterthought (if we think of it at all) after a race.