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I carry a lot of water on my bike, when I cycle. A camelback with a 3liter reservoir and 2 bottles of 0.7liters.
When running dehydration is not yet an issue, as I run half an hour maximum at the moment, but might become one in the future.

When I was on a race this summer, about 100km, a buddy of mine only drank half of his 0.7liter bottle while I nearly emptied all of my resources.

I really like to drink a lot, but carrying the camelback or not will probably make a difference when biking. Is there an efficient way to cut down on my hydration needs and get my body used to drinking less while racing and to run longer without drinking?

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    note: I tagged this long-distance-running as I plan to do so in the future. However, if there is too much difference between cycling and running hydration, tell me and I'll remove the running part.
    – Baarn
    Oct 2, 2012 at 16:43

2 Answers 2

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I want to say just ditch the camelbak and and one of the bottles and limit yourself to 700mL, but maybe your body actually needs more water. More likely though, you're just drinking more than you need (most people drink a lot more than they really need, thanks to Gatorade/Powerade marketing), so try exerting self control, and see if you can have yourself drinking less. To enforce that, maybe start your next race with the 3L camelbak and only one bottle. Then the next time only the camelbak, and after that, ditch it and go back to 2 bottles. Just slowly wean yourself of the habit of drinking that much.

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  • @Informaficker Did you try reducing this and found that the water consumption has gone down for you?
    – Freakyuser
    Mar 5, 2013 at 12:07
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This is not to answer the OP, since it has been 6 years, but more for future readers who are directed here by Google.

How much water you need to drink depends on how much you sweat out. Drink too much and you'll either need to take bathroom breaks or have other problems. Drink too little and you'll dehydrate.

You should try experimenting and see what works. You'll know you got it right when you don't need to take any bathroom breaks during or immediately after, but are comfortably hydrated throughout.

My personal metric is how the saliva in my mouth feels. If it's starting to feel a bit thicker than usual - it is time for a sip.

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