Salt and Blood Pressure

on Wednesday, January 10, 2007 at 8:23 AM

I had wanted to do 14 miles on Sunday and I only ended up doing 12. I had slept in 30 minutes longer than I had wanted and had to cut the run a bit short. I'm quite busy at work putting in some long days and haven't run since and there's a good chance I'm be able to do any major runs for at least a few weeks which bums me out cause an 18 week Pfitz plan for a May 13 marathon started this week, don't think I'm going to be able to start or get into it. I have to reevaluate plans. there's a 16 week FIRST plan but I'm not sure whether the mileage is high enough. it tops out at about 35 miles a week, though it does say that i have to cross-train. I'd just rather run than cross train. There's also a 12 week Pfitz plan which looks tough.

As for blood pressure, I was doing some more reading and it seems that my water theory holds some water. Apparently salt causes high blood pressure as it causes your system to retain water. More liquid in your blood, higher BP. I realize that since I started the serious marathon training a few years ago, I've been religiously drinking V8 twice a day at work since my office provides it for free. Checking the label, each bottle contains 900 mg of sodium! That's almost 2 grams of extra salt each day on top of whatever salt I eat with my regular diet. So I've stopped drinking the stuff and my BP has dropped somewhat. I"m going to go back to drinking more water and see if I can keep the BP low

I may not post much in the next few weeks because of work so I apologize in advance if I kinda disappear for a little while.

6 comments:

Triseverance said...

Good luck catching up at work, hope you can find some time to run to work off the stress.

Perry said...

Yeah, all that salt is probably not a good idea. Maybe you should just start eating tomatos.

Just Your Average Joggler
Perry, 44

Sonia said...

Hope you won't totally stop running! Good luck for your big stretch at work! We'll miss your posts!! =)

SRR said...

Pfietz (and Bob) are kicking my ass with this training. YIKES! Good Luck!

L*I*S*A said...

If you have to use the 16 week plan, just throw in some extra miles when and if you can to make up for the missed ones.

You can do it...

jen said...

I did the 12 week Pfitz plan and I felt it was challenging and prepared me for a fast (for me) marathon. There's plenty of time, don't sweat it. Have fun working. :)

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