Drinking too much can kill you

No, not that kind of drinking.

Several times now I've heard of this study that talks about how some marathoners become overly hydrated. Basically, they drank too much while running (enough to actually *gain* weight during the race), and their electrolyte levels got way out of whack.

I'm sure that people do this, but in all the coverage I've seen (and as far as they've reported about the study itself, there's no real critical thinking going on here.

Yes, if you drink too much water you are going to cause problems. People have even died of this. Fine. And some marathoners (evidentially the slow ones) end up getting too much.

So you're supposed to weigh yourself before and after your training runs to gauge how much you sweat and how that compares to the amount of water you're drinking.

But nobody talks about other alternatives. What about drinking sports drinks? What about actually eating something (pretzels, bananas, energy bars, etc.) to help balance things out? What about slightly salty water?

Wake up reporters - how about some critical thinking...

Here are two of the reports: the first and the second.