Recommendation for Goucher- Try Alkaline Water

“It may be, with her, a matter of just drinking plain water and give up on the carbohydrate replenishment,” Salazar said. “It doesn’t do you any good to have carbohydrates in the water if they’re going to make you throw up and now you don’t have any fluid either. Maybe we’re going to have to go with just plain water.”
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Alberto Salazar's comments on the stomach problems experienced by Kara Goucher during the World Championship marathon.

-universalsports.com

MY COMMENT: I'm not sure eliminating carbohydrates is the answer, since that will also cause an eventual slowdown. If they expect to be competitive at a world class level, then they need to find a way for Kara to get fluid AND calories throughout the race. How about using alkaline water?

Check out the claim from one website:

Consider that when exercising you are consuming more oxygen and metabolizing energy through muscle work. This process creates free radicals, lactic acid, and a mild metabolic acidosis.

Drinking alkaline, ionized, micro-clustered water may help ameliorate all three of these exercise-induced physiological end-products. Water that has been alkalized may help neutralize the exercise-induced acidosis. Alkaline water by definition contains alkaline forming minerals like calcium, magnesium, potassium and sodium. Water that has been ionized may help act as a free-radical scavenger to address the issue of accelerated oxygen consumption. Ionized water by definition has more negatively charged hydroxyl ions than tap or filtered water. Ionized water has the ability to give up these extra negative charges and may help act as a free-radical scavenger. Lastly, when water is micro-clustered it may be absorbed at a faster rate. This can help with general rehydration. -lifeionizers.com.

To my knowledge there is only anecdotal evidence of health benefits from drinking alkaline water, but with Nike footing the bill what's the harm in trying? I happen to own a Jupiter Technos Water Ionizer and have been drinking alkaline water for several years now.