suffered horrible bowel cramps after drinking from a seemingly pristine
river. But I lived to tell the tales. And I haven’t died of dehydration.
I happen to be a huge fan of adventure races, events lasting any
where from eight hours to two weeks, where contestants bike, run, paddle,
and take on many other types of adventure travel through remote wilder
ness. The first one who makes it to the finish line, even if it is a week later,
wins. During one such race, organizers had warned contestants not to
drink the water along the route without first treating it, for fear of ingest
ing giardia.
The first stretch of the race was a slog through miles of thick bush
during the height of mosquito and blackfly season, with temperatures
cresting at 86 ̊F (30 ̊C). The race leaders took 24 hours to complete that
stage. Many other teams, including mine, took nearly twice that.
At the first checkpoint in the race, a station where you can stop,
check your time, and even eat a bit of food, most teams arrived looking
terrible and suffering from the dry heaves. Not mine, though. Why? At
every stream, river, or swamp—even the muddy ones—I forced myself
and them to drink, because I knew that otherwise, under those extreme
conditions, dehydration would soon shut us down. So when we finally
made it to the first checkpoint (even though we were one of the last
teams to get there), it was noted that we were in better shape than any
other team.
It seems all the other teams were scared to drink untreated water,
and none of them wanted to commit 15 minutes to treating their water
for fear of losing ground in the race. So they ran on, hurting themselves in
the process through dehydration. Not only did my team feel fine but none
of us got sick, even though we drank from dozens of streams and swamps
without filtering.
That said, never be cavalier about water. It is quite possible to drink
from contaminated water sources and within hours find yourself knocked
down from pain and diarrhea, only making your ordeal even worse. Your
best bet is to assume that all water is contaminated and to purify it if you
can do so.
But if your choice is between drinking untreated water or dying of
dehydration . . . drink.
Water (^) | 71