Preventing cramp in a long distance runner

"Hi Gary
Tried what you said last night. I went to bed and felt a bit of cramp in my toes and inside of leg and if I pointed my toes forward they instantly cramp, so went and got the Active Elements and chew/swilled them and cramp dissappears straight away.

I guess this means that I need to increase the daily dose but I would also appreciate any ideas you have for what to do during the long races, like Lake to Lighthouse will be 9-10 hour day 1 and 7-8 hrs day 2. Some guys I train with add half teaspoon sea salt /litre to their drinking water? Any ideas would be very much appreciated. Thanks Gary."
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Gary....

When tissue mineral salts are dissloved in the saliva and swilled about in the mouth, washing the

 salt under the tongue, between the gums and cheeks and so on, quite a lot is absorbed through the delicate, tissue that is a profusion of blood vessels.  This tissue of the mouth is called the "buccal lining".  Within seconds the tissue salts are transported to just about every cell of the body.  This is why a drop of cyanide under the tongue can cause death within seconds.

Sea salt is much better than free flow table salt.  Read this:

"Commercial iodized salt is refined in a high-temperature (1200 degrees Farenheit) flash-cooling process, which tightens the molecular bond and makes refined salt less soluble and harder to digest.  In addition, commercial salt usually contains many additives other than iodine, including sugar, sodium silico aluminate, magnesium carbonate, silicon dioxide, sodium ferrocyanide (!!!), and green ferric ammonium sulfate, all of which are permitted to promote free flow"
Source here

Aluminium is your fast track to dementia and would you feed that to your kids?  The ferrocyanide compound is poisonous, but nowhere near as poisonous as potassium or sodium cyanide. The iron in the formula decreases the toxicity by combining with the cyanide, instead of the cyanide reacting with hemoglobin in the bloodstream. But it still seems really dumb to put it into food!    Free flow salt also tends to be pure NaCl, rather than the mix of many salts one finds in Nature.  So, sea or rock salt is probably better than the free flow stuff. 

When you exercise hard; sweating, muscle damage and so on, sea salt does not provide

 the best solution.  There are 12 tissue salts consisting of 18 elements and all of these are needed in varying quantities and this is further complicated by individual differences.  The best thing to do is to work out your personal needs by an Active Elements Assessment.

Please read this advice here about how to use the Active Elements as a valuable source of "electrolytes" when doing activities like running a marathon.

Incidentally, when cycling around Samoa, sweating gallons along the way, I used the Active Elements as we went as well as eating lots of salty food.  My hydration improved during the trip showing that I had acclimatised well to the heat and humidity.

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