For the most part, you are correct. Plain old fresh, cool, clean, non-chemical-added H2O is perhaps the best liquid a person can drink.

That said, the one caveat to this would be for the case pf the elite endurance athlete, like your marathon runners, long-distance cyclist, hockey players (!) or tri-athletes. In this case, a drink of mostly water, no sugar, but added electrolytes might be a bit more advantageous.

Electrolytes help replenish the depleted stores or salts and sugars and acids that are depleted with prolonged exertion. BY this I would say any sort of continual cardio-intense exercise lasting more than a couple hours. Any less than that, and plain water is fine.

Personally, I have run marathons while drinking plain water and also electrolyte-laced water--products like Vitamin Water Zero and Gatorade--and found my results to be a bit better with the latter.

But most casual athletes over-do the electrolyte thing. That is, they think they need them when they really do not. If they are already in good health and adequately hydrated before beginning the event, they do not need electrolytes for, say, a 10K run or a one-hour bike ride. Water is fine.

Carbo-loading is the same deal. It has become a trendy practice for the casual athlete. Some guy has a 10K to run Saturday morning so he thinks he needs to "carbo-load" with a big spaghetti or pasta dinner the night before. This is unnecessary. Again...anything less than a marathon or other two-hour-plus endurance activity and you don't need those added carbos. And carbo-loading any sooner than about 12 hours before your event is totally useless. the carbos do not have sufficient time to break-down in your system and form glycogen, which is the fuel that muscles run on.

When I played college hockey I had a nice little personal beverage I would mix-up before hand and keep a couple bottles with me on the bench. It was a liter of water mixed with three tablespoons of lemon juice; three tablespoons of honey; and a couple teaspoons of salt. This was awesome for me, and was so good I had three or four teammates who had me mix them up some of my "Wolverine Water" for them too. (My team was the Michigan Wolverines, in case you wonder where the name came from. We added some Blue dye to the water to make it Wolverine Blue!)

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Side note: One of our coaches has a brother who was a lawyer, specializing in patent laws. We began working on a deal with Stokely VanKamp--the Gatorade people-- to actually produce and market this water in the Michigan area. We got it to the Ann Arbor area as a test region, making a couple thousand bottles and selling them in outlets on campus and at a few nearby convenience stores and sporting goods outlets. But proceeds were modest and although I had the chance I never followed through with it an a bigger scale.

So...these days? I drink that Vitamin Energy Water once in awhile during a workout. Yeah, it has sugar in it (about 30 grams per bottle) but also has electrolytes and vitamins B6-12 in it. And come Vitamin C as well. I think this is probably the best energy drink out there. It had less sugar than those RockStars or Monsters or Red Bulls. And also important: is NOT carbonated.

(Carbonated water is terrible for you. The stuff they use to fizz it up--Phosphoric Acid--has been proven to leach calcium from your bones.)

SS

Your persona is dull. Grow up.