Last month I found myself drenched in sweat, using all of my mental willpower to push through a 10K race (with a few choice words swirling around my head for the hill-loving course designer). While I usually forgo the hydration stations during races (I’m not much of a drinker during exercise, and never really feel the need to break up my run), this race was different.

The temperature steadily climbed into the high 80’s as the race went on, and the inclined course had me dripping with sweat, which was bringing on a headache. Every time I stopped at a station I fell back on my typical habit of avoiding sugary beverages, bypassing the neon-colored liquids filling half the cups in favor of plain old H20.

While this choice is typically a smart one (after all, liquids are a huge source of unwanted calories and sugar in the standard American diet), according to Natalie Rizzo, RD, founder of Nutrition à la Natalie, this situation turns out to be an exception to the rule.

“For any [strenuous] activity longer than 60 minutes, you’re going to want to think about a sports drink,” says Rizzo. “Gatorade — or any sports drink — was actually formulated for athletes. We think that they’re not so good for us because a lot of people drink them when their sitting at their desks or they’re not so active, and if that’s the case, yes, it's too much sugar. But sports drinks are actually good for athletes working out for longer than an hour or who are working out in extreme conditions like extreme heat.”