Alcohol And Runners

Just how much should you drink during your running training?

You've started your training and all of a sudden you're close to running a 5k. You've heard someone say you shouldn't really be drinking close to an event and someone else say it's bad for your training, full stop. True or false? Is a beer, a glass of wine or a gin and tonic really going to throw your training or event preparation off course or can they happily co-exist?

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Having the odd drink or two during training or even during event week is not going to have much impact on your performance. It's excess (as always) and regular heavy drinking that will cause problems. You don't need to become teetotal for six months if you're training for a long distance event to maximise performance, you just need to be sensible and not drink too much on any given day. If you do, there are a number of issues that will cause you some challenges.

Hydration

Alcohol can cause extreme dehydration if drunk to excess. It is known as a diuretic which causes the drinker to urinate much more than normal and it can lead to the loss of essential fluid and electrolytes. This can be made much worse if you drink on an empty stomach, as this is where it's absorbed into the body. The alcohol goes into your bloodstream much quicker if you don't eat beforehand. Drinking also reduces your appetite, so you tend to eat less which means this quicker absorption continues as you drink more. No eating beforehand, or during, is not a good combination! And then there is the impact of alcohol on the kidneys. They don't perform as they should, with blood filtering impacted, and their ability to balance fluid and electrolyte levels. They also normally release a hormone that controls how much water the kidneys reabsorb and retain and their ability to do this is severely impacted by alcohol.

Sleep

We all know that a big night out can result in numerous highs and lows. One minute it's all action and then it can be a period of extreme tiredness. It can be easy to fall asleep when you return home but that sleep does not always last. There are four phases in a normal sleep cycle and alcohol can impact these quite significantly, and it's not just after a big night out. Consistent and ongoing drinking can have a major long term impact. The balance between the different phases is upset after alcohol and this impacts on the quality of the night's sleep. Too many nights like that and your running will be affected. You'll start feeling sleepy during the day and end up drinking too much caffeine during the day, or worse, more alcohol at night to get to sleep. There is also a good chance you could develop sleep apnea, the kind of snoring and throat clearing that can seriously dent any good relationship.

Weight gain

Unlike soft drinks that are now compelled to have labelling that clearly identifies the sugar levels and the number of calories that they contain, manufacturers of alcoholic drinks don't have to abide by the ame rules. Most of the time you'll have no idea how much sugar your drinks contain nor the number of calories. Some of the numbers are quite shocking. Flavoured mixed drinks are the worst, with some containing over 15 teaspoons of sugar! Beers and wines aren't too bad, but of course if you consume a lot, you'll consume a lot of sugar. White wine only has 1-2 teaspoons depending on its level of sweetness and beer is ok, with only one, but over a long night of drinking, or most nights of the week and it soon adds up. Running really does help you lose weight and many people run for exactly that reason. They don't enter events, they just run to keep their weight down. It would be a lot easier to do that with a little bit less alcohol each week.

Recovery

Another very significant impact of alcohol is on our recovery from training sessions. This from the National Library of Medicine in the US. 'In terms of post exercise recovery, acute alcohol ingestion reduces muscle protein synthesis in a dose-and time-dependent manner, after the cessation of exercise stimulus, Alcohol does this mainly by suppressing the phosphorylation and activation of the mTOR pathways, the crucial kinase cascade regulating translation initiation. Concomitantly, alcohol increases the expression of muscle specific enzymes that are up regulated by conditions that promote skeletal muscle atrophy. Emerging research provides new insights into the effect of alcohol consumption on post-exercise muscle recovery but more research is needed to determine how this relationship exists and establish the physiological mechanisms governing this response'. This is a very complex way of saying the ability of our bodies to recover from training can be seriously impacted by a big night out. We all knew that anyway but this is the science behind it. It's best to skip a hard training session if you've been drinking heavily a night or two before.

Decision making

A hangover can impact your body in numerous ways, but it can also impact your decision making around your training. Too many big nights will inevitably lead to too many hangovers, which inevitably leads to too many cancelled training runs! It is extremely easy to put off your training when you wake up with a hangover. It's hard to even think about running, let alone go for a run, when you have a hangover. Too many days like that could have a real impact for your schedule.

Mental wellbeing

Alcohol, if drunk to excess, not only affects your physical functions, but it can negatively impact your mental health. Ultimately it is a toxin and a depressant and the resultant chemical changes in your brain can lead to many negative thoughts, anxiety and depression, even though your overall mood may be positive, and regardless of your mood. It can also mean you process information more slowly, making it harder to work out what you're really feeling and potential consequences of what you're doing. This is of course a stark contrast to the benefits of running, which is all about the positive impacts on your mental health. Drink too much and you have a real contradiction going on!

Don't let holidays set you back

If you have a holiday planned in the middle of your event training you need to be really careful. Generally alcohol consumption goes up significantly when we're on holiday and this could have a negative impact on your training for all the reasons outlined above. Conversely the amount of time you spend running also goes up when you're on vacation, so you've just got to try and get some balance and make sure all the extra time running isn't negated by too much time spent at the bar!

Alcohol and runners

As with all things it is all about moderation. Don't overdo it during your main training programme, don't drink too much in the taper period leading to an event and try to avoid drinking during race week and you'll be fine. Alcohol and runners: not always the perfect match, but generally ok.

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