Monday 7 December 2009

coffee

My love of coffee has been well documented on this blog quite a few times in the past couple of years.  At the moment I'm drinking Starbuck's Christmas Blend ... and enjoying every mouthful of the spicy, sweet, dark roasted brew.

Earlier today, whilst reading the Mud Sweat & Tears website I came across a link to an article about the effects of caffeine on athletic performance. The piece originally appeared in The New York Times back in March this year but you can read it here.

It's good to know that caffeine is helping my ultra distance races although based on personal experience after my most recent three or four races I'll probably try caffeine tablets rather than a caffeine loaded drink. This is because I don't drink enough at any one time to get any significant benefit, ie 200ml drink doesn't contain enough caffeine.

My usual drink, Lucozade Sport with caffeine normally contains about 32mg caffeine per 200ml.  This equates to about 0.57mg per kg of my body weight and from my research I would suggest I need about 3mg per kg body weight.  Which is about 168mg caffeine or 1050ml Lucozade Sport.

It's obviously not practical to drink more than a litre all at once during an ultra race ... so caffeine tablets may be the answer.

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