Hydrate Before Your Run With..Mountain Dew??

Thought I’d throw in a few blogs on my mostly unsuccessful try at running this year. Briefly, I half trained for my first 10k in the winter (and successfully finished), took a long break, made it 2 weeks in a row (!!!) this summer, and now trying to get back on the horse before the ever dangerous football and holiday season. We’ll see.

My first post I guess I will discuss the pre-run “meal.” I generally assumed healthy food and lots of water was best for the pre-game. But during a day when I gave up on the run and drank a Mountain Dew after work, I ended up deciding to run from my newfound energy, and …whoa… the best run in 5 months. I ran my normal pace and 25% further.

It is well documented (see here) that people drink coffee before a run, and caffeine has performance benefits, though I didn’t realize it at the time.

I did a second test and decided 12 ounces of sugary liquid goodness may not be ideal, so I went with about 4 ounces before another run. Sure enough, it was about 12% longer than a normal run and the longest since the last Mountain Dew fueled forray.

So was it the Dew? Was it all in my mind? Not sure. I’ll continue to test the pre-run diet and if I come to any amazing conclusions, I’ll be sure to blog about it here. You can explain to me your science and why it’s a bad idea all you want, but I’ll just say “I’ve got your science right here.”

A note – this was 45 minutes drinking regular 12 oz. Mountain Dew before the run or as it is now called “Mtn Dew” and no food or a small granola bar.

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