Get mostly stupid answers......
Not much point to a post this general. You can extrapolate alcohol's debilitating physical effects from any nutrition journal.
How can get you accurate responses regarding running teams' behaviour? Who would record such data?
What are you - stupid or something?
Andre wrote:
In the sport of cycling, I bet Armstrong never drinks (even though he's often talked about how he loves Shiner Bock).
Great picture of Armstrong in Velo News, on the bike, a flute of champaigne, tipping glasses with one of the crew in the support vehicle. Well, I guess it could've been Martinelli's...
joplu wrote:
Ask Pre
I really hate people bringing up Pre whenever this subject is raised. Pre drank and still ran like a badass. Yes, alcohol may have played a role in his tragic death, but if that is the case, it was the result of drinking and driving, not of being at a party and having a few beers. The "ask pre" argument for never drinking as a runner is absurd. If this were a drunk driving thread, it might be different.
T-man wrote:
it's not so much the actual alcohol, in stead i think it's all the things you do that go along with a night of drinking that can hamper your training.
After writing this, you then went ahead to list several direct effects of alcohol on the body: hypoglycemia, dehydration, electrolyte disturbances, obliteration of REM sleep. Can you agree that your suggestion that alcohol's effects on running are "indirect" might have been short-sighted?
What,s excessive?
are you going to dispute the semantics of my post or contribute to the thread?
i was looking at direct vs. indirect as an effect on training, not on the body. i haven't seen anything to say that alcohol inhibits the body from high-end aerobic activity or reduces the training effects of such training. instead it affects your hydration, diet and sleep schedule, which in turn detract from your training, hence i called those effects indirect.
Very Very wrong - I had a few with an elite who ran in Olympic final only last week
Well my friend, it's called sarcasm.
beer/alcohol's positives: lets off steam, helps pick up chicks for the shyer(sp?) types, tastes good to many, lets some do things they wouldnt normally do and can talk about it later, i.e. 10 years later and laugh about it w/ good buddies, makes a giddy celebration even giddier, and of course, you get drunk!
negatives: can become addictive if not careful or w/ addictive personality types, dehydrates (which can be fixed before sleeping if smart), changes sleeping patterns normally(stay up late b/c chasing the tang), will hurt you as much as you think it will or wont.
overall: if you think alcohol will severly inhibit performance, then DONT DRINK DUMBASS! if you are like myself and think the weekend beers while watching college football are a great way to kick back and let reality subside for an afternoon, then go for it. someone said earlier, you have one life to live, and everyone dies, so live it however you see most fit. i tend to agree with rod dixon: "all i want to do is drink beer and train like an animal," for it has been proven that people can do both if intelligent about it. ITS ALL ABOUT CHOICE...
i'll agree with most of the posts on here that it's not so much the actual alcohol (i haven't seen anything conclusive or reliable to document the direct effect of alcohol on preformance), in stead i think it's all the things you do that go along with a night of drinking that can hamper your training.
alcohol makes you hypoglycemic which makes you crave high calorie food. so toward the end of a long night of drinking it's not uncommon to throw down 1500 calories right before bed on a crave.
alcohol dehydrates you so as was previously posted you're losing not just water but electrolytes. this has 2 effects: you lose blood volume due to being dehydrated but you also don't sweat as efficiently because your sodium and potassium levels are off. this is obviously more of a problem in the summer when it's hot.
you sleep schedule gets f***ed. passing out drunk isn't the same as sleeping, and you stay up way later that you usually would. it takes a few days to get back on the clock, usually just in time for the next weekend binge. i remember too that we used to get cocked in college after getting home from a race - which is the night you need the recovery effect of sleep the most.
that said, i had several awesome long sunday morning runs in college having gotten wrecked and sleeping 4 hours the night before. so who knows. if you think it will hurt your running, it will.