Coach wants me to drink coffee before race

cmon dude wrote:

I have a yes-no question for Jack, no explaining, just yes or no

Jack, have you ever smoked pot?

If you ask me that question, I will answer no. For the record, I am 55 years old. But excuuuuuuuuse me, I drink coffee before I run.

Yes, I have smoked pot.

Unless your coach is a doctor, it doesn't sound like he should be prescribing anything because you have low blood pressure, or low energy.

One important thing I haven't seen yet mentioned is that, although the beneficial effects of athletes taking caffeine are well known, apparently drinking coffee simply doesn't provide these known benefits of caffeine. It's probably better to drink Coke or Pepsi (caffeine plus sugar).

However, to say that drinking coffee is unethical is, in my opinion, blowing things way out of proportion, and equating coffee to EPO makes a mockery of what should be considered a serious issue. What separates coffee from other banned drugs, or blood transfusions:

1) First and foremost, coffee doesn't actually bring the known performance enhancing benefits of caffeine. Something else in coffee seems to interfere or cancel the effect of caffeine. Any improvements are simply a placebo effect.

2) There is no mystery behind caffeine "the drug". It is not some "manufactured" substance created in secret labs, made available through underground channels, for enormous sums of black money. Zealous officials highly motivated to prevent performance enhanced competition know about caffeine, and in small amounts, they are simply apathetic. The performance enhancing benefits are simply too small to warrant concern, or merit such a personal intrusion on the lives of athletes.

3) Coffee is a part of many peoples' everyday lives. In the small amounts permitted, coffee is widely available to all athletes, and is not dangerous and life threatening.

So through a thoughtful combination of universal availability, low price, lack of risk, and small performance benefits, drinking a cup of coffee before races simply doesn't rank high enough to become a moral or ethical issue, without devaluing the concept of ethics and morality.

Okay kid, who are you going to take advice from? Pot smoking Jack, or coffee drinking dude?

Show this to your parents and coach. See what they think.

J.R. wrote:

BS - you ARE a coffee pusher.

Because of your addiction, you are trying to get kids addicted to it too.

There is a big difference between drinking coffee yourself, and trying to push kids into drinking it too.

The argument that "coffee works" is stupid. First of all it does not "work." Training works. Eating healthy works. All caffeine would work for is wearing out your body. Look at Shorter now, he's not much of a runner any more.

Interesting then, that people who drink coffee tend to live longer, maintain intelligence better as they age, are less likely to get cancer, diabetes, and liver disease, have improved heart health, and don't have higher blood pressure. I don't know where you're getting your info, but it's just wrong.

And caffeine works in part by promoting your body's use of fat stores instead of glycogen early on in exercise, which means you have more for later.

Look guys - the people who are saying "it's just a freaking cup of coffee!" don't get it. Coffee has caffeine. Read this article again, it's already been linked in this thread:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/health/nutrition/26best.html?_r=1

The people saying "well where do you draw the line" - that's a legitimate debate. Why is carbo loading OK? Why are altitude tents OK? Fine, I see where you're coming from. Having running shoes is one end of the performance-enhancing continuum, whereas EPO is the opposite end. Everything else falls in between. Where is that line? That's a decent argument.

The guy who said coffee doesn't work for everyone and it's not a guaranteed performance boost - that's an interesting argument as well. My position is based off the idea of caffeine definitely being a performance booster - see the article linked above where the scientist says there is no doubt about it. If that presumption is flawed, yes, my position could be flawed as well.

Is "Sacremento 3200m" a kid in high school? I didn't see him say that anywhere.

cmon dude wrote:

Okay kid, who are you going to take advice from? Pot smoking Jack, or coffee drinking dude?

Show this to your parents and coach. See what they think.

I welcome that debate. No one ever looked to marijuana for a shortcut to running success. People get jacked up on coffee trying to shave a few seconds all the time.

(And I'm not talking about you. You seem to genuinely enjoy coffee for what it is. Fine. But there are athletes out there taking it specifically for its ergogenic effects.)

Here you can read about water poisoning:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxicationEverything can kill you. It's all just a question of dosage.

J.R. wrote:

That is not so.

Water is not toxic. 80% of the body is water.

Caffeine is toxic in very small amounts. You would not take large amounts of caffeine and survive.

jack says wrote:

cmon dude wrote:

Okay kid, who are you going to take advice from? Pot smoking Jack, or coffee drinking dude?

Show this to your parents and coach. See what they think.

I welcome that debate. No one ever looked to marijuana for a shortcut to running success. People get jacked up on coffee trying to shave a few seconds all the time.

(And I'm not talking about you. You seem to genuinely enjoy coffee for what it is. Fine. But there are athletes out there taking it specifically for its ergogenic effects.)

Nobody is arguing that because it's legal its ethical. Or at least the smart ones aren't. They're saying it's a naturally occurring substance that the average people regularly consume and that it's just something that goes along with nutrition like say anti-oxidants in fruit. It's everywhere, and does not represent a risk to athletes which would create a divide between those willing to break themselves for sport and those unwilling to do so.

I knew a guy that would just buy a couple of no-doze a couple of hours before each race...I'd drink the coffee

gamblin Eddy wrote:

Interesting then, that people who drink coffee tend to live longer, maintain intelligence better as they age, are less likely to get cancer, diabetes, and liver disease, have improved heart health, and don't have higher blood pressure.

And caffeine works in part by promoting your body's use of fat stores instead of glycogen early on in exercise, which means you have more for later.

Your claims are ridiculous. Your stupidity makes me laugh.

Caffeine does none of those things.

Red Bull has caffeine. Coke has caffeine. Tea has caffeine. Hot chocolate has caffeine. Chocolate milk has caffeine. Decaffeinated coffee still has caffeine.

You have to draw the line at quantifying the known benefit, and not caring about the noise.

BTW (I said it above, but I'll repeat it), caffeine in coffee doesn't have the same performance benefits as caffeine.

Reasonable post. Where do you get your information concerning point #1?

Sorry Jack, this conversation is over.

It may be over for you, I'm still willing to listen to others.

If what rerunner is saying about coffee is true, then I wouldn't have any problem with someone drinking coffee because there is no performance-enhancing effect. I'm willing to have my mind changed. Doesn't change how I feel about performance-enhancing substances in general though.

J.R. wrote:

random a hole wrote:

Water can also be fatal in large doses. Most substances will fall into this category.

That is not so.

Water is not toxic. 80% of the body is water.

Caffeine is toxic in very small amounts. You would not take large amounts of caffeine and survive.

You are saying that water cannot be fatal in large doses?

rekrunner wrote:

Is "Sacremento 3200m" a kid in high school? I didn't see him say that anywhere.

Who else runs the 3200 except for HS?

try it with some workouts or easy runs and see how your system/stomach handles it. personally i like it, especially for morning long runs

J.R. wrote:

Water is not toxic. 80% of the body is water.

Caffeine is toxic in very small amounts. You would not take large amounts of caffeine and survive.

jo ho wrote:

You are saying that water cannot be fatal in large doses?

I am saying that water is not toxic. Quoting msm just shows your ignorance. You need water to live. 80% of the body is water.

Caffeine is toxic in very small quantities. No one needs any caffeine. The less people have of caffeine the better. And there are other toxic substances in coffee besides caffeine.