Creatine and Running??

You just have to be careful to hydrate enough. Your body will bloat for a few weeks and then it'll get close to normal again. It's good for recovery and fast twitch stuff, as well as cognitive ability. All that said, I believe you would get the same, or more, benefit from adding more (a lot more) salt into your diet. Look up Stan Efferding salt intake. Adding a quarter tsp of salt to my 16 oz water bottle has literally changed my running in the past month. This is because when you "feel" like quitting, it isn't the lack of glycogen in your muscles, it's the lack of sodium. Anyways, creatine will help (another thing it can do is naturally boost testosterone a bit), but it isn't a wonder drug or anything. Stay hydrated.

Personal experience here:

Creatine seems to help recovery with anaerobic reps in workouts. This can be anything from plyometrics, weight lifting, and even shorter intervals.

The negative is that you will gain 5 or so lbs of water weight and still need to drink more than usual.

Creatine hasn’t seemed to give me any edge in racing, I honestly think I race better without it as I drop that 5 lbs within a week of stopping use.

Some point to some studies showing that creatine can potentially improve your flat out ATP energy system along with the reuptake of ATP, which would potentially make you race ever so slightly better in events like 200-400m, maybe even 800m depending on how fast you are, but probably no gains in the 1500m and up.

Most studies suggest little to no performance gains for endurance athletes taking a creatine supplement. There are quite a few studies suggesting that it has a fair bit of performance enhancement properties for short bouts of exercise. It does seem to help with explosive power mostly, but has been shown to give better muscle endurance in high intensity workouts.

This would mean little to no gain for a 5k runner and on top of that, it can lead to weight gain. If taken at low doses, 2-3g a day, weight gain can be avoided.

Took creatine in college. I did the long jump and felt it would help my explosiveness. I’m not sure how much it did, but what it did do is make my face really fat and my whole upper body looked softer. I quit it and I dropped 10 lbs in no time.

Personal experience of taking creatine;

I felt like I could lift much more and maybe slightly heavier. Strides felt less taxing/felt like I could handle much more volume with ease. Definitely felt the effects of bloating though. Made the longer distance reps a little harder, however when I stopped taking it I lost the water weight quickly and felt really good. Overall I felt a little snappier.

I think the best way to use it would be to take a very small amount with one meal a day, as that should hopefully keep the water weight down.

FWIW I was a 13:50 and high 28 minute guy who ran 90-105mpw. I stopped taking it post conference and felt pretty good by regionals. If you were to take it I would look into cycling it and talk to your school nutritionist.

I took it before, and it definitely helps with lifting and bulking up. I wasn’t a runner then.

I accidentally got some protein powder that contained creatine when I was running a lot and I ended up somewhat dehydrated and with a strained calf (it wasn’t really that bad and it was also in August in the Midatlantic when it was 80F and high humidity during my workouts) as a result. I didn’t notice any benefit for running.

My experience with creatine is that it is helpful for wt training . I found consistent use of arginine and BCAA's much more helpful in running and recovery.