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March 05, 2005
Sports drinks with protein?
When I run more than an hour, I drink during the run. It seems likely my injury last summer was due in part to slight dehydration.
I've been using a carbohydrate-only mix to make sports drink rather than trying straight water. You may think it's silly to drink sugar water, that it perhaps prevents you from burning fat, but when you go 10 or more miles, you're still going to burn more calories than you'll take in through your sports drink.
I'm now thinking about perhaps adding protein. PoweringMuscles.com has some articles on endurance running performance that suggest taking 1 gram of protein for every 4 grams of carbohydrate during exercise can protect your muscles during the run, and help repair them faster afterwards. They also cite research suggesting hitting the wall might be as much the body's reaction to muscle damage as to glycogen depletion.
So far I've only had one running experience where I hit the wall. That was in the half marathon at the Wanzenau in Alsace I ran one April having done almost no training during the winter. It happened about a mile before I finished. My time to finish then was about 2 hours. After the race I was thoroughly exhausted. Probably hadn't had enough to drink in addition to being in relatively bad shape for running.
Posted by Mark at March 5, 2005 04:31 PM