Beetroot juice: the new sport drink?
By Julien on Sunday, April 29 2012, 20:40 - Nutrition - Permalink
A recent article on the Telegraph website reports that researchers at St Louis University in America found out that runners are about 3% faster on a 5 km treadmill run after having beetroot rather than cranberries. In fact, this has already been demonstrated in 2009 by researchers from Exeter, who compared beetroot to blackcurrent.
Nitrates in beetroot apparently dilate blood vessels, reducing blood pressure and making oxygen usage more efficient. This leads to being able to run longer (by 16% according the 2009 study) or faster, but both studies were limited to short runs/rides. What about marathons and beyond?
My main concern with eating a large amounts of beetroot before or during an ultramarathon is that beetroot colours the urine into red. What looks like a funny side effect might actually be problematic in diagnosing long distance running related injuries such as rhabdomyolysis (muscle destruction) and/or kidney failure, which are typically characterised by darker urine colour.
How long before a gel/bar/sport drink is marketed "with beetroot extract"?
Ultra root
Nitrates in beetroot apparently dilate blood vessels, reducing blood pressure and making oxygen usage more efficient. This leads to being able to run longer (by 16% according the 2009 study) or faster, but both studies were limited to short runs/rides. What about marathons and beyond?
My main concern with eating a large amounts of beetroot before or during an ultramarathon is that beetroot colours the urine into red. What looks like a funny side effect might actually be problematic in diagnosing long distance running related injuries such as rhabdomyolysis (muscle destruction) and/or kidney failure, which are typically characterised by darker urine colour.
How long before a gel/bar/sport drink is marketed "with beetroot extract"?
Ultra root
Comments
It isn't the first time I heard about benefits from beetroot but I never try. And you already can find some products with beetroot, in France at least, for example: http://www.okidosport-nutrition.com...
Well spotted! They actually refer to these two articles.
http://www.beet-it.com/sport/
A quand une étude sur les atouts du jus de biroute ?
==> Désolé, je sors
I'm always worried with products, even perfectly natural, that tweak the balance of blood pressure and oxygen consumption. Couldn't that be harmful in some way? <mode paranoid="off"/>
Maybe, but you do consume products which increase significantly blood pressure every day, starting with salt (let alone alcohol and coffee). That said, blood pressure reduction is usually considered as beneficial.
I have recently completed the SDW100. I used a mixture of beetroot juice (beet it) with cherry juice (beetroot is quite an aquired taste! mixing it with cherry not only boosts the antioxidant levels in but provides a high level of sugar and improves palatability) I also watered the mixture down significantly...through a few experiments to work out the isotonic potential of the mixture.....I am a biologist!)
I've been an ultra runner for about 4 years and I really notice the difference on longer runs. On the SDW100 I consumed 5 litres (of the mix....2 litres of beetroot in total) over the course of 24 hours. I had run out at about 80 miles. yes, the colour of the urine did mask any rhabdomyolysis but maintaining a steady flow of urine and a self diagnosis of colour enabled me to stay hydrated. I supplemented this with 3 beet-it shots taken at 38, 54 and 69 miles in. terrible taste but also beneficial. I had previously taken these on a back to back marathon weekend.
I am a convert but the key issue is palatability. You can't just take this up without getttng used to it.
Thanks a lot for this insight UltraBobban. I might give it a go.