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Caffeine! How long should I abstain?
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I have decided to abstain from caffeine in the build up to the Seattle Marathon on the 26th of November. Anybody know of any objective data showing how many days I need to abstain from coffee (my primary source of caffeine) to get the performance boost? I saw a couple of articles that I googled that talked about 3-4 days, but these were not primary research articles.

I don't consider myself a hardcore junkie, but I do have 2-3 cups of coffee every morning and an occasional cup in the afternoon. On rare occasions I will have a coke. I'm definitely feeling deprived without my java this morning, but I honestly think that is mostly psychological and not physiological. I have inadvertantly gone a couple of days without before and never thought twice about it. But out here on the ship, coffee is the cup of life and everybody around me is enjoying morning brew and I'm jonesing.

Will I make the next 3 weeks coffee-free, only time will tell.


Dan Hollingsworth

Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul." - Douglas MacArthur
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Re: Caffeine! How long should I abstain? [Lieutenant_Dan] [ In reply to ]
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Can you "cheat" and drink decaf? At least you'll still be going thru the motions, and since drinking coffee is more a mini-break than anything else (smoke 'em if ya got 'em), then you'll still keep your 'habit' to some extent.

When I've done it, it's just been the week of the race. Regardless of the race being on Sat or Sunday, I'll have my last caffeine the prior Sunday, so I start off Mon am cold turkey.

Dev used the Peter Reid-approved 2 week abstinence for Kona, and it certainly didn't seem to do him any harm. PBing bastard ;-) That's it, it's cuz I didn't do a caffeine hiatus for Kona, that's the reason I didn't beat Dev :-) Yeah, that's the ticket!



Oh, so to answer your post looking for actual data - sorry, I have none.


float , hammer , and jog

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Re: Caffeine! How long should I abstain? [Lieutenant_Dan] [ In reply to ]
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I abstained for three weeks before IM Canada - overall I didn't have a great race, but I could really "feel" the caffeine when I started taking the Double Latte gels during the last half of the run.

-----------------------------------------------
evanoff.ca

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Re: Caffeine! How long should I abstain? [Lieutenant_Dan] [ In reply to ]
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3 weeks. I made the decision to live in a caffeine free body about 3 years ago except for special occasions. When I take it during a race its like taking speed.....it hits like a ton of bricks.

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Re: Caffeine! How long should I abstain? [Murphy'sLaw] [ In reply to ]
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Yeah right. Asking for decaf around here is tantamount to heresy. Could cause a mutiny. The only way I could look less manly would be to run around in a pink tutu. Actually if I wore a pink tutu and drank regular coffee, that would probably be better than drinking decaf :-)

So it seems there is no real concensus. 3-4 days, 1 week, 2 weeks. I guess I'm really just searching for an excuse to break down and have a cup of joe. It's probably just better if I don't have any at all. If I start drinking it today, I'm probably done for this entire underway.


Dan Hollingsworth

Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul." - Douglas MacArthur
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Re: Caffeine! How long should I abstain? [Lieutenant_Dan] [ In reply to ]
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Maximize the illicit effect and try a "caffeine nap" once you come back. Drink (in my case) a triple tall Americano or two, to use Starbucks shorthand. Then immediately settle in for a 15 minute nap. It takes the caffeine about that long to take full effect, by napping you create fertile "soil" for optimal buzz.

I won't get into the science but it works. There is also some interesting evidence that caffeine diminishes blood oxygen capacity in a novel way but that the psychological edge overlaps the physiological down side for endurance sport.
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Re: Caffeine! How long should I abstain? [Lieutenant_Dan] [ In reply to ]
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You don't consider 3-4 cups a day hardcore? Maybe not hardcore but it's definitely a chronic habit. Take at least 2 weeks off from all caffeine...that includes sodas, teas, and dark chocolate. Race morning pop 400-600mg about an hour before the race. Of course you're not going to use high doses of caffeine for a race without first trying it in your training, right?

http://www.erofit.com/...NC_CaffeineAug05.pdf

http://repositories.cdlib.org/...lchem/nutritionbytes

http://www.trifuel.com/...endurance-000402.php
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Re: Caffeine! How long should I abstain? [TH3_FRB] [ In reply to ]
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Not hard core compared to many of my shipmates. We're talking about people who have 3-4 cups with breakfast. Some of these guys have the permanent kung-fu grip deformity from holding their coffee cup all day long. Compared to them, I'm just a sipper. I definitely recognize that I'm a full-blown habitual coffee drinker. I would be hard pressed to recall the last time I went a full day without a cup. I don't think I need rehab or anything though.


Dan Hollingsworth

Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul." - Douglas MacArthur
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Re: Caffeine! How long should I abstain? [Lieutenant_Dan] [ In reply to ]
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I typically have 1 cup in the morning at work and a diet Coke in the afternoon. I'm 5 days into my no caffeine period leading up to Clearwater and I'm making it okay. I actually notice it the most in the afternoon around 2-3pm when I would typically have my soda. After a few days it's not big deal but the first couple days I'm ready to lay my head down on the keyboard for a nap.
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Re: Caffeine! How long should I abstain? [TH3_FRB] [ In reply to ]
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How much caffeine is in dark chocolate? I picked up a couple of bags of Hershey's Dark Chocolate treats for this underway. In the past I have had a bad habit of eating desserts in the wardroom and during the last underway it kind of got out of hand. The cookies are pretty good and the rest of the food is pretty crappy. Anyway, my plan this underway was to avoid the cookies and cakes by popping a piece of dark chocolate or two per day. I know there is caffeine in chocolate, but I didn't think it would be enough to affect my goal of temporarily "quitting" caffeine.


Dan Hollingsworth

Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul." - Douglas MacArthur
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Re: Caffeine! How long should I abstain? [Lieutenant_Dan] [ In reply to ]
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I abstained for two weeks before IMUSA Lake Placid and for IM Hawaii. From caffeine that is.....

Barry Dmitruk
2017: Florida 70.3 (done); Mont Tremblant 70.3 & Ironman


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