I have been taking about 4 - 5 grams of Beta-Alanine for the last few weeks to help with the delay or minimizing of lactic acid build up. I have taken it pre race but never during a race. I was thinking of taking 2.5 grams in T1 and T2 during an Ironman. Does anyone have experience doing this?
Have you looked at any of the studies on baking soda supplementation?
I have been taking about 4 - 5 grams of Beta-Alanine for the last few weeks to help with the delay or minimizing of lactic acid build up. I have taken it pre race but never during a race. I was thinking of taking 2.5 grams in T1 and T2 during an Ironman. Does anyone have experience doing this?
As far as I know, there is no improvement in performance with acute beta alanine supplementation, especially considering you’re taking it via chronic supplementation.
Sodium Bicarbonate is like playing with fire. For the right events, it can be worthwile. However, explosive diarrhea is almost inevitable.
Does buffering ability limit your performance?
Are you competing in events at or above threshold? (Ie Olympic distance and shorter / 10K and below / 40K TT or shorter?) If not, that pill isn’t doing you much good.
I normally experience the feeling that my quads have been beaten up by a hammer after a Half Ironman. For the World 70.3 this year I took about 5 grams a day, 10 days leading up to it and I had a great run and no pain in the quads. I am just getting ready now for the Florida IM and have started taking it again but was wondering the effects if I took it in T1 and T2, a little too late to do a simulation now.
There are some pretty good studies out there if you check it on the Googler. Some showing little to no improvement, some indeed showing improvements. Haven’t noticed any negatives to taking it though. I’m certainly no expert on it…but from what I’ve read it seems like some people are far more reactive to it than others (just like caffeine for example, some people really react, others not at all). I have not tried it during a race though, but I don’t believe that would have any benefit over regular daily use.
I know with PowerBar’s version it says to take a double dose for the first 30days (3.2g per day) then 1.6g per day after that. Also right on the bottle it indicates that results would take 4-8wks typically to be seen.
So it seems unlikely that you would have noticed any results either way so far in the short time you’ve been taking it
Infinit is offering it as an addition to their custom formulas. I added that along with CQ10. If your system is used to it and your hitting big training days with it, you should be able to see if any problems are created.
explosive diarrhea is almost inevitable.
I have been taking about 4 - 5 grams of Beta-Alanine for the last few weeks to help with the delay or minimizing of lactic acid build up. I have taken it pre race but never during a race. I was thinking of taking 2.5 grams in T1 and T2 during an Ironman. Does anyone have experience doing this?
It’s good for repeated high end efforts, such as endurance races at the velodrome or interval training, but would have very little, if any benefit, for an IM…
though if it helps with high-end efforts/intervals as purported, then it allows you to train harder for those efforts, thus making you better at any distance race since you are (in theory) training harder on your hard efforts.
I still don’t think taking it mid-race would do any good (maybe/maybe not harm your race, but probably not help), but very possibly could allow you to train harder leading up to that race
As far as Sodium Bicarb…I have an interesting story.
A few years ago I was helping a friend with his ‘Soda Blasting’ business. Soda Blasting is similar to Sand Blasting however, Sodium Bicarb is the medium used instead of sand. Sodium Bicarb was used because it would blast the paint from cars but would not harm the windshield and/or the fairings on many of the vehicles. I helped this guy out for a few weeks. While blasting, I only used a loose fitting dust mask. The cloud of medium was constant and impossible to avoid but, the Sodium Bicarb was known to be safe. We both had physiology backgrounds and I have some chemistry background as a teacher…so I felt just fine breathing in a little Sodium Bicarb(actually alot). After about a week of working with this stuff, I noticed that my daily 2 mile running route was getting blsteringly fast paced(for me). It was the same 2 mile hilly route that I had been doing for years. Suddenly, I could blow through it with little to no burn. It felt awesome! I realized that POSSIBLY the Sodium Bicarb that I was breathing all day MAY have a buffering effect on my running. When the Soda Blasting work subsided…the burn came back and the speed dwindled when I ran. I tried to duplicate the effect by ingesting Sodium bicarb…and as many may have experienced…explosive diarrhea and stomach cramps that completely erased any benefit that I may had gained. I havent had the balls/desire to snort any Sodium Bicarb lines however, there may be something to inhalation.
I tried beta alinine for a while in 2013
It did not cause any noticeable discontinuities in my power data.
Training a lot did.
ha, well I have no experience with sodium bicarbonate so can’t help you there… but I have certainly never experienced explosive diarrhea with beta-alanine 
intriguing
Not sure I am brave enough to try it either, but maybe.
Studies show it helps with shorter intervals up to about 3-4 minutes. If you incorporate those into your training, it could help by allowing you to do the short intervals at a higher output even if your goal is an ironman. Creatine has a similar value. But substances need to be loaded over time into the system and have little to no acute effect. For someone like me who relies on a very time crunched approach and spends lots of time doing intervals at or above threshold there is scientific reasons to take them. I also noticed I recover more quickly using them as well. During the season I discontinue creatine to reduce water retention. Hope this helps.