Everyone knows Alcohol is bad for you. So why do people wonder is alcohol bad for runners? The thing is that it’s such a socially accepted drug that most people don’t even consider that drinking alcohol and running might be sub-optimal. I don’t mean at the same time, but check out the “Beer Mile” concept if you want to combine them both! So as a runner, if you are training to improve running fitness and get faster, how will drinking alcohol impact your progress?
When you look at elite runners, you’ll find that most of them don’t drink alcohol at all, or at most very occasionally. Why is this?
Drinking alcohol and running isn’t a good mix. If you drink alcohol regularly through the week, even in small amounts, and are trying to train to make your running better too, you won’t improve as fast as your conceptual clone who isn’t drinking any alcohol.
The main impact of alcohol on runners is going to be the increased recovery time. So, is alcohol bad for runners? Yes! Increased recovery time is bad and leads to greater risk of injury.
How does Alcohol affect recovery from running?
Alcohol disrupts normal hormone production, speeding up production of some hormones and suppressing others. Most alcohol is socially drunk during the evening, around dinner time and before sleep. Here’s what happens to your body’s hormones when drinking alcohol at this time of day.
First, your blood sugar levels increase very quickly. To counter this, Insulin is produced to try and lower the blood sugar level again. When you fall asleep, your blood sugar levels normally drop rapidly, but since Insulin is already in full flow trying to lower blood sugar from the alcohol, the body tries to defend itself from dangerously low blood sugar levels by producing Cortisol. This all works fine, but Cortisol is a stimulant, so your quality of sleep is reduced. You may find yourself waking up during the night, or not getting much deep sleep. So drinking alcohol in the evening will affect your recovery from running because sleeping is when most of your recovery happens.
Additionally, drinking Alcohol suppresses the release of a hormone called Vasopressin, which under normal circumstances tells the kidneys that it’s time to retain fluid. This is why alcohol is a Diuretic, meaning you need to urinate more often and hydration is not efficient. In terms of recovery overnight, this leads to interrupted sleep because you need to visit the toilet. Night-time toilet visits can also be increased because a lot of alcoholic drinks are served in large liquid portions.
The reason most recovery normally happens while you are asleep is because that’s when your body produces the most Growth Hormone. And yes, you guessed it, drinking alcohol suppresses Growth Hormone production, which is necessary for the body to recover from running, build new muscle and burn fat. Recovery is the most important part of your running training plan to get right.
Drinking one glass of alcohol in the evening has been proven to reduce overnight production of growth hormone by more than 60% and two glasses of alcohol takes this to more than an 80% reduction. You can imagine that your recovery from training hard will be negatively impacted in a significant way. Your teetotal clone has recovered properly and is ready to smash tomorrow’s interval session or long run on freshly recovered legs. Meanwhile, you are running on legs that are still a bit beat up from yesterday, risking injury if you keep doing this for a few weeks.
In summary, alcohol leads to less sleep, poor sleep depth and worse recovery in the sleep you do get.
How does Alcohol affect running?
It’s pretty unusual to attempt running soon after a few alcoholic drinks, so what I’m talking about here is running while hungover the next day.
The plan for Sunday says go out and run for 90 minutes, but you had a few drinks on Saturday night and are feeling a bit groggy. One of two things is going to happen. Either your willpower is going out the window and you stay in bed, or you head out anyway on legs that didn’t recover properly the night before. Either way, it’s not going to be as good a run as you had hoped for in the plan.
The older you are, the worse the impact will be. Your hangovers will be worse and the amount of recovery that you need but didn’t get is greater than for your younger self.
Due to the Diuretic impact of alcohol, you will also likely be a little bit dehydrated, making you thirsty, tired and possibly a headache. Sitting around on the sofa, this isn’t so much of an issue, but if you are meant to be going running, even a small amount of dehydration will blunt the effectiveness of the run, perhaps even needing to cut it short.
Tactics for alcohol and running
The easiest plan to write down is: “Don’t drink!” However, drinking alcohol, whether it’s just one of an evening or many at the weekend, is for many a norm. Given that alcohol is addictive, and most people don’t want to be elite athletes, giving that up might be a lot tougher than writing it down. Is it an option for you to try? Lots of people do “Dry” months, especially in January in a New Year. Perhaps give a month a go now and see how it affects your running.
If there is one night a week where you might drink more than normal, for example a social evening out on Friday or Saturday night, then change your running plan around so that that day is a rest day. Then most of the recovery from your last run will have already happened.
Drive. Offer to give friends a lift to wherever you are going. You can’t drink if you are driving. Not only is alcohol bad for runners, but it’s bad for anything that requires quick reflexes and spatial awareness.
If none of that works for you, there’s always the Marathon Du Medoc in France that boasts 23 wine tasting stops along the route!
