Beets me

For the first time in several years, I tried drinking beet root juice as I awoke. This was in order to help with today's run. It was a good long run for me; I would have to say that (other than tasting nasty) the stuff certainly didn't hurt, and it may well have helped. My friends seemed interested, so here's what I've learned about beet juice. 

I gather that beet juice, beetroot juice, and beet root juice are all different ways to refer to the same thing: juice made from beets. To me, adding the word root does nothing to enhance understanding or description, since beets are roots anyway. I'll not engage further in the redundancy and refer to it as beet juice from here on. I should add that I do like the taste of beets. I eat them cooked, canned, or pickled. I can't say that I like the taste of beet juice, however. It does taste like liquid beets, but in this form, at four-ish in the morning, yuch.

Here are the results of the research I did regarding beet juice.

1) Although beet juice provides several important nutrients, nitrates are considered the most important. According to Healthline, beets are healthy no matter how you prepare them. But juicing beets is a superior way to consume them because cooking beets reduces their nutritional value.

2) According to a WebMD article, the nitrates are converted by your body into nitric oxide, which helps with blood flow and blood pressure. Some additional benefits of beet juice in general are improved exercise stamina, improved muscle power in people with heart failure, possible slowing of the progression of dementia, possible help with maintaining a healthy weight, and possible help with the prevention of cancer. Note that better exercise stamina and improved muscle power may be of interest to runners.

3) In a Runners World article, Andrew Jones, Associate Dean of Research in the College of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Exeter, states that “Nitric oxide acts on muscle cells and blood vessels, and being able to produce more nitric oxide might both improve muscle efficiency (and therefore running economy) and improve blood blow to muscle,”

4) Several studies provide insight. One found that supplementing with beetroot juice at least six days prior to intense exercise or athletic events for improved stamina and recovery. Other research found that active healthy adults supplementing with beet juice for 15 days showed an increase in power and oxygen during sustained exercise. Determination of the best way to use beet juice may require some individual experimentation.

This is the powder form that I acquired from Amazon 

Although it's available to buy as a liquid, this morning's dose was in powder form. I mixed a tablespoon in a glass of water. I'm not sure whether anything is lost by using powder, but it's certainly less expensive. I'll keep using it and see what happens.

Finally, here is a blog post from a few years ago about a relatively successful marathon where I chugged the beet juice on the way up to the race in Erie.

One final thought: from my perspective, it's not possible to say for sure that any particular factor weighs more than any other in influencing running performance. There's simply too much going on. I don't do controlled experimentation. All I can say for sure is that it tasted awful, but it certainly didn't hurt me for today's run.