Staying Awake

It's about midnight, I'm approaching mile 70 of my first 100 mile ultramarathon... and the couch at the top of the hill looks really inviting. I tell myself, "when I get to the top of this hill I'm going to sit down for a couple mins and rest."  Then I realize something very important, my eyes are closed and I'm starting to fall asleep while I'm running.  There's no couch at the top of the hill, I'm falling asleep while I'm running and my brain is drifting off to dream land.  I tell my friend Kyle who is pacing me for the last 50 miles of the Headlands 100 what's going on.  We agree on one thing, I need some caffeine to stay awake.

We get to the aid station and I ask the volunteer if they have any caffeine.  He hands me can of Mt. Dew and I thank him.  Kyle and I head back onto the trail, and about 30 mins later the caffeine hits me and I'm back to normal.  We end up repeating this at every aid station.

When I first started running 100 mile events the hardest thing for me to deal with wasn't the mileage, it was the sleep deprivation.  After a lot of trial and error (unfortunately most of this trial and error was during races) I finally found a system that worked for me.

I love soda, I'm not going to lie about that.  Drinking Mt Dew and Dr Pepper during a race is a normal thing for me.  The trick became figuring out if it could be beneficial during a race.

After a little research I found that caffeine takes about 7 days to completely get out of your system.  For caffeine to be fully beneficial during a race it needs to be out of your system prior to the event.

This is what I have found works for me.  About 10 days before any event that I run (usually 50k to 100 mile) I completely avoid caffeine.  I find this is also beneficial because I get a really good sleep the 10 days prior to the race.

During a 100 mile event I avoid caffeine until the late hours of the evening.  I try to go until at least 10:00pm, if not midnight, before I start consuming caffeine.

When it's time to consume caffeine I use to use 200mg caffeine pills, but I've found that I personally prefer using caffeinated sports drinks and gels.  This allows me to get small steady doses of caffeine in my system throughout the race without it disturbing my stomach too much.

I typically use Gu's salted caramel gels (20 mg caffeine per serving) and Fluid's Peach Tea sports drink (50 mg caffeine per serving).  I also still enjoy a can of Mt Dew or Dr Pepper from time to time at the aid stations.

I still go through close to the same process for 50k and 50 mile races.  For a 50k event I typically wait until mile 16 or 20 to introduce caffeine into my system, and for a 50 mile event i typically wait until mile 30ish.

until next time...

KEEP RUNNING!!!!

p.s. I am in no way sponsored by, or affiliated with, Fluid or Gu... I have had nothing but good luck with their products and just want to share what works for me so far.