how much do you drink and how fast are you?

24 year old M. 20-25 drinks per week (2-3 on week nights, blowout on weekends).

8k: 25:20

5k: 15:39

10k: 31:50

I sleep like crap and I always feel tired. I think the biggest effect is on strength, I just can't seem to get the 5k time faster no matter what when it should be better. I think I have better long distance times because I can mentally persevere at a decent clip even when I feel shot. I definitely think I can get that 5K sub 15:10 and even better 8k/10k times if I stopped but it is fun so I won't.

It definitely is detrimental to performance, you can't be the best and be drinking consistently, you want a world record, quit drinking. It's a diuretic and will dehydrate you faster which leads to slower recovery, meaning you'll never get faster and more likely injured with life long consequences. Also, you'll save more money not constantly drinking and lose weight, and feel better overall.

150 800m PR. They call me Jim "I am the liquor" Lahey Jr. In particular, I enjoy Howler Head whiskey.

Have never had a drink.

Got hurt in college and haven't been able to run for almost 50 years.

Walking a marathon this weekend. Hope to break 5:30.

Alcohol slows down your body's recovery process, so yes, if you drink it will impact your running performance. A few drinks now and then is probably immaterial, but regular binge drinking will slow you down.

Maybe 1 and a half litres

20 per week. 16:30 5k. definitely hurts ability to get faster

28yo male. pre-pandemic i was probably having somewhere around 10-12 drinks a week, over 2 nights. i wasn't training at all, but i occasionally ran the local parkrun in ~22:00, all out.

during the pandemic, now i'm probably closer to 22-25 drinks a week, although this is spread out over all 7 days of the week... i also picked up a daily weed habit, but i stretch an eighth over a month, which is miniscule for a daily user. a good habit i picked up was an average of 30 mpw, trending up to 40 recently.

currently: 55/2:08/4:50/17:45

lifetime prs: 50/2:00/4:3X/16:30 (albeit on 3 years of 50-70mpw summers and very intense 40-50mpw in season)

notes:

- i lost 20 pounds since the beginning of the pandemic. this is still 10 pounds above my HS race weight. cutting out the beer and weed munchie food would probably get me to HS race weight and i'd certainly be faster, but i'd rather not look like i did back then.

- i feel that even though i consume much more alcohol as a whole, i never drink enough during a single night to get a hangover anymore. so i actually feel "better" than i did prior to pandemic. maybe my liver does not agree, but haven't seen any signs of that.

- anyone who REALLY smokes weed can tell you that i'm not smoking a lot at all. that being said, i can still sometimes "feel it in my chest" the next day. definitely doesn't feel good, but not sure if i can quantify how this affects my performance. prior to race/TT days, i use an edible instead of smoke/vape.

- prior to smoking weed, i was the type that took a solid 30-45 minutes to fall asleep after i got in bed. the weed both makes me go to sleep earlier as well as fall asleep near instantly. i'm probably getting 1.5 more hours of sleep than i did prior, so i would say this is a benefit.

i am definitely not as fast as i could possibly be, but i am not trying to be, so i'm happy.

4:14 guy. Usually go out once or twice a week and have 5-10 drinks per outing.

I don’t think it has any noticeable affect on my running, sure the next day is a bit rough but those days are supposed to be easy days anyways.

I also don’t eat sweets or unhealthy foods. I get plenty of sleep when I’m not partying, so I would say I still live a very healthy lifestyle

There are a few hundred things I wish I'd done differently, and laying off the booze for a few decades is in my top five or so.

Drink once every 4 months maybe, 4:01 mile/13:59 5k.

First thread I ever read on Letsrun was about the Bicentennial challenge (100 miles + 100 beers in 7 days).

As an early 20s semi-serious hobby jogger & fairly heavy drinker (~40mpw + binge drinking usually twice per week at the time) I decided to attempt it. I shuffled (9+ minute miles) to complete the challenge and was off running for two months afterwards due to a hip issue from the sudden volume bump + lack of recovery / sleep from the 14-15 beers per day needed to finish. Dumbest thing I’ve ever done by far and only finished with the encouragement of equally dumb friends. Granted, this type of drinking is alcoholic levels so the performance impairment was more dramatic, but in general the drinking was never good for my running. Later on I cut it out completely, which was for the best, as I clearly had alcoholic tendencies lol.

I drink 0 alcohol. I drank occasionally in my late teens/early 20s but never have had a thirst for the bottle.

Right now I might be able to break 6 in a mile. I don't know exactly what kind of shape I'm in.

I ran 5:47 two years ago in a spur of the moment time trial which I wasn't rested for.

Lifetime best of 4:20 for 1500m aged 17.

Currently run 20-30mpw.

boozedrunner wrote:

First thread I ever read on Letsrun was about the Bicentennial challenge (100 miles + 100 beers in 7 days).

As an early 20s semi-serious hobby jogger & fairly heavy drinker (~40mpw + binge drinking usually twice per week at the time) I decided to attempt it. I shuffled (9+ minute miles) to complete the challenge and was off running for two months afterwards due to a hip issue from the sudden volume bump + lack of recovery / sleep from the 14-15 beers per day needed to finish. Dumbest thing I’ve ever done by far and only finished with the encouragement of equally dumb friends. Granted, this type of drinking is alcoholic levels so the performance impairment was more dramatic, but in general the drinking was never good for my running. Later on I cut it out completely, which was for the best, as I clearly had alcoholic tendencies lol.

This is what Letsrun should be about. Make Letsrun Great Again!

I drink 7 beers per week. I am 50 and I ran 16:30 last year for a 5k.

6 drinks per week. 4 beers & 2 glasses of wine in a typical week. Age 61, male. Yesterday ran 4 miles in 35:28.

The alcohol does have an effect on my ability to run faster. I am training for a 4 mile race on Oct. 2. It's probably time to start tapering down and prepare for 7 days abstaining from alcohol in the week leading up to the race. I may post a drinking and training log here after Oct. 2

I was a mediocre 14:48/29:55 D1 runner and rarely drank in college or the 5 subsequent years (2:30:31 marathon). I started to regularly drink on weekends at about 28 years old and pretty much kept it to the weekends until the pandemic. I hated going into the office after a night of drinking (even just one or two).

Now I am trying to get back to just weekends again, but it is hard because we have friends and neighbors who are always asking if we want to meet in a yard/patio/kitchen for a cocktail in the evenings. A cocktail usually means a few drinks. I am very aware of my drinking and I noticed an uptick during the pandemic. I can only imagine how much others have increased their drinking with stay-at-home orders and remote work and maybe didn't notice/care.

I tend to drink a couple IPAs if I drink. If I am going to dinner with wife/friends it'll be a beer and then wine with dinner. I rarely get drunk anymore, but if there is a wedding or party I may have a couple too many.

Sorry... didn't answer the second part of the question. I still run about 60-70 mpw, but no longer race. Hard to say how fast I am, but all of my training runs are "easy" runs that I run at about 6:45 pace. Easy is in quotes because they are not always easy, but I do not do speed work or any kind of real training anymore. I still feel good at that pace, but I am not sure I could run much faster.