Roses are red
Money is green
I run stronger
When I drink caffeine.

If you start every morning with a cup (or three) of coffee to help you wake up and feel alert, you may not be getting all the running performance benefits caffeine offers. When people talk about performance-enhancing drugs in sports, they aren’t usually talking about caffeine, but when used properly, it’s a safe and legal way to improve running performance.

My caffeine strategy is so effective, yet wildly unpopular. When I suggest to people that eliminating their daily coffee habit can improve running performance, I often get a lot of resistance, "I could never do that!" "I need my daily coffee." However, if you time your weekly caffeine intake around your key workouts, you can regularly have caffeine while enjoying the performance benefits, without any withdrawal symptoms.

How to use caffeine to Boost Running Performance

Caffeine is one of the most widely used drugs. It stimulates the central nervous system to make you more alert and provide energy, potentially boosting your running performance. Yet, if you consume caffeine daily, it has diminishing-effects over time as your body builds up a tolerance. As you've likely experienced, once your body adapts to your normal intake, you need to consume more to feel normal. It ceases to give you a boost, instead, you have negative symptoms are that are improved once the caffeine is consumed.

The FDA says 400 milligrams a day or about four cups of coffee is safe for most healthy adults. Our sensitivity to stimulants will vary, and we metabolize caffeine at different rates. In other words, four cups of coffee may be too much for one person and not too much for another.

I started experimenting with my caffeine intake when I noticed that I needed large amounts of coffee to wake up and feel alert. I was getting plenty of sleep, managing stress, and making healthy choices, but my growing caffeine needs left me feeling jittery or my stomach upset with the amount I was consuming. I could easily drink a pot of coffee, refill after refill.

I decided to do a caffeine purge to reset my tolerance; cold turkey. After years of daily caffeine intake, the transition wasn't easy. I felt terrible for a week with all the typical caffeine withdrawal symptoms, including headaches, foggy brain, moodiness, and irritability, to name a few. I want to take this opportunity to apologize to my husband and my coworkers.

I took one of those DNA tests that told me that I metabolize caffeine quickly, and it still took me nearly a full week until the fog started to clear. Once I was off caffeine, I felt more alert and energized naturally than with it. I wasn't waking up with a foggy brain or low energy that needed fixing with coffee.

Each time I reset, I considered if I even wanted to drink caffeine again because I felt so clear-headed, dare I say, better without it! But I eventually would reintroduce caffeine and, with my reduced tolerance, would enjoy the benefits with a smaller amount. One or two cups of coffee would give me all the boost I needed. But over time, as you might expect, my tolerance would increase, and I'd be back to consuming coffee by the pot.

The benefits of clearing my system of caffeine were short-lived when I reintroduced it again daily. My solution to the problem was to do a quarterly reset. Every three months, I'd go through the painful process of cold turkey, eliminating caffeine, to spend five to seven days feeling terrible before I could enjoy my new reset tolerance.

It worked well for me for a while; I've written about it on this blog, but even with my awful resets once a quarter, I still wasn't allowing my body to reap the real benefits of a caffeine-induced performance enhancer. Once I reintroduced daily caffeine, the tolerance started to build again within the first week.

Worst of all, I would dread the uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms so much that I would delay my resets.

5-reasons-i-gave-upcoffee (and-lived-to-talk-about-it)

Don't Make This Caffeine Intake Mistake

The mistake I made was to reintroduce caffeine daily. As soon as I started consuming daily again, my body started to develop that tolerance, and I was back in the same situation within a few weeks. The extended suffering wasn’t worth it for the short-lived results.

How To Use Caffeine To Improve Running Performance

Eliminate the caffeine dependence

The best way to use caffeine to improve running performance is to first get off the dependence, and this usually means you must go through the withdrawal process, but you only have to do it once.

You can go cold turkey as I did, and you'll likely experience those typical withdrawal symptoms. It can take from two to seven days, and you'll probably owe your spouse an apology at the end of it all. It's not fun, but you will only have to do this one time to follow my plan.

Or you can cut back gradually. Start by drinking half caffeinated, half-decaf, slowly increasing the decaf, and reducing the caffeine over time. This way takes longer but will help you remove caffeine from your system without significant negative symptoms.

Remember that sodas, teas, energy drinks, and some supplements may contain caffeine. No matter which method you determine is best for you, you can start to use caffeine to boost your running performance once you get off the caffeine dependence.

Once you eliminate caffeine from your system, you likely will feel increased energy, mood, and performance benefits the first day you reintroduce it.

Break the caffeine habit

The hardest part is breaking the habit of daily intake because coffee can be an ingrained habit developed over the years, maybe even decades.

One of the simplest (simple, not easy) ways to break a daily coffee habit is to replace the coffee with something comparable, maybe decaf, which has much less caffeine than standard coffee, or my preference, a caffeine-free hot tea.

Plan your caffeine intake days on critical workout days or race day

If you have a long run, a speedwork session, or a race, plan your caffeine intake to boost you once or twice a week when you need it most.

If my race is on Saturday, I won't drink caffeine at all Monday-Friday. On Saturday, on race day, I'll get that boost to improve performance when I need it most. If I drink caffeine again on Sunday, I may experience a slight increase in energy but not as strong as on Saturday, and by Monday, I won't feel much of a difference at all.

Remember, if I drink caffeine every day leading up to my race day, I am unlikely to feel any boost in energy or performance, it’s the elimination, then loading that gives the results.

Cycle caffeine intake throughout the week

The key to using caffeine to boost running performance while eliminating withdrawal symptoms is to get off the dependence completely. Then cycle off and on it within the week to have several days in a row without caffeine and then reintroduce it on the day you want to experience the performance benefits.

The best part is if you are not consuming caffeine daily, you no longer will have to break the dependency or experience those awful withdrawal symptoms on the days you don't have caffeine.

Your schedule may look something like this:

Monday-Thursday no caffeine
Friday (speed workday) caffeine
Saturday no caffeine
Sunday (long run day) caffeine

Monday-Tuesday no caffeine
Wednesday (speed workday) caffeine
Thursday-Saturday no caffeine
Sunday (long run day or race day) caffeine

Your goal is to cycle the caffeine within the week so that your intake days fall on key workouts or race day one to two days per week to boost performance, then eliminate or significantly reduce caffeine intake on other days of the week.

If you drink caffeine every single day, your body starts to build up a tolerance fairly quickly and lose the performance-enhancing benefits. While it may be challenging to break a lifelong habit, in my experience, the performance benefits far outweigh the inconvenience of changing a part of your daily routine.

What do you think? Am I crazy? Are you willing to experiment with your caffeine intake to boost your running performance? Questions? I’d love to help!

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