As many of you may know I am a serious coffee drinker. Believe it or not, I never drank coffee until I was about 30. Never liked the taste and always thought it was bad for you. Well, I got over both of these due the presence of caffeine. I can almost remember the day like it was yesterday when I bought that first cup of coffee off a food truck that pulled onto the lot of my company's location. Man, the coffee was horrible but that caffeine hit me and I was wide awake.
It was about ten years after that, when I was around 40, that I began endurance sports training and then came to rely on coffee and caffeine as part of my nutritional strategy. One of the many changes in our outlook from a nutrition stand point is that coffee is actually good for us. There are so many benefits to it that it is hard to believe at one point we thought the opposite.
Check out this link to the Huffington Post on the benefits of coffee: click here.
OK, how does this make me love Ironman Triathlon more - this is a great question but for me it is pretty straight forward. Caffeine benefits me in a couple of ways. Number one, it provides a boost to help me get going or though a workout. Getting a workout done is always a great thing.
Secondly, it helps my brain function as I get tired. A lot of fatigue is in your mind, there is where you tire out first. If you can keep your mind from "slowing down" or quitting on you your workout and/or your race will be faster and more satisfying.
Back to my coffee drinking,I have come a long way since that day at work where I bought my first cup of coffee. I am now a hard core Bulletproof Coffee guy and this is my breakfast everyday. Just go to www.bulletproofexec.com to learn more about that. It is amazing!