Many of us runners enjoy a drink or two. Running and all that goes with it offers plenty of reasons/ excuses (delete according to taste) to involve alcohol, whatever the occasion. New PB? Surely that deserves a celebratory beer or two. Terrible race? A debrief over a glass of red. Tough midweek hill session? See you in the bar later.
Some running groups make a virtue of tying the finishing line in with a tipple by using the closest pub as their unofficial clubhouse, starting and finishing races from it, while others have their own pub in the clubhouse.
Sometimes you don't even have to wait until the running stops for the drink to flow. Anyone who has completed - probably unsteadily - the Marathon du Médoc through French vineyards, complete with 23 wine-tasting stops (several of our Cape vineyards do this too, on a smaller scale), or taken part in a messy beer-mile challenge, will appreciate how alcohol and aerobic exercise can sometimes make entertaining companions.
But while for many the occasional drink may enhance our running lives, there can be a darker side to our relationship with alcohol. If we drink too much, too often, it will impact both physical and mental health. According to the UK's chief medical officer, no one should drink more than 14 units (6 x 500ml of average-strength beer, or 10 small glasses of low-strength wine) per week, ideally spread over three or more days. There's no safe alcohol limit, but experts say any health risks are low if we stick to this.
"There's no real evidence that even small amounts of alcohol will benefit your health," says Sir Ian Gilmore, professor of hepatology and director of the Liverpool Centre for Alcohol Research. "But even if you drink in the upper safety levels of 14 units a week, this equates to about a one in 100 chance of dying of alcohol-related disease, so your chances of that are very low."
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