The Athlete and the Sauce

I used to love drinking beer.

I still love drinking beer, but I used to, too.¹

I also love running fast. And herein lies the problem.

Back in my early 20's, I could hit the bars on Saturday night, set the alarm for 8, wake up, dust myself off, and get my 12 miles in on Sunday morning. It doesn't work like that anymore; now I find that I can have one beer without feeling any ill effects, but after having a second (and anything beyond that) I'll really start to notice the interrupted sleep and recovery, and I'll feel sluggish on my runs for a day or two. I also tend to gain weight easily, and the quickest way to do this is to add regular barley sandwiches to the diet.

Ok, so there's an easy solution. When you want to drink, just have one beer and stop.

Well... personally, I find that strategy to be much easier said than done. I grew up in a culture where binge drinking was the norm, and some of that DNA remains.² I find myself in many situations where I find it difficult to have one beer and stop - not because of any explicit peer pressure, but often because I'm having a good time and want it to keep rolling, and mentally the "seal is broken". It's very easy to convince yourself that just ONE more drink isn't going to make a big difference, and before you know it you've had 4 or 5.

So just give up drinking then. It's not good for you anyway.

Well… I don't want to do that. It's popular for fitness influencers (scientific, pseudoscientific, and otherwise) these days to dunk on alcohol for all of its negative health effects.³ But in my experience, social drinking can be… really fun. It can make it easier to make new friends, and it can solidify the bonds you have with old friends. These things are extremely important to me.

I'm at the age where I'm going to multiple weddings and/or bachelor parties per year. I want to be there for my closest friends the way they were there for me at those major life events - and in most cases that means showing up and partying hard.⁴ In 2023, I had a close friend's bachelor party 2 weeks before the Glass City Marathon. I went but I didn't drink, and I left the bars early - this decision caused pretty intense feelings of guilt, both at the time and now. I felt selfish for prioritizing my race over my friend, and I'm still not sure if I made the right decision.

It might look a little different for you - maybe it's a weekly bowling league or wine with family dinners that you don't want to give up. Everyone's situation is different, but most of us will be forced to make decisions between prioritizing our athletic goals and our social lives.

So what the hell are we supposed to do?

We are athletes but we are also human beings, and human beings are social animals. A life of giving in to every temptation is one where we are rudderless and unfulfilled. But a life that is purely the cold, logical optimization of athletic performance will leave us burnt out and isolated. We need to find a way to strike a balance between prioritizing our athletic goals and maintaining our social lives - in the best cases these two lives work hand in hand.⁵

So here is my (imperfect) two-step strategy that I created and (imperfectly) implement in my own training:

In Season

Define a cut-off day before a goal race, and don't drink at all after that day.

It's way easier for me to show up at the beginning of a night and say "I have a race coming up, I'm not drinking tonight" than it is to navigate the "should I have one more beer" decision on a minute-by-minute basis. If your friends are like mine, they will give you shit for a minute or two and then move right on.

So I just pick a date before a goal race, and it's a non-negotiable matter that I won't drink between that date and the race. In the past I did one month, but now that my 30+-year-old social lifestyle is a little less alcohol-centric, I can pretty easily go 12 or 14 weeks before a race without drinking. I find that these extended dry periods make me feel super sharp on race day, and make me value the off-season beers even more.

Off-season

Outside of the dry periods, (sometimes) drink with the people you truly value.

I don't tend to regret the nights when I let loose and drink with my closest friends and family: Post-race beers with teammates, the holidays, the aforementioned weddings and bachelor parties, etc. The times when I wake up the next day feeling sluggish and annoyed at myself are the times when I didn't really need to drink: slightly awkward work events, situations where I was meeting new people and (unnecessarily) felt tacit social pressure to have a few drinks, etc.

I try to be intentional about when I drink. I pick my spots. And on special occasions I decide beforehand that I'm going to drink, and do it guilt-free.⁶ I don't always get it right, but just reminding myself to think about the trade-off between athletic performance and social bonding is enough to get me to drink less often in situations where I didn't need to, and feel less guilt in situations where I do drink.

My system isn't perfect, and I don't even stick to it 100% of the time. And sometimes I wonder if I'm taking myself too seriously - maybe I'll look back in 20 years and regret the early nights and missed opportunities to drink, laugh and hang out. But in trying to find the balance between being a running-monk and a complete hedonist, I've found that creating a system and doing my best to adhere to it has been greatly helpful. I recommend taking some time to consider your situation and be deliberate in creating your own system.