Beetroot Juice = Improved Endurance?

At the best of times of times my endurance sucks balls. At my absolute fittest back in the mid 90's, I could maintain a fast sprint with rest but a decent continuous pace is not what my body was made for.

This year I think I've only been able to get to footy training no more then 5 times with 2 full games and an intraclub game under the belt.

So it's fair to say I'm so far behind the 8 ball it's ridiculous. So I'm looking for any edge I can get at this point.

Enter Beetroot Juice.

I first read about the benefits of beetroot juice in regards to improving endurance a few years ago and with my great history of not trying new foods, never really gave it a second thought.

With already a bunch of injuries at my footy club this year (we're only up to round 2 and had 6 - 8 changes this week!) then I need to be able to run out a game sooner rather then later.

Beetroot juice contains nitrate which for all you supplement taking gym goers will recognise as the nitric in nitric oxide (NO Explode). Unless your one of those blokes who just take supp's becaase your mate is then you should also know that nitrate increases the diameters of your blood vessels allowing for greater blood flow to working muscles.

On Wednesday after Google searching then ringing a bunch of places that haven't stocked the stuff in years (take your websites down when you're out of business areseholes!!) then I finally got onto an Everlyn Gaye shop in South Melbourne on Thursday that had just plain old beetroot juice where I made my purchase and off I went.

So Thursday, Friday and again tomorrow I have had 70ml of the beetroot juice with some apple juice for tasty purposes and we'll see how it rolls. A 1 liter bottle costs $8 so it's cheap enough and pretty easy to drink with the apple juice.

I only managed to train Thursday this week so I haven't gone and ran a bunch of marathons (thoughts with Boston by the way) to improve my endurance and I eat the same foods Thursday to game time so if I see any improvements then it will be from the juice.

In the next few days I'll report back with how it went.