Until a couple of weeks ago, I'd always thought of creatine as a supplement used by those lovely folks with biceps so enormous, that they can't scratch their own chins. Although I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to having a bevy of beautiful women hang off my chiseled torso (or is the reason why those guys on the front covers of body building mags have a chiseled torso because those bevies of beautiful women add up to some serious resistance when going about regular activities such as scratching one's chin), I can't imagine having an extra 20kg of 'useless' muscle would be conducive to fast race times. But after reading a thread on veganfitness.net about what supplements some of the members were taking to improve their cycling and noticing that a lot of them seemed to be taking creatine, I started doing some research into it. Cyclists are even more concerned about dead weight than runners (I don't think the aesthetics of a carbon fibre drink holder are worth paying an extra $50 for it:|), so I figured there must be a damned good reason to be taking a compound that will without doubt cause you to retain more fluid. And apparently there is. Googling round for a while, I came across quite a few sites that argue that taking creatine in small (compared to what bulkers take) doses can really improve your workouts. It won't improve your races because of the extra weight, but it will improve your training and thus indirectly boost race times. The reason for this is that apparently you can run faster interval workouts on creatine. It boosts your muscular creatine-phosphate stores, which is used for relatively short bursts of activity. That doesn't sound that helpful, since we're not talking about sprints here, but apparently it hastens recovery between workbouts, thus allowing you to train more intensely and therefore improve more quickly.
So after being convinced of its virtues, I decided that when I started the hill work section of my training programme, I'd purchase some creatine and start taking it daily. And that day has arrived. On Thursday, I went vitamin shopping in the city, hitting up all the 'ultra cheap' vitamin stores, the 'mega cheap' vitamin stores and the 'super cheap' vitamin stores. I quickly found a place that sold creatine and was about to pick up a container that seemed about the right size (600g), when I noticed another container that was 4X AS BIG and yet cheaper:| So although it meant it was very uncomfortable carrying my backpack around the rest of the night, I wound up with 2.4kg of 'effervescent creatine' (only 25% creatine - 75% sugar and other crap:S).
When I took my first dose that night, I conveniently forgot that it was 'effervescent' creatine and not normal creatine, which apparently tastes like crap. So I decided to combine it with a nice, sleep inducing mug of hot chocolate. After microwaving a mug of rice milk, I dropped in a generous spoon of creatine, and watched in dismay as it frothed uncontrollably, spilling over the lip of the mug! Grrr! And not only that, but it was the most disgusting thing I've ever tasted. Sweet rice milk + sweet creatine = gross! But if it makes me faster, I'm willing to give it a try (that isn't to say I'd be prepared to take actual PED).
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I ended up taking almost the whole week off. My achilles was feeling better on Friday, so I went for a run with dad, which turned out to be a bad idea. From the start of the run I could feel a bit of pain in my left foot near my big toe, and it quickly got worse. I ran through it, which was probably a bad idea (but I had no other choice, being 5k away from home at that point), and by the time I was finished, it hurt even to walk. It's a bit weird because I've had this happen to me at least 3 times before. It always heals after a few days (and indeed it's feeling a lot better now), but it's a bit strange that it keeps happening. Oh well, it was good to take a break anyway, and I'll still got quite a bit of training in on the cross trainer and the bike, including a very pleasant 80k ride to Glenroy and back. There were a few hairy moments on Pascoevale road though (tip: don't ride your bike on this road). We got beeped at twice (I gave the second guy the finger and considered myself lucky he didn't try and take us out because of that:P) and two motorcyclists (I thought there'd be at least a little bit of solidarity there!) yelled out "How much did you pay for your rego?!" as they buzzed us (at least it was slightly witty).
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Totals for the week:
170.64k/17:42 running equivalent
(18.64 actual running @ 5:28 pace)
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