Coffee. It would appear we are increasingly addicted to the stuff and all it’s mutant variations. Sometimes I yearn for the days when your instant Nescafe was available either black – or white: But that clearly puts me on the slide to Grumpy Old Man status and while I know I can do world-class grumpiness I absolutely refuse to accept any evidence that I am heading towards 50.

My very good (and not grumpy at all) ultra friend Hard As Nails has had a problem for a while that completely baffled us all for ages: Serious cramp attacks in the thighs. This would happen in the early stages of races and/or on the first climbs of big training outings and usually in the company of others. Serious enough to make her stop and do hint-of-grumpiness – and this is Hard As Nails we’re talking about…

This pattern had been going on for more than a year and finally came to a head recently when she ground to a halt in my company – no link there, promise - about 10 hours into a 12 hour effort. Both legs locked solid and going nowhere fast. Investigative efforts were redoubled in the following days, patterns emerged and eventually the culprit was revealed: CAFFINE. Here’s why:

Attacks would happen when the stakes were high and the pressure was on. In other words her nervous system was ramped up. Popping caffine-laced sugar-based gels (more stimulants) made it worse. Managing the pain by popping pain-killers with codine put her further into the pit. Now Hard As Nails is 5’tall and a very little bit. That means even one cup of real coffee only has a small unit to be circulated around. Contrast that with someone over 6’ and you can see that one cup of coffee would be relatively diluted by comparison.Hard As…is a 1-2 cups a day person which by my reckoning seems pretty low compared to a bunch of people I know. That’s still 7-14 a week, 60-120 a month…

So the suspect was put on trial: One week caffine-free with a race at the end. Result? Completely symptom-free. Another week and same result. And again.And again. And while the test protocol probably wont stand rigorous scientific scrutiny the results speak for themselves. ‘Makes you think, huh?