With these things it is always difficult to tease out what effect the juice is having from the natural variation in peoples diets, training schedules, natural abilities etc.  You have to try and distinguish any effect from the effect of normal training, the placebo effect, or variations in diet and nutrition. Hell, even the label you use can affect the outcome - which is why a paracetamol with a trade name is often found to be more effective than a generic one with exactly the same ingredients, even by those who know there is no difference!

To have any chance of pulling the information from the noise, you'd have to have a very large group (for something like this, well over 1000 would be needed, but the more the better), track their fitness levels with some standardised tests, put them all on a standard diet and fitness regime for a few weeks to develop a baseline, re-test their fitness, then randomise them into two groups, one taking a standard sized glass a day of beetroot and one ideally taking the same amount of a coloured and flavoured placebo. You could also include a third group taking carrot juice, or tomato juice, for comparison.  You would have to track compliance (taking it daily, sticking to the fitness regimen), and re-test their fitness at intervals over the trial.  

And even then, you might not get enough of a signal to be able to draw any relevant conclusions! (Can you tell that I've worked managing clinical trial data for over a decade? ;o) 

At the end of the day, with something like this if there is a sound reasoning behind why it might be good for you, and there is no reason that it would be bad for you, then give it a shot. If it works for you, great stuff! If it just turns your pee red, then nothing ventured, I guess.

That said, I'm with the natural brigade on this - everything in moderation, and from a variety of sources :o)

Erm, yeah. What Ian said.

;)

Only 996 more for a representative sample then. Thanks Ian :)

Yeah Andy, a cup a day, i usually have 500mls the three days before a race, I like my pink pee as well :-)

You're not drinking that, are you Mark?

Hey Dave,

Yeah man, I love the stuff :-)

Bought some (beetroot juice, not Mark's pee) - and am going to try it tomorrow morning before a 5-mile race in Dudley. I'm going to try the 'For Goodness Shakes' Banana flavoured powdered recovery drink afterwards, too (freebie with a well known running magazine).

I'm disappointed - no pink pee! I must need to drink more of it.

I recorded my second best ever 5M this morning, on a rather hilly course in cold wet weather, so obviously the beetroot juice works.

Or maybe it was the training...

Defo the beetroot juice Dave, the pink wee comes a little later. Could be a banned substance and subject to a urine test at races.

I was wondering where were you yesterday, Derek, then realised you'd said 26th of March! I've no race planned for that weekend, so I may well be running at Cannon Hill parkrun. By the way, I trust you know by now that the Lung Run is cancelled?

The beetroot juice was OK, but I don't think it'll become a staple. Let's see how I do next Sunday without it.