(this question is for everyone) why is there a form of cheating accpetable in running!?

Question

sorry for the controversail question- that was only to catch attention.

Anyways. Im sure you know by now that runners eat in the middle of competitions as well as before.

What do they eat? Goup filled with carbs and all sorts of things such as vitamins and maybe caffine?

Anyways- they come in forms of goup, cubes that are jelly like, bars that are made of who know's what!

I just relized something, what is it?

a question

Do you think it's cheating using these things?

What do I consider not cheating? training and eating real food such as pasta,pears and chicken.

I know that when it comes to real food that there are all sorts of dyes,hormones in the food (dyes for fruit, hormones for chicken)

but do you consider eating goup,bars,drinks,jelly to help you in your athletic abillity,as cheating

Answer 1

a rather moronic question . . . would you outlaw candy bars, gatorade, powerade, erg too?  . . .and most definitely no water during marathons ~ sure if you want the mortality rate to jump up considerably . . . one can assume that you're NOT a runner otherwise you wouldn't even ask such a question . . .

ps: spelling counts

Answer 2

You'd bonk if you don't eat and drink...

to me, using steroid and other performance enhancers is cheating.  But food, gel, sports drink, they all do the job of replenishing what you lose during your run.

Answer 3

i agree..i wish you could not have water or food during a marathon race

Answer 4

no, i don't consider it cheating because they don't give you that much of an advantage and there is not scientific evidence that proves that they work.

Answer 5

No doing this stuff especially for longer distances over 10K is a important thing while running..........staying hydrated and calorie intake.  Now if you were taking some kind of performance enhancement drugs, that would be Cheating.

Answer 6

To those muppets that are giving out about water - RTFQ - he did not mention water, just eating quik energy sources.

Tough question, I guess that it is the same as ascending everest with O's.  Is that cheating?

At the end of the day, you have to know your limitations and if you feel the best way to achieve your goals is with a supplemented energy source, so be it.

But yeah, I can see where the purists say its an easy way out.

Answer 7

It's absolutely not cheating. For most of us mortals, distance races like marathons and half-marathons would be impossible without power goo packets.

Your body needs carbohydrates, especially sugars, as fuel in order to run. Our bodies are not designed to run long distances, and we have to continually feed the fire in order to achieve these crazy distances.

If you're worried about someone cheating in a college or high-school race, I wouldn't get too upset. Those power goo packets take around 15 minutes to take effect and the longest race in college or high-school meets is the 2 mile, which most runners finish in far fewer than 15 minutes, so it wouldn't affect their performance if they were eating the goo halfway through their race.