(This post and other articles and training tips found on http://neoendurance.blogspot.com)

Joe wrote to me on facebook today: With the Superbowl just around the corner. I have a question for you about alcohol and recovery. I am in my preseason for training and was wondering what the affect of a couple of beers would have on my recovery? Would it be recommend to just steer clear of the wonderful liquid spirit? Or could I enjoy a few during the game.

Great question, Joe! The Superbowl is almost a national holiday here, and the amount of food and beer that we drink is astounding. According to a 2009 slashfood.com post, Super Bowl Sunday is the 8th biggest beer day in the US, with consumers buying 51.7 million cases of beer. If a case is twelve, 12oz bottles or cans, each case contains a little over a gallon of beer. That's over 58 million gallons of beer purchased by US consumers! (But I'll let you all ponder how Easter beat out Super Bowl Sunday in terms of beer sales...)

Another post estimates the consumption as being over 325 million gallons (I don't believe that one), and has some other interesting numbers about food and drink on Super Bowl Sunday (if you can believe what you read on the internet!)


That said, let's look at a couple things:
1) Alcohol's impact on your body
2) The recovery your body needs


Let's examine the first topic, alcohol's impact on your body. Without going into too much detail (this is a link for more nitty-gritty), once the alcohol (also know as ethyl alcohol) is consumed, it is quickly absorbed through the stomach, and then through the small intestine. It hits the blood stream in minutes. Alcohol is a toxin, but it's made up of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms, so the body finds a way to eventually break it down to harmless components.  The major processes (simplified) are:

• Ethyl alcohol is converted to acetaldehyde (similar to formaldehyde)
• Acetaldehyde is converted into acetic acid radical (acetic acid = vinegar!)
• Acetic acid radical combines with Coenzyme A to form acetyl-CoA. 
• The acetyl-CoA then gets broken down into carbon dioxide and water via the Krebs Cycle.
• More details on the above chemistry can be found here: http://hamsnetwork.org/metabolism/ and the nitty-gritty link above.