Can Coffee Make You Perform Better?

What happens when you combine coffee, caffeine, sleep, training and a little bit of data?

I have spent most of my professional life thinking about coffee.

How it tastes. Where it comes from. How a variety changes the cup. What processing does to flavour. How to extract it. How to make a good coffee even better. But recently, I started looking at coffee from a slightly different perspective.

I am training for a half marathon. And suddenly, I find myself asking a question that I probably should have asked much earlier: Can I use coffee more intentionally to support my performance and wellbeing? Not by simply drinking more coffee.

But by understanding when I drink it, how much caffeine I am actually consuming, what kind of coffee I choose — and what all of that does to my sleep, recovery and training.

As someone who loves coffee, this is a pretty exciting experiment.

Coffee and caffeine are not the same thing

Let's start with something that feels obvious to me, but is actually quite easy to forget:

Coffee and caffeine are not the same thing.

Coffee is a sensory experience. It is flavour, aroma, texture, origin, variety, processing and preparation. Caffeine is one of the compounds in coffee that affects our body and brain.

And when we talk about coffee and performance, we are mostly talking about the caffeine.

The interesting part is that the amount of caffeine in a cup of coffee can vary enormously.

It depends on the species and variety, the coffee itself, how much coffee we use, the brewing method, extraction and serving size.

So when someone tells me, "I drink two coffees a day," that doesn't actually tell me very much. Two espressos and two large filter coffees can contain very different amounts of caffeine. And if I want to understand how coffee affects my running, I need to look beyond the number of cups. I need to look at the caffeine.

Why I started thinking about this

My normal relationship with coffee is actually very simple.

I drink coffee because I love coffee.

I love analysing flavour. I love creating taste journeys. I love sitting down with a beautiful cup and discovering something new.

I don't wake up every morning thinking about caffeine optimisation.

But training for a half marathon has changed the way I think about my daily routine.

Suddenly, I am paying much more attention to my sleep, my recovery, my training volume and how I actually feel during different types of runs.

And that made me wonder:

Could my coffee habits become part of my training strategy?

There is good evidence that caffeine can support certain aspects of endurance performance, alertness and perceived exertion.

But there is another side to the story.

Caffeine can also interfere with sleep, particularly when it is consumed later in the day or in larger amounts.

And for me, that creates a much more interesting question than:

"Does caffeine make me run faster?"

I am much more interested in:

"Can I use caffeine to support my performance without compromising my sleep and recovery?"

Performance vs. recovery

Imagine I have a hard training session tomorrow morning.

I could have caffeine before the run and potentially feel more alert and capable during the session.

Sounds great. But if I drink too much caffeine too late in the day, I might sleep worse that night. And sleep is not exactly optional when you are training.

Training gives the body a stimulus. Recovery is where the body adapts.

So if caffeine helps me squeeze a little more performance out of one workout, but consistently affects the quality of my sleep, I need to look at the bigger picture.

I don't want to optimise one hour of my day. I want to feel good across the entire day.

That is where coffee data suddenly becomes much more interesting to me.

So when should I drink coffee before a run?

This is something I am currently experimenting with.

For exercise, caffeine is commonly consumed around 30–60 minutes before training, although the ideal timing can vary depending on the individual, the dose and the type of exercise. For a harder session or a long run, that seems like a sensible starting point. But I don't think every run needs caffeine.

If I am going out for a five-kilometre run, I don't necessarily need a performance boost. Maybe I just want my coffee because it is part of my morning.

And honestly, I think that is an important distinction. Not everything has to be optimised.

For a long run or a particularly demanding training session, however, I can see the value in being more intentional. The important part is to test it during training rather than inventing a strategy on race day.

If caffeine is going to be part of my half-marathon routine, I want to know how it feels long before I get to kilometre 15.

How much caffeine do I actually need?

This is where things get interesting.

A lot of sports research looks at caffeine in relation to body weight rather than simply saying "one cup" or "two cups."

Studies investigating endurance performance have commonly looked at doses around 1–3 mg of caffeine per kilogram of body weight, with higher doses also being studied.

But I don't see that as a recommendation to simply calculate a number and consume it.

More caffeine does not automatically mean better performance.

Higher doses can also mean more unwanted effects — jitters, an increased heart rate, gastrointestinal discomfort, anxiety or disrupted sleep.

And people respond very differently to caffeine.

So rather than asking:

"What is the maximum amount of caffeine I can tolerate?"

I would rather ask:

"What is the smallest amount that gives me the effect I am looking for?"

That feels much more sustainable to me.

And it also feels much more like how I approach coffee in general.

Why use more when you can achieve what you want with less?

And then there is the coffee itself

This is probably the part where my coffee-professional brain takes over.

Does it matter which coffee I drink?

Yes. But perhaps not in the way you might think. There is no magical "performance coffee."

A beautiful washed Ethiopian coffee isn't automatically better for running than a Brazilian espresso blend. And a dark roast isn't automatically stronger than a light roast.

When it comes to caffeine, what matters is the actual coffee, the dose and the preparation.

But the coffee itself can still make a difference.

And this is where things get really interesting for me as a coffee professional.

Arabica vs. Robusta

In general, Coffea arabica contains less caffeine than Coffea canephora, commonly known as Robusta. That doesn't mean every Arabica coffee is low in caffeine or that every Robusta coffee is extremely high in caffeine. There is a lot of variation. But species and variety are another reminder that "a cup of coffee" isn't really a standardised thing.

And then there are some truly fascinating varieties.

Laurina: the low-caffeine coffee

One coffee I find particularly interesting in this context is Laurina.

Laurina is an Arabica variety known for its naturally low caffeine content.

For me, this is fascinating because it gives us another way to think about coffee.

What if I want the ritual, flavour and sensory experience of specialty coffee, but I don't necessarily want a significant caffeine dose? Laurina can be an interesting option. And then, of course, there is decaf.

Decaf deserves more love

I think specialty coffee has done a lot to change the perception of decaf.

Decaf doesn't have to mean boring.

You can still have a beautiful coffee with an interesting variety, origin, processing method and flavour profile — just with most of the caffeine removed.

And this could actually make decaf a very useful part of a coffee-and-performance strategy.

Imagine I have already had my caffeine before my morning run.

Later in the afternoon, I want another coffee.

Do I need more caffeine? Probably not.

But do I still want coffee? Absolutely.

That is where decaf comes in.

It allows me to keep the ritual without automatically adding another significant caffeine dose. And if I care about my sleep, that distinction becomes pretty important.

Sometimes what I want is the coffee. Not the caffeine.

So what would my coffee strategy look like?

I'm still experimenting, but if I had to create a simple framework for myself, it would probably look something like this.

Easy morning run

My favourite specialty coffee.

Probably an Arabica with a flavour profile I really enjoy.

The goal isn't performance optimisation.

The goal is enjoying my morning.

Hard training session

A coffee with a caffeine dose I know reasonably well.

I would rather have something predictable than experiment with a completely new coffee before an important workout.

Depending on the session, this could be an espresso or filter coffee around 30–60 minutes before running.

Long run

This is where I want to practise.

If caffeine is going to be part of my race-day strategy, my long runs are the place to test the timing, the dose and how my stomach reacts.

I want to know what happens at kilometre 5, 10, 15 and beyond.

Not just how I feel during the first 20 minutes.

Afternoon coffee

Decaf.

Or potentially a naturally low-caffeine variety such as Laurina.

Because sometimes what I actually want is the coffee — not the caffeine.

What about coffee during the run?

This is another question I am interested in.

For a half marathon, the strategy doesn't necessarily have to stop with the coffee I drink before the race. Caffeine can also be consumed during longer endurance events, often as part of gels or other sports nutrition. But again, this is something I would practise.

My body is not a laboratory on race day. If I haven't tested something during training, I'm not going to suddenly introduce it at kilometre 12 and hope for the best.

The same applies to coffee. Race day is not the day to experiment.

I want to see what the data tells me

This is perhaps the most exciting part for me.

I want to start paying attention to a few simple things:

• How much caffeine I consume

• What time I consume it

• What coffee I drink

• How I sleep that night

• How rested I feel the next morning

• What kind of training I did

• How I felt during the run

• And how I recover afterwards

I have also created a caffeine calculator to help me understand when I should have my last caffeine of the day if I want to protect my sleep and recovery.

I have added it below this article so you can play around with it yourself.

Because I don't think there is one perfect caffeine cut-off time for everyone.

I want to find mine.

The most important variable might actually be sleep

This is where I think the whole conversation around performance gets really interesting.

We are surrounded by products, data and advice telling us how to optimise ourselves.

More supplements.

More training.

More data.

More caffeine.

More everything.

But sometimes the most powerful performance tool is incredibly boring:

sleep. If caffeine helps me feel more awake because I didn't sleep enough, it can be useful in the short term. But it doesn't replace the sleep I missed. And if I repeatedly use caffeine to push through fatigue, I might end up masking the signal my body is giving me.

So I don't want coffee to become a way of ignoring tiredness.

I want it to become something I use consciously.

Coffee as a tool, not a crutch

That is probably the biggest shift in my thinking.

I don't want to drink more coffee just because I am training for a half marathon.

I want to know when caffeine helps me.

I want to know when it interferes with my sleep.

I want to understand how much I actually need. And I want to keep the thing I have always loved about coffee: the pleasure.

Because coffee doesn't always need to be functional. Sometimes I want an espresso because it tastes incredible. Sometimes I want a decaf in the afternoon because I want the ritual.

And sometimes I might deliberately use caffeine because I have a long run ahead of me.

All of those things can coexist.

So, can coffee improve my performance and wellbeing?

I think the most useful answer is:

It can be a tool — if I understand how I respond to it.

Caffeine can support certain aspects of physical and cognitive performance.

But the benefit has to be considered alongside sleep, recovery, hydration, nutrition and the rest of my training.

And I don't think there is a perfect amount of coffee.

There is only the amount that works for me, in a particular situation, at a particular time.

That is what I want to find out during my half-marathon training.

Not how much coffee I can drink.

But when coffee actually makes me feel and perform my best.

And perhaps that is one of the most exciting things about coffee in general:

The more you understand it, the less you need a universal rule.

You can start finding your own.