Running along the trails during the autumn is a real joy - the temperature is just about right and the vibrant colours of the leaves are magical. I love the way the colours are reflected in the seasonal fruits and vegetables, the shops and markets are a patchwork of reds, oranges and yellows. It was this tree in particular that provided inspiration for this blog, its flame red leaves seeming to me to be so redolent of beetroot. Beetroots (along with several green vegetables) are an excellent source of what are termed dietary nitrates which have proved of great interest not just in general health terms, but also in the context of delivering improvements during the course of exercise. Before we get onto the benefits of these nitrates we need to understand some of the science underpinning these claims and the key component to this is nitric oxide (NO). Nitric oxide NO is produced naturally in our bodies by 2 pathways - the conversion of the dietary nitrates to nitric oxide being the...