Choosing from all that goo!
Today's run: Recovery run of 4 miles at 9:15 pace including 6x100 m strides
Today's run was on the warm side. Mission Loop plus a mile out-and-back with the strides. I saw a few things:
• • •
I think it is time to mention that I've narrowed down my Energy Gel selection to one brand and two flavors. As I first mentioned in my Food and Water post, this was all entirely new to me. At this point, I've injested 12 packets of energy gels during my runs, including during this run when I took one while running at around 7:40 pace. I've tried 3 brands, and a total of 8 flavors. I've tried with caffeine and without. And now, my guide to energy gels:
Disclaimer: Everyone has their own favorites and react to the energy gels in different ways. These are just my experiences!
Factor #1: Texture
Since I enjoyed Clif Bars, I figured I might well enjoy their energy gel product, Clif-Shot. This was the first brand I eliminated, however, because the texture was too gooey, too much like taking a blob of peanut butter in your mouth while running. It simply would take too much water to wash it down, and that got in the way.
Factor #2: Taste
I became slightly enamored with Carb-Boom because their first flavor I tasted (Apple Cinnamon ) went down smoothly and had a nice taste. When I tasted another flavor, I realized that the taste, as long as it wasn't offensive, was something I didn't notice. I tried five more flavors at this point and determined it wasn't as big a factor as I thought.
Factor #3: Dispensing Ease
It wasn't until I had gone back and forth between Carb-Boom and GU that I realized that, due to the narrower packet size, GU was easier to get out of the packet and easier to carry. I later noticed that it went down even easier than Carb-Boom, despite my initial impression. When running, it is simply difficult to manipulate these things, and the easier it is to squeeze the contents out, the less distracting (and pace reducing) it promises to be.
So at this point, I've narrowed it down to two flavors of GU: Lemon Sublime and Tri-Berry. One has caffeine, and another doesn't. I'm thinking at present that on the actual race day, I'll carry two packets without caffeine and one packet with, since I am aware how caffeine can hinder hydration.
(The funny thing is, if you Google any of those brands, a sponsored link come up for a competitor who claims to pack more calories and carbs into the same amount of space.)
These are the ones I tried:
Today's run was on the warm side. Mission Loop plus a mile out-and-back with the strides. I saw a few things:
- A cluster of people having lunch at the outdoor tables in front of Universal Cafe, a favorite restaurant that's just off the side of my route.
- They are redoing the blacktop to the parking lot at Best Buy.
- There was more office furniture sitting outside that building I mentioned a couple of weeks ago.
• • •
I think it is time to mention that I've narrowed down my Energy Gel selection to one brand and two flavors. As I first mentioned in my Food and Water post, this was all entirely new to me. At this point, I've injested 12 packets of energy gels during my runs, including during this run when I took one while running at around 7:40 pace. I've tried 3 brands, and a total of 8 flavors. I've tried with caffeine and without. And now, my guide to energy gels:
Disclaimer: Everyone has their own favorites and react to the energy gels in different ways. These are just my experiences!
Factor #1: Texture
Since I enjoyed Clif Bars, I figured I might well enjoy their energy gel product, Clif-Shot. This was the first brand I eliminated, however, because the texture was too gooey, too much like taking a blob of peanut butter in your mouth while running. It simply would take too much water to wash it down, and that got in the way.
Factor #2: Taste
I became slightly enamored with Carb-Boom because their first flavor I tasted (Apple Cinnamon ) went down smoothly and had a nice taste. When I tasted another flavor, I realized that the taste, as long as it wasn't offensive, was something I didn't notice. I tried five more flavors at this point and determined it wasn't as big a factor as I thought.
Factor #3: Dispensing Ease
It wasn't until I had gone back and forth between Carb-Boom and GU that I realized that, due to the narrower packet size, GU was easier to get out of the packet and easier to carry. I later noticed that it went down even easier than Carb-Boom, despite my initial impression. When running, it is simply difficult to manipulate these things, and the easier it is to squeeze the contents out, the less distracting (and pace reducing) it promises to be.
So at this point, I've narrowed it down to two flavors of GU: Lemon Sublime and Tri-Berry. One has caffeine, and another doesn't. I'm thinking at present that on the actual race day, I'll carry two packets without caffeine and one packet with, since I am aware how caffeine can hinder hydration.
(The funny thing is, if you Google any of those brands, a sponsored link come up for a competitor who claims to pack more calories and carbs into the same amount of space.)
These are the ones I tried:
- Clif-Shot: Cola Buzz
- Clif-Shot: Mango
- Carb-Boom: Apple Cinnamon
- Carb-Boom: Strawberry Kiwi
- Carb-Boom: Banana Peach
- GU: Lemon Sublime
- GU: Tri-Berry
- GU: Orange Burst
posted by Brent at
3:29 PM
2 Comments:
I also prefer GU brand goo and I prefer to take the flavor issue entirely out of the picture ("Just Plain"). As far as caffiene's effect as a diuretic, I remember reading that under duress (ie, running a marathon) the body will largely ignore those signals. This is of course within reason, if you take an anomalously large dose of caffiene, then you deserve what's coming to you. For that matter, if you do ANYTHING anomalous on race day, you deserve any anomalous effects you observe (I personally have fallen victim to this twice). But back to caffiene, it's been shown for some people to be a mild performance enhancer -- so who knows...
By
Anonymous, at 7:48 AM
GU Espresso Love!!!
Well, you'd expect that to be the favorite flavor of someone who consumes more quad (not quadriceps) venti lattes than one ex-MBB we both know...
By
Anonymous, at 10:01 AM
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