Geeked out on nutrition info
Over the winter, I kinda geeked out on fueling for endurance events, which was inspired by a blog post I read by TJ Tollakson (winner of IMLP2011). This was prior to my joining EN, so the realization of caloric consumption was pretty revolutionary to me at the time.
In part of that geeking out, I looked into a couple common energy gels and their constituent fuels (and ratios). Since I knew I wanted to go on-course for IMLP this past year, I ended up coming up with a recipe for homemade gel with the same molar balance of fructose/glucose that the Powerbar C2MAX product uses (1/3 Fructose, 2/3 glucose).
With all the talk about nutrition recently from the webinar, I figured I'd post this in case someone found it useful. Nothing really earth-shattering, but if nothing else, it's a way to make energy gel relatively cheaply that is very, very similar to the Powerbar product found on course. Plus, you can customize the flavor and electrolyte concentration as you see fit, so you don't tire of the same old thing every. damn. ride.
http://kickingryansass.blogspot.com...art-1.html
Comments
Good stuff Ryan, nothing wrong with geeking out on your hobby! Great blog, thanks for sharing!
These are really great blog posts Ryan! Nice research and really useful. I'm thinking I might get into the kitchen this weekend....
I've tried a few different ways (this has been the challenge all along). I have an Amphipod 4 Fl Oz gel flask that works pretty well, but it's size is a tad limited. I also have a 5 Oz Fuel Belt flask, but the top is virtually identical to the fuel belt bottle tops, and it's not conducive to gel flowing through it. To give you an idea, it oozes out the side a bit during consumption, making a mess - and then you have to practically fellate the thing mid-run to clean it up. Between my fuel belt bottles leaking from the top and the very poor design of their gel flask tops, I am almost at the point where I am about to toss the whole Fuel Belt thing.
For a couple century rides, I did fill up 2 x 8 Oz fuel belt bottles with the gel and just dealt with it (slightly easier on the bike as opposed to the run).
Something like this works pretty well, but it lacks the ability of the Amphipod/Fuel Belt to attach to anything. In the end I'll probably just get a couple more of the Amphipod flasks - just haven't gotten around to it yet.
FWIW I've had good luck using Nathan flasks with my fuel belt. They fit the holster and leak less. I was looking for different sized flasks for my fuelbelt but my local running store only carried Nathan hydration products. Luckily Nathan sells their flasks in multipacks so it was cheap and easy to change out.