Here's How You Should Fuel All Your Races And Long Runs
If you're watching this, there's a good chance you know,
that running can be tiring and the further or longer that you run,
the more tired you tend to fail, but there is a remedy
for this.
Whether you are running a leisurely 5k or a gruelling ultramarathon, sports
nutrition can help to drastically increase your energy stores and therefore
performance. So stick around for our Roundup of the best gels, blocks,
bars and chews that you can get your hands on the mode and I'll be trying and
rating all
the products that we review along the way.
Don't forget to like subscribe and comment as
well. We'll be choosing one lucky person from the comments below to receive an
assortment of our favourite products from this video.
First up a real quick explainer.
So when you exercise your body draws energy from carbohydrate stores in the
muscles, and these stores need topping up when you're exercising. Now,
gels can quickly provide you with energy in the form of carbohydrates and can
help to improve metabolic response while mitigating substantial glycogen
depletion, AKA, bonking.
Yeah, that's right. And to mix things up a bit,
a lot of brands now produce other carbohydrate rich products for athletes in the
form of bars, drinks, and chews. But what about hydration? Well,
we've got a video for that.
Check out our recent electrolytes Roundup video for more info.
Right, with the obvious one, gels that's basically just a shot of liquid energy
in the form of carbohydrates. Yeah.
And the pros are, they are easy to carry,
readily available in sport shops, online retailers,
and sometimes in supermarkets, most gels are fairly simple as well.
It's just 50 to 60 mils of sugar.
But they can also be a bit of a shock to the system.
If you're not used to using gels,
ingesting a huge hit of sugar in one go can sometimes upset your stomach.
Next up.
Chews, so much the same as gels, but
you chew them.
So they're hard jelly sweets often come in multi-packs with each one,
dishing up a couple of grams of carbohydrates.
If you find that gels can be a bit sickly or messy,
then these can be a good alternative.
Just don't forget that you have to chew them when you're running,
which either means breathing really heavily through your mouth or trying out an
experimental chew breathe, chew combo method like this.
1, 2, 3, 4.
Now onto the more heavy duty stuff. Bars.
Bars are often a good solution for runners who liked to eat something a bit more
substantial while they're out and about. They're not always the best
in terms of carbs per serving,
but they'll often contain other key ingredients that provide protein, fiber,
vitamins, and minerals. All of which could come in handy
if your body is working hard.
Some brands have branched out and started to make bakes waffles and flapjacks.
All of which serve a similar purpose to bars and are ideal
if you're tackling an ultra.
As a result though, bars are often bulkier.
So they might not be as easy to carry as a gel.
And in the same way that some people prefer to consume a hearty meal,
like a bar during a run,
others might prefer to take on board something a little lighter.
It also depends on the type of activity that you do.
It might look like I've overdone it
just to touch with the race gear.
But this is so we can show you how to best carry girls bars and all the rest.
So, we'll start with the obvious options on longer runs.
And a lot of runners will tend to carry a hydration, vest, a running belt,
or maybe an armband for your pocket stuff. So phone and keys, et cetera.
If you've got a spare pouch pop as many gels as you need in there.
I feel like I'm an air hostess. Um, but what about if you're running light? Well,
here are some clever ways to carry much needed sustenance.
You could tuck them into a hairband. You could tape them around your arm,
or you could do what I do and just pop them in your sports bra. Just be careful,
they don't scratch you though.
Don't forget though, it's not just about the storage space you've got on you.
You also need to buy products that will fit in the pockets on your vest or in
your running belt.
Take these block, choose from Cliff, for example,
they come in an narrow packet,
so they're great for a belt or storage pouch in your hydration, but,
but less convenient if your storage space is shallow.
Now, the opposite can be said for something like this Mountain
Fuel FeelGood bar energy flapjack.
The bar contains a whopping 44 grams of carbs,
which is excellent for those longer runs.
But it's about the size of your bank card, and much thicker.
So not quite as portable as those pack of chews. You might
want to think about water too.
Do you want to carry both water and nutrition with you on your run.
Some of the products that we've got here, such as Maurten's drink
mix carry a decent amount of carbs in them,
but you need to mix them with water and pop them in yourself.
On the other hand, High5s,
energy gel Aqua is designed so that you don't need to drink water as well.
The gel has a consistency, more akin to a sports drink,
and it contains a higher percentage of water than standard gels.
Now it's all well and good buying enough gels and bars to fill your boots or
should I say running shoes,
but you need to also be comfortable opening and consuming your nutrition on the go.
We've all been there or even worse,
the tear strip at the top is torn off,
but it's still not open. That is so annoying!
Some brands like Active Edge and Torq package their gels in specially
designed easy to open sachets,
which you might find are less fiddly to use whilst running. It's worth considering
something like this, if for example,
you're running a race and it's a bit cold and you're worried that your fingers
might be too numb to get into them.
This might not be a deal breaker for you though.
Sometimes you just want to eat a gel that tastes nice or settles well in your
stomach. When it comes to race nutrition, there's something for everyone.
Now, whether you want something sweet and sugary to keep you going or something more
natural, like Velaforte's all natural gels and bars,
they give you carbohydrates in the form of sugars sourced from things like fruit
juice, brown rice syrup, and maple syrup.
Plus their bars contain a mixture of fruit and nuts,
which give you a bit of extra fiber and proteins.
Huma's energy gels also contain natural sources of sugar for energy and are made from
fruit purees.
So their gels come in 12 different flavours and they all contain chia seeds,
which are a well-known superfood and a source of amino acids.
If you're looking for something a little different than Buzzpower's gels might
be up your street as they're made almost entirely out of organic honey.
Always thought of yourself as a gel flavour connoisseur? Yeah.
Well then you might want to take a look at Gu's energy gels.
So they boast a staggering 18 different flavours, that's salted caramel, that's more
than any other brand in this video.
And don't forget if you want to try some of these flavours for free,
you better get liking and commenting below.
Cause one lucky viewer will be receiving a box of bars, gels, or more from us.
Most runners should look to take on between 30 and 60 grams of carbohydrates
per hour during a run. Now for most runs shorter than about 60 minutes,
you can probably make, do without taking on any extra energy,
but for those longer runs. So half marathons, marathons, ultras,
and the training runs for them,
you'll definitely need to be carrying some carbs with you.
Yeah. Now with that in mind,
make sure you plan your runs accordingly while it might initially seem tempting
to take a bag full of heavy duty bars and you go out on your Sunday long run,
it might actually be more sensible to take more portable,
lower carb sachets so that you can consume energy little and
often throughout your workout.
Now we found that bars and chews are unsurprisingly the best in terms of carbs
per serving.
So both Cliff and Velaforte's bars and chews offer 40 grams or more
of carbs per pack as does Mountain Fuels Feel Good bar that we mentioned
earlier,
Maurten's 160 drink mix also offers 40 grams,
but that needs to be mixed with water. So you can drink it.
In terms of gels,
OTE leads the pack with the Super Berry Super gel,
which contains 40 grams of carbohydrates.
That's double the carbs that the rest of their gels contain. Torq gels
also offer a sizeable carb hit with just under 30 grams in each of the
11 different gel flavors. But,
what about carbs per pound spent? Yep, that's right.
We're getting proper technical with the maths now.
So this is looking at the cost of one serving of each product,
which we'll touch on more in just a second,
and then comparing this to how much carbohydrate is in each gel.
Cliff bars are again firmly within the top five offering 36 grams per
pound spent with OTEs gels,
both offering around 28 grams and Science In Sports isotonic
gels offering around 24 grams, per pack.
In terms of gels, Science In Sport's,
Go Isotonic energy gels sit at the top of the table at 91 Pence per serving,
followed by Active Edges, Beet Active concentrate at one £1.04,
and then the products at the £1.20 marks. So you've got Buzzpowers
organic honey sports fuel and the standard High5 energy gels.
Onto bars and chews and the Science in Sport energy bar and the Cliff bar
come out on top at £1.20 and £1.25,
a pop respectively followed by Gu's energy chews at £1.69,
Torq's energy bars at £1.95 and then Mountain Fuels Feel Good
Bar and Gu's Stroop waffles are both two pounds a portion.
Those of you watching,
who are looking to enter races soon might want to consider which of the
products we've covered today are informed sports certified.
This means whether they are tested for banned substances.
Don't worry for a lot of you. This won't be an issue.
You're not going to get a lifetime ban from Parkrun for consuming your
favorite apple flavor gel. However,
as you work your way up the ladder towards the elite bracket,
this is something worth taking into account.
When buying nutrition here are the brands we've mentioned today that are
informed sports certified. Now this isn't an exhaustive list, though,
if you do want to check the status of a brand or product that isn't listed,
then just head to informed sports website,
which we've linked to in the description.
So now it's time for us to pick some of our favourites. Rick,
do you want to go first? I would absolutely
love too. I'd love to talk about this first one.
And however it took me about three hours to open the packet.
Now it does say on the front here, great tastes refreshing, refreshing,
easy to digest and giving sustain energy. That's if you can get in, um,
and you liked the taste of that one? I do, really, really tasty. So that's
the Mountain Fuel sports jelly. Tricky to get into,
but tasty once you do, really, really good.
This one is not like having normal honey. It's like having honey raw,
like licking a bee's bottom.
This is Buzzpower, which is a honey gel. Very good.
