Gel update
After posting my last blog I got to thinking about how I would personally like it if Hammer Nutrition made a gel that had protein in it since I really like their products and really like gels. Shortly thereafter I took it upon myself to email their customer support department to ask whether they had ever considered making something like that. I have trouble using Perpetuem or any powder that mixes with water because I need to carry water in my water bottle and find running with two water bottles to be just a little too much weight relative to my size. I’ve tried solid forms of protein and they’re great unless I’m racing and trying to go fast for something like a 50K.
But enough about my troubles, here’s the important part; their fabulous customer support person, Katey, emailed me back the very next day. Not a form email either, but a personal and very helpful email. She explained to me that there is no way to make a protein/carb mix into a gel and have any kind of shelf-life without adding a bunch of preservative. Hammer Nutrition does not believe preservatives provide any athletic benefit. I’m inclined to agree, especially with new research showing that some preservatives that have been thought of as safe are actually carcinogenic. Hammer gel may come in cool colors and flavors but none of them are artificial.
Katey went on to offer a solution to my difficulty and here it is; mix 3.5 scoops of Perpetuem with 1-2 ounces of water, mixing until it is about gel consistency. Put it into a 5 ounce flask (Hammer makes those for gel, I use one and it fits into my fuel belt) and it should last 4.5-5 hours. She shared that she is a 130 lb cyclist and that’s about how long it lasts for her. Since Perpetuem includes carbs, proteins and healthy fats, total caloric needs should be a little lower as compared to gel only. She also suggests freezing the a bottle overnight if the next day will be hot and you plan to put it in a drop bag or simply not start to use it until you’ve been going for a couple hours. If you were inclined to use aid station gels or food for some of your calories then this would get you through a 25K-50 mile race given a drop bag for the 50 miler.
I don’t usually endorse or promote particular products on my blog since that’s not my purpose in writing it but I do try to talk about my own experiences and research. This was some very good and friendly customer service and also some very good information. She’s right about the whole protein/carb/fat mixture too. Chia seeds help because of the healthy fats they contain. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at aid stations are a similar idea. For some of us, variety is more important and for others of us, a simple and easy to transport source of calories that will do it all is ideal. I hope all of you out there find this helpful. After I beg or buy some Perpetuem I will test this out on a couple long runs and update everyone again.
Showing posts with label race nutrition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label race nutrition. Show all posts
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Monday, May 16, 2011
Artificially Flavored Chemicals
Why and how you should put calories in during runs if you are a distance runner:
You run a race faster and longer than you usually train and with a bunch of adrenalin to boot. You do this with low blood sugar and you expect a good result? Not likely. Even the best breakfast is going to wear off after a couple hours of running and then your blood sugar will plummet if you don’t put more sugar in. The brain cannot store sugar at all so when your blood sugar gets too low your brain can’t work well anymore. Knowing this, the brain will try to stop you from using up what sugar is left in your blood by telling stories about what’s happening in the body. Bad stories. Low blood sugar turns a little soreness into aching pain. It turns a tightness you could have run on into something that feels like a torn muscle. It turns sniffles into the flu. I am not exaggerating at all and yet I’ve met very good runners who don’t seem to know that pain signals and the interpretation of them can change radically in response to blood sugar fluctuations. We wouldn’t be distance runners if we weren’t hard headed but there is a time and a place for that. Ever been so hurt and sick you staggered across the finish or didn’t finish at all but then felt a whole lot better that very evening? Consider your nutrition.
So now it’s time to talk about what I actually mean when I say “sugar”. I don’t mean table sugar. That gives you a spike and a crash and is no good for you at all. I do mean easy to digest carbohydrates. How much carbohydrate? No matter how much you put in, your body can only absorb 65-80 grams of carbohydrate per hour. Extra will just give you the runs after a while. Waiting until you really need the sugar means hoping your body can make up a deficit and since you can only absorb so much at a time, that’s going to be difficult and probably slow you down.
Do you need to max out on this stuff, put in as much as will absorb every hour? I don’t know, I’m not you. That kind of question has to be answered through experimentation during training. Whatever it takes to fuel your training, remember that since you run faster when you race you may want to pay attention to how many miles per gel instead of how many gels per hour so that you can better figure out what you’ll need in a race. If I ate one gel an hour jogging 12 minute miles then two an hour at 10 minute miles but then race at a 9 minute mile pace, I may need three gels an hour to race (and for me, I do if it’s going to take me more than four hours to finish). Also, trail running burns more calories per hour than road running because irregular surfaces mean more different muscles get used, especially for newer trail runners.
How do you decide which brand and which type of product to use? Go to a running store or even a cycling store and buy a bunch of different brands and flavors then test them on yourself DURING TRAINING RUNS not during races unless you want to risk a few ruined races. I love Hammer gel but some people hate it. I used to like Honey Stinger gels but the sweetness can be too much for me after a couple. A friend of mine can only use solids, or at least gummies, like Shot Blocs, but I don’t want to have to chew anything during a race. What if your stomach objects? Didn’t your legs object when you told them to run a new distance?
Your digestive system is full of muscles and enzymes with variable levels sort of like your legs. Your digestive system can be trained. When I first started running distance I had to eat breakfast at least two hours before runs and drinking water during runs without cramping up was hard for me. I kept at it. Now I can eat gels while I run. Oddly, I find that if I chew while the gel is in my mouth it seems to settle a little better or maybe more quickly. Crazy? Who knows, maybe my body wants an extra signal to tell it the glob of artificially flavored chemicals I’m swallowing is actually food.
Don’t like the taste of anything you’ve tried? If it doesn't taste great you'll wash it down with extra water and then you'll stay hydrated. Nothing wrong with a little extra reminder to keep putting fluids in. The other odd phenomenon I've noticed is that gels start to taste better as your body learns to associate them with feeling better. Do know that if you have trouble with stomach cramping or getting the runs during races or just after, Immodium will probably fix it. For anything longer than a 10K race I take two an hour or so before. I have a friend who takes an Immodium before any run of more than 8 miles or so because without it her guts are in knots for hours. The Immodium wears after five or six hours and digestion returns to normal.
Why not just tough it out during training and try to get used to performing with lower blood sugar? Okay, first of all, you need sit somewhere quiet and consider why you are trying to make ultra running even harder. I have spent a little time on that one myself and have gotten much better about water and calories and I think it’s one of the things that has helped me get faster this year.
On a more physiologic note, if you run at a moderate or better intensity for much more than an hour, especially more than an hour and a half, then, if you don’t put in any calories at all, your body will break down the muscle in your legs more than if you had put in just a little hundred calorie gel or something like it. This break down is not something that will make you stronger. This breakdown will only slow your recovery, causing subsequent workouts to have less intensity. This means you won’t get better as fast as you could. Running a border line amount of time and don’t want to carry stuff? Don’t start on empty and put something with carbohydrate/sugar back into your system right as soon as you stop (not after talking to your running buddies for 15 minutes in the parking lot).
This same problem of muscle breakdown happens with protein, by the way, only with protein it takes another hour and with protein you don’t need a whole lot. 5-10 grams will make a difference in a four hour run. There are protein gels like Accel gel and protein single serving solids and powders like some of the Cliff bar products or Hammer Perpetuem. If you don’t like any of those, consider that a Payday candy bar contains 7 grams of protein in addition to the sugar. Heck, put some nuts in a little Ziploc and chew one every now and then. I’ll write more about protein and running and solid food versus not solid foot on another day though because I think this is plenty to digest for one post.
You run a race faster and longer than you usually train and with a bunch of adrenalin to boot. You do this with low blood sugar and you expect a good result? Not likely. Even the best breakfast is going to wear off after a couple hours of running and then your blood sugar will plummet if you don’t put more sugar in. The brain cannot store sugar at all so when your blood sugar gets too low your brain can’t work well anymore. Knowing this, the brain will try to stop you from using up what sugar is left in your blood by telling stories about what’s happening in the body. Bad stories. Low blood sugar turns a little soreness into aching pain. It turns a tightness you could have run on into something that feels like a torn muscle. It turns sniffles into the flu. I am not exaggerating at all and yet I’ve met very good runners who don’t seem to know that pain signals and the interpretation of them can change radically in response to blood sugar fluctuations. We wouldn’t be distance runners if we weren’t hard headed but there is a time and a place for that. Ever been so hurt and sick you staggered across the finish or didn’t finish at all but then felt a whole lot better that very evening? Consider your nutrition.
So now it’s time to talk about what I actually mean when I say “sugar”. I don’t mean table sugar. That gives you a spike and a crash and is no good for you at all. I do mean easy to digest carbohydrates. How much carbohydrate? No matter how much you put in, your body can only absorb 65-80 grams of carbohydrate per hour. Extra will just give you the runs after a while. Waiting until you really need the sugar means hoping your body can make up a deficit and since you can only absorb so much at a time, that’s going to be difficult and probably slow you down.
Do you need to max out on this stuff, put in as much as will absorb every hour? I don’t know, I’m not you. That kind of question has to be answered through experimentation during training. Whatever it takes to fuel your training, remember that since you run faster when you race you may want to pay attention to how many miles per gel instead of how many gels per hour so that you can better figure out what you’ll need in a race. If I ate one gel an hour jogging 12 minute miles then two an hour at 10 minute miles but then race at a 9 minute mile pace, I may need three gels an hour to race (and for me, I do if it’s going to take me more than four hours to finish). Also, trail running burns more calories per hour than road running because irregular surfaces mean more different muscles get used, especially for newer trail runners.
How do you decide which brand and which type of product to use? Go to a running store or even a cycling store and buy a bunch of different brands and flavors then test them on yourself DURING TRAINING RUNS not during races unless you want to risk a few ruined races. I love Hammer gel but some people hate it. I used to like Honey Stinger gels but the sweetness can be too much for me after a couple. A friend of mine can only use solids, or at least gummies, like Shot Blocs, but I don’t want to have to chew anything during a race. What if your stomach objects? Didn’t your legs object when you told them to run a new distance?
Your digestive system is full of muscles and enzymes with variable levels sort of like your legs. Your digestive system can be trained. When I first started running distance I had to eat breakfast at least two hours before runs and drinking water during runs without cramping up was hard for me. I kept at it. Now I can eat gels while I run. Oddly, I find that if I chew while the gel is in my mouth it seems to settle a little better or maybe more quickly. Crazy? Who knows, maybe my body wants an extra signal to tell it the glob of artificially flavored chemicals I’m swallowing is actually food.
Don’t like the taste of anything you’ve tried? If it doesn't taste great you'll wash it down with extra water and then you'll stay hydrated. Nothing wrong with a little extra reminder to keep putting fluids in. The other odd phenomenon I've noticed is that gels start to taste better as your body learns to associate them with feeling better. Do know that if you have trouble with stomach cramping or getting the runs during races or just after, Immodium will probably fix it. For anything longer than a 10K race I take two an hour or so before. I have a friend who takes an Immodium before any run of more than 8 miles or so because without it her guts are in knots for hours. The Immodium wears after five or six hours and digestion returns to normal.
Why not just tough it out during training and try to get used to performing with lower blood sugar? Okay, first of all, you need sit somewhere quiet and consider why you are trying to make ultra running even harder. I have spent a little time on that one myself and have gotten much better about water and calories and I think it’s one of the things that has helped me get faster this year.
On a more physiologic note, if you run at a moderate or better intensity for much more than an hour, especially more than an hour and a half, then, if you don’t put in any calories at all, your body will break down the muscle in your legs more than if you had put in just a little hundred calorie gel or something like it. This break down is not something that will make you stronger. This breakdown will only slow your recovery, causing subsequent workouts to have less intensity. This means you won’t get better as fast as you could. Running a border line amount of time and don’t want to carry stuff? Don’t start on empty and put something with carbohydrate/sugar back into your system right as soon as you stop (not after talking to your running buddies for 15 minutes in the parking lot).
This same problem of muscle breakdown happens with protein, by the way, only with protein it takes another hour and with protein you don’t need a whole lot. 5-10 grams will make a difference in a four hour run. There are protein gels like Accel gel and protein single serving solids and powders like some of the Cliff bar products or Hammer Perpetuem. If you don’t like any of those, consider that a Payday candy bar contains 7 grams of protein in addition to the sugar. Heck, put some nuts in a little Ziploc and chew one every now and then. I’ll write more about protein and running and solid food versus not solid foot on another day though because I think this is plenty to digest for one post.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Fool's Trail Run 25 and 50K
I hadn’t run a trail 50K since last fall so I was a little nervous and very excited. I knew I could finish, I trained a ton over the winter. What I didn’t know is whether I’d really gotten faster and if I had, then how much? Then also a lot of my friends were running one of the two distances which for me is a feel good thing. I ran the first half with a couple other runners and between chatting, feeling really good and trying not to trip and fall I paid a lot less attention to my pace than I usually do, so when I looked up at the clock for my split I was shocked. I’ve never run a 25K that fast let alone any half of a 50K. Good or not good?
I held onto the pace until mile 20 or so and then it started to slip but I still ran 30 minutes faster than I’ve ever run a trail 50K before so that made me pretty happy. Shaun Pope won the men’s and Sandi Nypaver, who I ran with for the first half, was strong enough to hold a little closer to the pace than I could and won the women’s. I was happy with 2nd place, although I of course plan to try to get faster. It was pretty amazing to watch her pull away running up hills late in the race looking so strong. She promises me the hills started to hurt and slow down some in the last 3 miles out on the salt run loop but I several minutes behind by then and didn’t get to see it. I’ve already mentioned this before but it bears mentioning again; I have met so many really wonderful people trail running and racing!
Three of my fellow Grunt Girls ran in the 25K. Tonya Yanok set a new PR and didn’t even look tired by the time I got to the finish line. Kim Zepp ran a great race, covering more miles of trail than she ever has before. Anastasia Birosh finished over an hour faster than she’d told me she would while we were all huddled together for warmth before the start. Yeah, that’s a lot faster! Gabe Bures, one of our Grunt Guys also ran a PR, although this was actually his first 25K. A crowd of our fellow Grunt Girls drove over from their morning training run to watch us finish and it was a life-saver hearing all that screaming and cheering fighting my way to that uphill finish.
So what else should I talk about? It was in the low 20s when we started at 7:30 but rose to just above freezing and sunny by the finish, turning the trails into mud sometime around 11 and slowing progress for already tired runners. The sun was so great to see and feel that I’m not sure I minded. I continued my strategy of alternating protein gels with Hammer gels early in the race, switching to Hammer gels alone in the second half and I still think it makes me a heck of a lot less sore the next day to put in those 10-20 grams of protein. I think I’ll send Hammer Nutrition an email and ask them to make protein gels. Total gel count? I think 3 Accel gels (if you try them don’t complain to me about the taste, it sort of grows on you) and 10 Hammer gels. Yeah, it’s a lot but I would start to feel like my legs really hurt and eat one and then a little while later my legs would hurt less again. Higher blood sugar=happy brain and a happy brain will tell you your body hurts less. Low blood sugar=unhappy brain which will play tricks on you to try to get you to stop running. ‘Lies’ I tell it, ‘all lies’. Possibly I should have put in even 3 more gels than I did.
Ice bath after? Yep, after a large glass of wine. Stairs this morning? Not too bad. Even just right after I get out of the ice bath I can feel the difference in how my legs respond-well, after they warm up again. I’m sore but I’m not limping around. Did I scream and carry on for the first couple minutes? Oh, did I ever. That will probably never go away. After I was done screaming I called my friend Stacy Rhea, the woman who put the idea in my head in the first place, and she kept me calm enough and distracted enough to stay in the tub for about 18 minutes. Thank you Stacy! That’s enough blog for today I think Thanks Lloyd Thomas for having a great and well marked race for us to run and have a wonderful day out there everyone.
I held onto the pace until mile 20 or so and then it started to slip but I still ran 30 minutes faster than I’ve ever run a trail 50K before so that made me pretty happy. Shaun Pope won the men’s and Sandi Nypaver, who I ran with for the first half, was strong enough to hold a little closer to the pace than I could and won the women’s. I was happy with 2nd place, although I of course plan to try to get faster. It was pretty amazing to watch her pull away running up hills late in the race looking so strong. She promises me the hills started to hurt and slow down some in the last 3 miles out on the salt run loop but I several minutes behind by then and didn’t get to see it. I’ve already mentioned this before but it bears mentioning again; I have met so many really wonderful people trail running and racing!
Three of my fellow Grunt Girls ran in the 25K. Tonya Yanok set a new PR and didn’t even look tired by the time I got to the finish line. Kim Zepp ran a great race, covering more miles of trail than she ever has before. Anastasia Birosh finished over an hour faster than she’d told me she would while we were all huddled together for warmth before the start. Yeah, that’s a lot faster! Gabe Bures, one of our Grunt Guys also ran a PR, although this was actually his first 25K. A crowd of our fellow Grunt Girls drove over from their morning training run to watch us finish and it was a life-saver hearing all that screaming and cheering fighting my way to that uphill finish.
So what else should I talk about? It was in the low 20s when we started at 7:30 but rose to just above freezing and sunny by the finish, turning the trails into mud sometime around 11 and slowing progress for already tired runners. The sun was so great to see and feel that I’m not sure I minded. I continued my strategy of alternating protein gels with Hammer gels early in the race, switching to Hammer gels alone in the second half and I still think it makes me a heck of a lot less sore the next day to put in those 10-20 grams of protein. I think I’ll send Hammer Nutrition an email and ask them to make protein gels. Total gel count? I think 3 Accel gels (if you try them don’t complain to me about the taste, it sort of grows on you) and 10 Hammer gels. Yeah, it’s a lot but I would start to feel like my legs really hurt and eat one and then a little while later my legs would hurt less again. Higher blood sugar=happy brain and a happy brain will tell you your body hurts less. Low blood sugar=unhappy brain which will play tricks on you to try to get you to stop running. ‘Lies’ I tell it, ‘all lies’. Possibly I should have put in even 3 more gels than I did.
Ice bath after? Yep, after a large glass of wine. Stairs this morning? Not too bad. Even just right after I get out of the ice bath I can feel the difference in how my legs respond-well, after they warm up again. I’m sore but I’m not limping around. Did I scream and carry on for the first couple minutes? Oh, did I ever. That will probably never go away. After I was done screaming I called my friend Stacy Rhea, the woman who put the idea in my head in the first place, and she kept me calm enough and distracted enough to stay in the tub for about 18 minutes. Thank you Stacy! That’s enough blog for today I think Thanks Lloyd Thomas for having a great and well marked race for us to run and have a wonderful day out there everyone.
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