Gels or Sports Drink?

Posted on January 24, 2013 by Kate

Gels or Sports Drink?

When I race, should I choose gels or sports drinks? Or a combination of both?

During a race of 90 minutes or more glycogen levels need to be topped up on a regular basis or they’ll become depleted, you’ll run out of steam and you’ll ‘bonk’ or ‘hit the wall’. Drinking water is not enough! You’ll need to rapidly replenish depleted muscle glycogen and restore body salts lost through sweat. That’s why we have to take on board gels and sports drinks. Unfortunately, most of them are disgusting, unpalatable and sickly…that’s because they’re more or less pure glucose, designed to be digested as quickly as possible. Using homemade sports drinks in training is fine, but this is usually an impractical solution for racing. The only option is to try out different brands to find one you can stomach.

With the ongoing success of FuelSmart for Race Day, I’m frequently asked whether it’s best to top up these glycogen levels with gels or with sports drinks during triathlon, half-marathon and marathon endurance training and races, and whether there is any difference between them.

Discover your ideal personal strategy.

Firstly and most importantly, what works for you is unlikely to work for your fellow competitor! You need to practice different strategies in training to discover what will suit you and your physiology best. Whether you choose gels, sports drink or a combo depends more on your personal preference than on any performance advantage.

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FuelSmart for Race Day

Gels – don’t forget to wash them down with water

Gels, designed to be rapidly digested to replenish muscle glycogen as quickly as possible, provide between 20-30 grams of carbohydrate. Your body requires 30-60 grams of carbohydrate per hour, depending on workout intensity, so you’d need 2-3 gels per hour. Each gel must be washed down with plenty of water, for good hydration and for the effective absorption of the gel.

What about Sports Drinks?

Sports drinks are essentially gels with water, providing you ‘two for one’: hydration and carbohydrates. 500 ml typically contains between 30-45 grams carbohydrate, so you would need around 600 ml per hour, again depending on your workout.

Try a Gel/Sports Drink Combo to minimise Gastrointestinal discomfort

If, like me, you find sports drinks and gels too sickly-sticky, and water boring, try my combo method which maintains good hydration, body salt and glycogen levels.; a gel every 30-40 minutes, washed down with a 50% diluted sports drink. You never know, it might work for you!

Don’t forget electrolytes and protein

For best performance and recovery, choose a gel or sports drink which also contains protein and electrolytes; this helps prevent muscle damage and replaces lost body salts.

Solids can be kinder to the stomach

Overconsumption of gels and sports drinks can leave your gut feeling extremely uncomfortable. Energy bars, dried fruit, marmite, cheese or honey sandwiches, bananas and rice balls can be kinder to the stomach and many cyclists find it more pleasant and effective to eat these on the bike. Solids on the bike works for triathletes and ironman competitors, followed by sports drink and/or gels on the run to minimise gastrointestinal discomfort.

If you suffer GI problems, keep it simple!

Your stomach comes under all sorts of stress during endurance events. Many competitors suffer gastrointestinal problems. The more gunk you put inside you the likelihood is that the more uncomfortable your stomach will feel!

Practice different options in training to discover what is comfortable for you as an individual.

Orbana Healthy Energy Drink

Posted on January 18, 2010 by Kate

A lovely lady called Annabel Lee at a new start-up sports nutrition venture called Orbana very kindly sent me some samples of their new energy drink to try out. Many of my followers will know that I am not one to get enthused by commercial sports nutrition products, all of which seem to claim that their product will be your answer to improved performance/recovery because of its unique blend of carbohydrate, minerals, protein etc etc. I find that most of these drinks and gels wither play havoc with my stomach or make me gag. They also tend to leave a sweet and sickly artificial taste in your mouth. I am much happier with the home made variety – you know exactly what is in it and it usually tastes better. Lots of recipes in my book, Go Faster Food for these…

Sometimes there is no alternative to a commercial drink – Why is that?

It’s what’s on offer during races and it is always advisable to train using what you are going to be drinking during the race. I remember learning that lesson at my first ever marathon – New York – drinking for the first time some kind of green concoction provided at the drnks stations (Gatorade, I think)…..well, needless to say that my stomach said “no way mate!” and over 5 minutes were wasted sitting on portaloos along the course!! Not nice. No, not at all nice.
There is a limit to the amount of carbohydrate your body can store, so you will need to keep your carbohydrate stores topped up during any endurance over about 90 minutes, no matter how well you have carbo-loaded beforehand. Your body will also work better with a steady intake of important vitamins, minerals, electrolytes etc to prevent a decrease in performance, fatigue and cramping. Commercial products claim to contain what we need in right proportion.
It is sometimes just simply more convenient to use something pre-prepared – for training at work or when you are travelling, for instance.

So what did I think of Orbana, healthy energy?

In a nutshell – IT’s LOVELY and IT WORKS!!!

Handy little bottle

First of all, it is very different to any other sports drink I have come across. It comes in a little bottle containing just powder to which you then add water. This keeps the ingredients fresh – the vitamins and amino acids lose their potency over time. This bottle is easy to run with if you have small hands and of course, very light if you are travelling with it. You can also buy Orbana as a powder and then add it to your own sports bottle – it is more economical to buy it in this way and I will probably take this option to use for my marathon training.

Sports drink, energy drink, hydration drink, recovery drink and fruit drink all-in-one

A true “superdrink” then! Take a look at what is in it – http://www.orbana.com/inside.html – Orbana is packed with energy, B vitamins, antioxidants, branched-chain amino acids, minerals and electrolytes….and per 100ml contains 9.3g complex carbohydrate and 5.4g simple sugars, which is more than leading brands of more sickly-tasting sports drinks.

It is difficult to tell without trialling the drink for weeks, but the couple of long runs I have done with this drink have been really good ones! No fatigue, feeling light on my feet, finishing as strong as when I started.

It tastes nice!!!!

I have to admit that it tastes really quite pleasant – a nice citrus flavour, clean and fresh with a bit of a tang and certainly not too sweet. What I like about Orbana is that you can get your fix of nutrients and then top your hydration requirement with plain water.

Sustained energy release – helps delay fatigue for up to 2 hours.

Really high in complex carbohydrates, Orbana gives you a steady release of energy without the spike or crash that you can get with other very high Glycaemic Index drinks and gels. Yet it still contains some simple sugars to top up depleting glycogen stores quickly during a long endurance session/race.

No bloated feeling and no loo stops…

Luckily Orbana has not give me the usual violent reaction that other drinks can give me….

And….it’s good for you!

Orbana has no artificial sweeteners, preservatives, colours or caffeine and is drug, stimulant and contaminant free.

I will definitely be using Orbana again.

Hydration, Hydration, Hydration!

Posted on October 5, 2009 by Kate

Hydration, Hydration, Hydration!

Do you ever feel so exhausted that you have to stop running? Do you sometimes feel dizzy or disorientated during a long workout? Have you ever been overcome by cramp after cycling for 60km?

These are all signs of dehydration rearing its ugly head. Exercise makes us sweat; it is our body’s efficient way of trying to maintain a steady temperature. During long periods of intense exercise the loss of large amounts of sweat can not only have a negative effect on our performance, but ignoring symptoms can also lead to serious consequences. The difference between good and bad performance can often be due to your state of hydration, infact, being under-hydrated by as little as 2% of your body weight increases the effort needed to maintain performance and can cause a significant decrease in performance – at least 10%. If we loose more than this then we can start to suffer from cramps, slower reaction time, reduced judgement and concentration, headaches and so on.

But we all sweat at different rates. There is no” one size fits all” solution to hydration. It really is down to each one of us to work out our individual hydration requirements and it is a good idea to devise your own personal drinking stategy:

Three easy steps to work out your hydration requirements:

Learn to know you daily hydrated bodyweight.The simplest way to monitor this is to check the colour of your pee. Most athletes are familiar with the “pee test”. If your pee is a light straw colour, then you are well-hydrated. The darker your pee, the less hydrated you are. Make sure your pee is a light straw colour and then weigh yourself. This will give you your baseline fully hydrated weight.
Learn to know your average sweat rate. This of course will vary according to the temperature, but I find the easiest way to work out how much fluid you lose in sweat is to run for an hour immediately after you’ve weighed yourself for your baseline hydrated weight. As soon as you return from your run, weigh yourself again. Remember not to drink anything for this test to work!
Work out your hourly hydration requirement. Calculate the difference between your pre and post workout weight. For each 1kg lost, you should consume 1.5 litres of fluid, so if you lose ½ kg in that hour, you need to make sure that you drink ¾ litre of fluid per hour to remain fully hydrated.

Click here for some great tips to help you stay hydrated

Do you ever feel so exhausted that you have to stop running? Do you

sometimes feel dizzy or disorientated during a long workout? Have

you ever been overcome by cramp after cycling for 60km?

These are all signs of dehydration rearing its ugly head. Exercise

makes us sweat; it is our body’s efficient way of trying to maintain

a steady temperature. During long periods of intense exercise the

loss of large amounts of sweat can not only have a negative effect

on our performance, but ignoring symptoms can also lead to serious

consequences.

Even the well-conditioned athlete has to be careful about hydration,

especially in hot conditions. As the heat increases, so does your

core body temperature and you start to sweat profusely. This causes

a decrease in your blood volume, which is necessary for carrying

oxygen to the heart. Consequently, there is less oxygen-rich blood

available to fuel your working muscles – your muscles are being

pushed to capacity but they are receiving fewer nutrients and you

start to slow down. What is more, on a hot day your body tries to

cool itself by sending more blood into the capillaries (small blood

vessels) of the skin and the amount of blood available to the

muscles is reduced even further. You become increasingly dehydrated

as your body fights to maintain its core temperatureDo you ever feel so exhausted that you have to stop running? Do you