I am training for my first marathon on December 8th. So far, I’ve avoided high-carb fueling options to steer clear of processed and high-sugar products.
For my longest runs, I’ve been using organic honey, but I’m now ready to try gels. I understand their benefits, and with high-quality options, there’s minimal risk of stomach issues or unwanted chemical ingredients.
Tomorrow, during my longest training run of 36-38km, I’ll be using four gels for the first time. Fingers crossed it goes well!
How did it go with your first gel experience? What's your marathon on the 8th? That's when I run CIM. Also, I love a couple spoons of organic peanut butter drizzled with honey as my first calories for recovery.
Hi Mike, it went quite well, thanks for asking! I took 4 carb gels at 8, 16, 25, and 32 km.
I started already quite loaded with food from the previous day (my fault :D), which caused a bit of stomach discomfort. However, I managed to work through and complete the session successfully.
So, I wouldn’t attribute the discomfort to the gels themselves. Considering it was my first time with them, my feedback is positive. I didn’t feel a dramatic burst of energy, but I know they worked—I performed at my best, experienced less fatigue, and avoided major energy crashes after the activity.
I’ve tried adding peanut butter to my mixes in the past—loved the flavor, but unfortunately, my stomach didn’t agree.
As for the race, I’m Italian and live in Italy, I’ll be running in Reggio Emilia :) Best of luck with your CIM run!
I have been running for 17 years and at the start I had no clue what I was doing. As I progressed through sport I realized that fueling during the runs was imperative to success but here is the rub.
I developed a disordered eating problem because lighter was faster. So, I would fuel during my runs and rides but starve myself outside of the training windows.
Today, I have gotten better with eating outside of training and still fuel during training.
With the goal of competing at the 100 mile distance in 2025 the tests will come with fueling before, during and after.
Appreciate you sharing that very real dark side of the relationship between sport and fueling/nutrition. Was there one "catalyst" event that opened your eyes to the place you were in? My under-fueling (both in and out of training) was more due to ignorance of what my body needed. Then, of course, there was the decade-plus where most of my calories were coming from beer, which in itself led to a weird relationship with nutrition. We do recover!
Lori and I having a conversation one day. She bluntly said, that is a disordered eating situation. It took a 2x4 to the face and not a question of what I was doing.
Had it been a question, I would have defended myself. Saying it directly had an impact and one that continues to resonate today.
I once used a Maurten gel’s edge to cut my bagel. (Not really, but I could.)
My own experience is somewhat like Jeff’s, in that I also race best on <100 calories per hour—except in my case it’s not fat-adaptation but my rather casual approach to gut-training. Definitely something to work on.
Ha! Those things should come with a sheath. Funny story: when I worked at Hammer, we created a couple ads encouraging people to spread gels on their toast, and I can't think of anything less appetizing.
I think things come in and out of vogue. Ultrarunners have been slamming cans of Coke for a carb hit for decades. What's changing, in my estimation, is the quality and variety of products available. Now you can get the hit, without the slosh or GI distress. Besides, is it cheating if everyone does it? 😉
It sounds like this is working well for you, and anything that makes you feel freshly enthusiastic about running is worth its weight in gold (also, It's hard to argue with results like David Roche's). But I'll bite on the closing question, since my nutrition journey seems the exact opposite of yours...
I was all-in on the high-carb approach, including depletion runs and loading, eating as many PowerGels and Cliff Shots as I possibly could (and later guzzling Tailwind), from my first road marathons through my first few hundred-milers. Then in maybe 2018 I followed along as a friend made the transition to fat-adapted running (using Phil Maffetone's approach). His results (and Zach Bitter's mind-boggling performances) convinced me, and I made the leap. Now, I finish mountain hundreds on well under 100 calories per hour, faster and feeling better than I did before. Might I be able to go faster if I carbed-up? Maybe, but for now I can travel light and feel free and self-reliant, confident that my performance doesn't depend on eating so much during a run.
Nice post — thanks. It's always good to reconsider things...
Thanks for the perspective! I have never done 100, but suspect I would need to dial back the "carb-enthusiasm" for something that long. Right now, in marathon training, I'm rarely going beyond three hours, and (toward the end of the build) am spending more and more time at threshold and tempo efforts. I'm a classic, "Why is it so hard to run easy?" guy, and have struggled with the Z2 focus prescribed by fat-adapted approaches. Getting better, though. I wonder if fueling, like many things in running, could be a "yes, and" equation. We vary other aspects of the experience for optimal health and performance. Perhaps fueling philosophies could be similarly elastic. Appreciate you reading!
Forcing that slow pace during adaptation is the hardest/most frustrating part of the process (and that out-of-zone alarm on the watch that says your HR is too high becomes maddening). I'm sure you're right about the "yes, and" approach. Happy running...
Thank you for reading. That is a fair point, and I considered including something about cost, because of course there is some privilege baked into high-carb. I think fueling a 20-miler costs me about 15 bucks, and a week of running is $20-$25. No, that is not cheap. But a fast food "value meal" is 10 or 12 dollars these days.
I am training for my first marathon on December 8th. So far, I’ve avoided high-carb fueling options to steer clear of processed and high-sugar products.
For my longest runs, I’ve been using organic honey, but I’m now ready to try gels. I understand their benefits, and with high-quality options, there’s minimal risk of stomach issues or unwanted chemical ingredients.
Tomorrow, during my longest training run of 36-38km, I’ll be using four gels for the first time. Fingers crossed it goes well!
How did it go with your first gel experience? What's your marathon on the 8th? That's when I run CIM. Also, I love a couple spoons of organic peanut butter drizzled with honey as my first calories for recovery.
Hi Mike, it went quite well, thanks for asking! I took 4 carb gels at 8, 16, 25, and 32 km.
I started already quite loaded with food from the previous day (my fault :D), which caused a bit of stomach discomfort. However, I managed to work through and complete the session successfully.
So, I wouldn’t attribute the discomfort to the gels themselves. Considering it was my first time with them, my feedback is positive. I didn’t feel a dramatic burst of energy, but I know they worked—I performed at my best, experienced less fatigue, and avoided major energy crashes after the activity.
I’ve tried adding peanut butter to my mixes in the past—loved the flavor, but unfortunately, my stomach didn’t agree.
As for the race, I’m Italian and live in Italy, I’ll be running in Reggio Emilia :) Best of luck with your CIM run!
I have been running for 17 years and at the start I had no clue what I was doing. As I progressed through sport I realized that fueling during the runs was imperative to success but here is the rub.
I developed a disordered eating problem because lighter was faster. So, I would fuel during my runs and rides but starve myself outside of the training windows.
Today, I have gotten better with eating outside of training and still fuel during training.
With the goal of competing at the 100 mile distance in 2025 the tests will come with fueling before, during and after.
Appreciate you sharing that very real dark side of the relationship between sport and fueling/nutrition. Was there one "catalyst" event that opened your eyes to the place you were in? My under-fueling (both in and out of training) was more due to ignorance of what my body needed. Then, of course, there was the decade-plus where most of my calories were coming from beer, which in itself led to a weird relationship with nutrition. We do recover!
Lori and I having a conversation one day. She bluntly said, that is a disordered eating situation. It took a 2x4 to the face and not a question of what I was doing.
Had it been a question, I would have defended myself. Saying it directly had an impact and one that continues to resonate today.
I once used a Maurten gel’s edge to cut my bagel. (Not really, but I could.)
My own experience is somewhat like Jeff’s, in that I also race best on <100 calories per hour—except in my case it’s not fat-adaptation but my rather casual approach to gut-training. Definitely something to work on.
Thanks for the article!
Ha! Those things should come with a sheath. Funny story: when I worked at Hammer, we created a couple ads encouraging people to spread gels on their toast, and I can't think of anything less appetizing.
Ew. Although HammerToast does have a certain ring to it.
I too am a n00b to this stuff (which is still less a decade old in terms of being a popular way to think), but it still feels like cheating
I think things come in and out of vogue. Ultrarunners have been slamming cans of Coke for a carb hit for decades. What's changing, in my estimation, is the quality and variety of products available. Now you can get the hit, without the slosh or GI distress. Besides, is it cheating if everyone does it? 😉
It sounds like this is working well for you, and anything that makes you feel freshly enthusiastic about running is worth its weight in gold (also, It's hard to argue with results like David Roche's). But I'll bite on the closing question, since my nutrition journey seems the exact opposite of yours...
I was all-in on the high-carb approach, including depletion runs and loading, eating as many PowerGels and Cliff Shots as I possibly could (and later guzzling Tailwind), from my first road marathons through my first few hundred-milers. Then in maybe 2018 I followed along as a friend made the transition to fat-adapted running (using Phil Maffetone's approach). His results (and Zach Bitter's mind-boggling performances) convinced me, and I made the leap. Now, I finish mountain hundreds on well under 100 calories per hour, faster and feeling better than I did before. Might I be able to go faster if I carbed-up? Maybe, but for now I can travel light and feel free and self-reliant, confident that my performance doesn't depend on eating so much during a run.
Nice post — thanks. It's always good to reconsider things...
Thanks for the perspective! I have never done 100, but suspect I would need to dial back the "carb-enthusiasm" for something that long. Right now, in marathon training, I'm rarely going beyond three hours, and (toward the end of the build) am spending more and more time at threshold and tempo efforts. I'm a classic, "Why is it so hard to run easy?" guy, and have struggled with the Z2 focus prescribed by fat-adapted approaches. Getting better, though. I wonder if fueling, like many things in running, could be a "yes, and" equation. We vary other aspects of the experience for optimal health and performance. Perhaps fueling philosophies could be similarly elastic. Appreciate you reading!
Forcing that slow pace during adaptation is the hardest/most frustrating part of the process (and that out-of-zone alarm on the watch that says your HR is too high becomes maddening). I'm sure you're right about the "yes, and" approach. Happy running...
How much did all that SIS and Precision cost you on that 20 mile run? No one talks about the crazy high cost of this trend.
Thank you for reading. That is a fair point, and I considered including something about cost, because of course there is some privilege baked into high-carb. I think fueling a 20-miler costs me about 15 bucks, and a week of running is $20-$25. No, that is not cheap. But a fast food "value meal" is 10 or 12 dollars these days.