Gels all about the gels and that final 6.2!!!!!

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Comments

  • Good luck Liam and hannahsmom with your marathons coming up. Rome well supported and a cracker of a route, ESP when you run towards Vatican and the old town is superb!! Fancy another foreign venture anyone have any ideas?!!!! Berlin and Warsaw seem to appeal mmmm maybe 2013?! Oh well tough mudder in northampton first!!!
  • TmapTmap ✭✭✭

    These threads will be humming on the 23rd/24th/25th April with people who got sick from eating or drinking inappropriately, including people who've used gels in training but then found at race pace they can't deal with them.  A marathon's a very unpleasant experience if you get any kind of gastric distress.  Use with real caution, and don't gulp anything.  And if you don't feel you need them, don't feel obliged to use them - lots of people get by fine without.

  • This thread has been really helpful - thanks agentpenguin.  I've never taken gels before - just jelly babies and water and they make me feel a bit sick from mile 20.  I was hoping gels might give me a bit of an edge but haven't used them so far and I've done my last 20 mile.  I was going to use some High5 gels on a 14 mile run tomorrow - my last longest run before VLM - but not sure if it's a bad idea.  I'm an idiot for not doing the planning properly as Ferret75 said.
  • guess you are doing a 10 miler this weekend as part of your taper LTS?  You could could still try one gel - won't help you but at least you will know if it has any affect on your tum...

    Liam

  • Thanks Liam.  Tried some Hi5s on a 14 mile run last week - didn't like them.  Didn't upset me at all but couldn't imagine taking them at mile 18!  Yuk.  Will stick to jelly babies and Lucozade Sport.  I'm only going for a sub 5 hour image
  • I use SIS Go gels as people say they are the best for swallowing.  Not that nice but they do the job...

    Good luck

  • Zip Fit gels all the way for me!

    These ones are packed with 51g of Carbohydrate compared with the SiS ones which are about half of that..

    I used just 3 during the Rotterdam Marathon this weekend, but as mentioned before they are VERY cloggy (I would say gloopy) so my tactic is to take one as you are approaching a water station then gulp as much as you can to wash it down.

    On a marathon I take at 12 miles, 17 miles and 22 miles.

    Good luck!

  • mitiogmitiog ✭✭✭
    Does anyone here actually take the "recommended dose" of gels? For example, High5 say "3 sachets an hour" which is ~6-g carbs, the maximum amount the body can process during exercise (so they say on the leaflet that came with my gels, anyway!!). That seems a huge amount. I'd normally go for one an hour or something. Any thoughts? I've got 5 weeks til my marathon so I still have a couple of long runs to experiment with.

    Thanks image
  • I do one every 45 mins so x4 in a marathon
  • Charles RCharles R ✭✭✭
    These threads are great but they would be even more helpful if you could quickly see what pace everyone runs at. What works for someone doing 2:45 mara is going to be different from a 4:00. Extra profile fields (for 10k HM and FM) could be shown above each post maybe depending on forum, so this forum would only show FM value. It was great clicking Aliscott's profile to see he has added his pb times which match with my mara debut target of 3:15. Anyway back on topic, I've been using zipfit just before water station in training at 5, 10, & 15miles, although I might skip the 20 one tomorrow if I'm feeling good. The zipfit ones are thick but means I only need to carry 4 max which is great. A bit late now for VLM but zipfitsports do a free sample box (pay postage) which includes a gel belt which can obviously be used with any brand gels.

    Good luck tomorrow everyone! I'm beyond excited to see what a marathon is like.
  • mitiogmitiog ✭✭✭
    What's the evidence that pace matters when it comes to gel consumption Charles? Most of the sports nutrition stuff I've read (e.g. Anita Bean and Nancy Calrke) as well as the material that comes with the gels seems to advocate 30-60g of carbs an hour irrespective of pace. Clearly that means that a 3-hr runner needs to carry less gels than a 4 or 5 hr runner but beyond that does it actually matter? Arguably (again according to Anita Bean's book) weight is more important because a heavier runner would need more carbs than a lighter one.
  • Charles RCharles R ✭✭✭
    Only observational (i.e. no evidence!). People running marathons fast don't seem to use gels at all. It's just good to know what other people on similar targets are doing.
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