>> Charlie: Hello and, um, welcome back to the Cook Eat Run
podcast with XMiles. We are kicking off
with a bit of a back to basics episode on how to
choose the right fuel for your running. Because let's
be honest, it can be a little overwhelming.
I fueled for my first marathon with Harry Bow and
leukocade light because I had no idea what I was doing.
And I meet so many people that are under fueling for their
long runs and race is people posting on Instagram
about having one gel or a couple of sweets
or even nothing. And, uh, not only could this be
hindering your performance, but it makes running
so much harder. Back in
October 2022, I ran one of those weird
autumn London marathons. I kind of loved it
because I love summer running. So, yeah, it kind of worked for me.
But I just had one of those days where everything felt
incredible. The course, the crowds, my
pace felt easy, and I just felt like I was floating
through the 26.2 miles. I
also nailed my nutrition. I took like seven
gels on course, had Rice Krispy squares at the
start. I finally carb loaded properly
in the days leading up to the race, and surprise, surprise,
I never hit the wall. I didn't feel hungry or
sick as I have done in many other marathons.
And I actually ran another marathon seven days later,
the Chicago Marathon, which I do not recommend.
I mean, I recommend the Chicago marathon. I just mean I
don't recommend doing two back to back within a week.
But I was able to do this, and I think that was partly
because of the way I fueled for both
marathons and my recovery in
between. I got to that stage
after spending every long run over the summer taste
testing gels. I've posted this as a highlight reel
on my Instagram, which is at, uh, the runner beans, if you want to have a look at
and see me kind of gagging on some
gels, enjoying others, struggling
to get into other packs. Anyway, um, I basically
ordered every gel, chew, carb,
drink, et cetera, in the range of
flavors from X miles, and would work my way through
them on each run. It was actually really fun,
kind of setting everything out in the morning, planning what
I was going to have, making sure there was some that I knew
would be sort of well tolerated and some that were brand
new to me. It was a really good
distraction for me on the long runs, and it helped
me find the right gels.
Personally, I landed on precision fuel and hydration
gels. I like the thicker texture,
the mild flavour, uh, high carb content,
and I use that for the London Marathon, although there
are others that are thrown to training runs to keep things exciting.
I mean, yeah, I'm that cool.
And I'm regularly testing new products that appear on the
XMiles website. Now,
I've done the dirty work so that hopefully you don't have to and
you don't have to be in the situation where you have to get a taxi home from
your run because you've chosen too high of a fiber
gel. Um, and we don't want you
to have to order boxes and boxes of gels and bars that might not
work for you. I'm going to give you a bit of an
overview today on how to find the right fuel
for you. With that said, it is definitely
a bit of a trial and error situation, especially when
it comes to flavor, texture and
caffeine content. But hopefully today's
episode gives you a bit of a starting point.
You could also try the xmart's monthly nutrition
boxes or energy gel selection boxes.
There's even a high carb option, which I definitely recommend
you go for. You can get 10% off everything on
the Xmiles website as a listener, uh, of the cookie
run podcast with xmars with the code
capital C E r
po d ten. So that's c
e r pod ten with no
spaces.
Our bodies rely on two fuel sources to feed our
muscles, carbs and fat. And when it comes to
endurance events, carbs are
king. They're our primary fuel source. Due
to the ease of availability, our body doesn't have to work
that hard to get the energy. However, we can
only store a finite amount on our body and, um, not enough for us
to complete a marathon at, uh, top performance anyway.
So the current research suggests that carb replenishment
should be around 40 to 80 grams/hour for
the average runner. People like Elliot Kachovi
can take about 120 grams/hour but
they also have their race nutrition on the course without having to carry
25 gels. So there is that.
How many carbs our body can utilize depends on our
size, our running intensity, our pace, and,
um, just personal digestion.
Fueling during the run is something we need to train for just as
much as clocking up the actual miles in the build
up to your marathon or half marathon. So just as you're training your
legs and your lungs, you need to train your gut.
It, uh, sounds a bit gross and it kind of is.
It's literally getting your gut used to
being plied with sugar carbs
while you're running and, um, not having
a bathroom situation. Shall
we say
sports gels choose liquid fuel, and
bars all work in a similar way.
Sports gels choose liquid fuel, and
bars all work in a similar way by
providing specially formulated simple sugars that are
easily absorbed into the bloodstream to fuel your muscles and
organs. There is a finite amount of carbs
that our body can utilize an hour. This is usually around 30 to
90 grams, although you can train yourself to take in
more. By combining different types of
carbs, sports nutrition products are able to
maximize the body's uptake and usage of carbs,
which isn't easily replicated by eating real food options
like fruit or sweets, which often come with higher fiber or
higher fat content as well, although there are
more natural options when it comes to sports fuel, which
we'll get on to later.
So when thinking about our fuel, the starting point for me is
always the carb content. That is
the most important thing. Ideally, I'm looking
for something with over 25 grams of carbs per
serving, so that I only need to take one every sort of 30
minutes or five ish k on the course. Depending on
where hydration stations are and my pace,
you can find the amount of carbs per serving on the back of any pack
of blocks, bars, gels, drinks, that sort of thing.
For example, cliff bar shop blocks have 31 grams
of carbs per three blocks or half a
pack, while a goo gel has 22
grams. Some good higher carb options
include precision fuel and hydration at, uh, 30 grams.
You know, that's one of my faves ote super
gels, sis beta gels, and
morton 160 at, uh, 40 grams of
carbs per pack. I've actually
recently tried some gels, the two two sixes
and another type, which I'll talk about a bit
later, that have 50 or 55 grams of
carbs. But it is worth kind of
balancing out whether you want the bigger packs, which they
generally are, versus the smaller ones, which have
slightly lower carb content.
To make it easy, Xmars actually has a filter where you can
choose high carb options on their website, which is
really helpful.
So I tried neversecond C 30,
which has 50 grams of carbs. And
I like the taste, the berry flavor, but found the texture to be
kind of like a lumpy liquid, and it took a while to eat the
whole gel. So I'd probably recommend if you're going to have something a little bit
bigger, that you sip it over a longer period rather
than try and down it in one, which is what I tend to do.
The two two sixes, high fructose gels have
55 grams of carbs. I tried the cola
flavor, which, um, maybe was a mistake.
Kind of tastes like the base liquid for a soda
fountain diet Coke, which, don't get me wrong, I absolutely love,
but I did find it a bit secretly sweet. But the
salty strawberry tasted much better in my opinion,
although it was still quite sweet. These are ones I would
definitely need to take with just plain water.
Both the never second C 30 and the two two six s,
uh, are on the bigger side. Um, so yeah, you might
want to sip those rather than try to chug.
I also really like the idea of the peanut and
honey. Two two sixes. Um, I
tried this on a recent run and I kind of
like the almost savoriness of it, although
it was still obviously sweet with the honey, but it's
a little bit thicker, a little bit kind of, um, more
claggy. So I found it quite hard to take it
on the run, but I imagine it'd be really good as like a
high carb addition to your pre run toast,
porridge or bagel or in your carb.
Loading. 55 grams is a real whack. Or you
could make your own. Uh, the victus
during gel has 45 grams of
carbs and I recently tried the lemon flavor, uh, and found
it I can only describe as inoffensive.
So good for those who like a thin gel, like the high
five gels, but with a higher carb content.
Maybe taste should actually come first because
really, how are you going to
eat however many gels, up to seven that you need
if you don't like the taste? So maybe that should have come before carbs, but
it's a bit of a no brainer. But if you're going to be eating high
quantities of, um, these gels or
drinks or chews, then you're going to probably want to like
the taste or at least tolerate it.
It might be worth having a range of flavor options on race
day to avoid flavor fatigue. I know that
I don't deal very well with very sweet options anymore, although I
used to solely fuel using salted caramel
goo, which tastes a bit like dolce de leche. It's
quite thick, but it's quite delicious.
Talking of kind of thickness, texture also
comes down to personal preference. Some people like
the gooes, the thicker gels where you might need to sort of chew
it. You might like a thin gel where you don't need to take
water with it, but you will still need to hydrate on course. But
it might just be a bit easier if you don't want to have to time it
with the fluid stations, or maybe
you just don't like that gel liquidy type texture at
all and would prefer a bar or a shoe.
Typically the thinner gels like sis
go two two six s high five, uh,
are isotonic, meaning you don't have to take them with water.
And the thicker gels, like the precision
fuel and hydration goo hammer,
they'll need to be taken alongside water.
While I'd recommend it, um, I try to time
mine with the coarse age stations or
carry a hydration pack or handheld bottle with me
on the run. If you don't
like the textures of gels at all, I promise you
there is a range you can find thicker ones, thinner
ones, um, puree style. But
if that's really not for you, you might prefer a
chew like the Velo forte cubus energy
chews. The ginger flavour is my favorite.
Maybe the cliff bar shop blocks
margarita is the winner in my opinion. Or the
scratch labs energy chews, which are literally like little sweets. They are
delish. They kind of remind me of jelly tots which I
haven't had for years, but used to be all the rage when I was at school, which
is maybe aging me. Um,
you can find the full selection of XML so you can have a play
around with some of those as well.
It's worth bearing in mind that you'll need more
chews to consume the same number of carbs as a
gel. So for example, three
times usually ish, the amount to
the carb content of one gel. Like the cliff shop
blocks 31 grams is three
chews. This can work out quite
handily, as you could maybe have 1
/mile but you might want to think about how you're going
to carry them and if you're going to remember to take
them because sometimes, even with the gels, every
sort of 30 minutes ish, I can forget or
I don't want to take it because I'm feeling a bit nauseous or
tired. So it is worth thinking about
how that's going to play out into your fueling strategy.
I kind of like to mix choose in at
the end of training runs because then it helps me
avoid flavor or texture fatigue and
it's something a little bit different. And often it's when
I'm kind of at the end of my tether with the gels.
I also like to play around with liquid carbs.
So if this is something that you feel like you might tolerate better or
for training runs, maybe you're on the treadmill, or you've got someone with you on
the bike, you could try something like
tailwind or Morton drink mix.
They can be also really helpful in the lead
up to your race when you're carb loading, just to be able to sip
on like 50, 60 grams of carbs in
one bottle. My plan for the
next marathon is to bring a handheld with me containing
some liquid carbs and electrolytes to sip, sort of
pre race, and then during the first half of the race before handing it
over to a friend or, um, just kind of chucking
the bottle.
So I've touched on it a little bit.
But caffeine is
quite an important thing to think about and
to train your gut with. If
you don't drink coffee in day to day life, then you
don't want to go out and have four caffeinated
gels and just hope for the best.
We know that caffeine can be a performance booster, especially
when used correctly, so that makes sure that you want
to.
We know that caffeine can be a performance booster, especially
when used correctly, so that's making sure that you time
it right. It takes about an hour to reach its full potential
in the bloodstream, but it can upset some
people's stomachs or give them the jitters, especially if you
don't have much coffee in your day to day life. I've had four today,
so I think I'll be probably fine with caffeinated gels
on raised day, and I train with them regularly.
If you do want to enjoy some of the performance benefits of caffeine,
which is up to two to 4% and quite
a lot cheaper than the vaporfly
or other carbon plated shoes,
you're going to want to consume around three to six
milligrams per kilogram body weight before and during your
training and race. So for most runners, that looks like
200 milligrams or two coffees or
two well caffeinated gels like the Morton
caffeine precision fuel and hydration caffeine
sturker. Unsure if that's how you pronounce
it, but the St
Y RKR caffeine and dual
carb gels, or the two two six s,
it's worth looking out for how much caffeine is
actually in the gel. So some of them, some of the goo, some of the other
products have caffeine in them, but
it's not the 100 200 milligrams
that you'd be looking for for that performance booster.
Obviously you want to make the most of your caffeine intake if you are
taking it, so you'll want to time it well,
since it takes about 60 minutes for it to fully
kick in, try taking it
about 60 to 90 minutes
before you want it to kick in.
So, for example, if you're running a four hour, uh,
marathon, you want to take your caffeine jars around the
one and two, um, hour mark or two and two and a half hour
marks. As well as thinking about
carbs, caffeine taste,
texture, you may also want to think about
electrolytes. Some running fuel
contains electrolytes, most commonly sodium, but often
potassium as well. We lose these
key electrolytes when we sweat, which can cause cramping,
stomach issues, reduction in performance, headaches
and more serious issues.
Electrolytes help control muscle contractions and make sure your
body functions properly during exercise. And
they can also help break down carbohydrates for more fuel
for your muscles and increase the blood flow to keep your heart
pumping. All pretty important things
to help maintain your electrolyte balance and
hydration. Replacing these electrolytes is crucial
and you can get these from some gels like
humidia plus neverseconds, C
30 plus SAs go electrolyte
gels or things like the margarita shop blocks and
the velo Fortier citra. If
you do choose a fuel without electrolytes,
like the precision fuel and hydration, it's my pet peeve. I
wish they had one with sodium in. Then you are going to
have to think about how else you can maintain your sodium levels on the
run, particularly if you are a very
salty or heavy sweater, which you'll know if
you have ever had the white crust on your body or clothes after a
run or you're drenched through. That's
me. Often options
include electrolyte drinks, tabs, salt
sticks or pills. I actually just ordered
some salt stick electrolyte fast tubes to give them
a try for my next race.
We've talked a lot about kind of the specific
sports nutrition products some people might
want to try more. Real food or natural fueling
options which you
for those wanting to try more natural fueling
options, there are still specially
formulated sports nutrition products that are made
from real food. These are from
brands such as Hammer, which produce.
These are from brands such as Hammer who produce gels with a chia
base or velo forte, which are based on real
food. For those with sensitive stomachs, these can be
good options as they tend to be better tolerated than those with
synthetic ingredients. Although it's worth keeping an
eye out because they often have a lower carb content.
So we've talked about caffeine
texture, taste, electrolytes,
carbs. What else should we think
about? For me, a good starting
point is looking at what fuel is on
course during a race.
This can have.
So we've talked about a lot of the kind of things to
look out for in gels, but where to start?
I often think a good starting point is looking at
what fuel is on course during your race.
It can mean that you can use the gels at aid stations
and maybe carry one or two less on your
body. Oh, my God.
So we've talked about what to look out for in
your sports nutrition, like the texture, the taste, the
carbs, the electrolytes, the caffeine. But where
do you actually start when it comes to fueling?
Well, I like to look at what fuel is on
course during my race. This means that
you can use the gels at the aid stations and hopefully carry one
or two less and also buy one or two less because they can get quite
expensive. Don't forget we've got the
10% off code, so listen at the end
and I will share it with you again.
London Marathon has leukosade gels on course, so if
you're planning on using these on race sits worth giving them a try
during training. For those running Manchester Marathon,
you'll find go sis
gels or sis go. Not really sure
which way you call it, but we'll link it below.
And those at, uh, Brighton, you'll find high
five on course.
Some other things to think about. I know it's
confusing, you've just got to keep
working at it. But
another thing to think about is how you're going to
carry your fuel. Are you going to stuff your
pockets, bring a hydration vest, have your friends and family
hold them for you? If, like me, you need
six or seven gels, this is definitely worth considering when
picking your fuel of choice. I had my mum standing
with some of my gels during the London marathon and
whilst it was really helpful, it was quite
stressful, like knowing that I absolutely had to
see her. So I had her at mile seven.
So I'd already taken two gels and I got to replenish
with three more at that point. Um, and I
know it's not that crowded. I know exactly where we normally stand.
But if you are relying on friends or family having the
gels for you on course or whatever you've chosen to
use, make sure you know exactly where they're going to be, when
they're going to be there. And, um, they know how to
look out for you and you know how to look out for them.
It might also be worth considering things like how easy it
is to open your fuel on the go. I found that the
Velaforti gels are quite hard to open.
Hopefully they've changed their packaging since I last tried
them. Think about does it involve
chewing your sports nutrition of choice like
shoes, shop blocks, bars, that sort of
thing. I personally find that when I'm really cold or if
I'm trying to run quite fast, I
struggle with shoes, but I'm totally fine taking them on
like training runs or in warmer training.
Are you going to walk while you fuel or are you going to
try and take them on the run? Are you going to
use the aid stations for your
water? Are you going to try and carry it yourself? All
things to consider,
hopefully we've covered just about everything about energy
gels and shoes and how to choose the right options for
you. But if you do have any other questions,
make sure to check out the xmars website.
They have tons of information on there. Or
send me an email or dm, um, on Instagram.
I'm at the runnerbeans. Or, uh, you can
email me at therunnerbeans@gmail.com and
don't forget, you can save on all your fueling needs at xmiles m
your one stop nutrition shop with the code
c e r
podpod ten. That's
c e r po d ten
for 10%. Uh, off sitewide
tune in next time for episodes covering carb
loading. We've got caffeine and performance where
we really deep dive into the nitty gritty about
why caffeine helps us, uh, perform
better. And another episode
on why everyone in the endurance world is talking about
CBD right now. So make sure to subscribe,
give us a rating and review and we
will see you or hear from you next time.
Tune in next time for episodes covering carb loading.
With Featherstone nutrition, caffeine and
performance, we're going to deep dive into the nitty gritty
on why and how caffeine impacts
performance and, um, discuss why everyone in the
endurance world is talking about CBD right now.
So make sure you subscribe, like
leave us a rating and review all the good stuff. Love to
hear from you. Slide into our DMs, give
us a follow and we will hopefully
join you on your run or your commute or
just going to sleep. I listen to podcasts when I'm on the way to
sleep. Um, when I'm trying to go to sleep
so
why do I do this?
Give us a, like,
subscribe, give us a like,
leave us a rating and review. Get in touch, tell
us what you want to hear about, and hopefully we
will join you on your next run, your commute,
or. I personally listen to a lot of podcasts, and I'm trying to go to
sleep, so maybe that's where you're listening to this now. And,
um, have a great
weekend.
Bye.