Food stuff…

This is a combination of a brief overview of why the food reviews appear as they do, a small announcement, and extra food reviews.

Running nutrition products are basically designed to give you a boost during longer workouts. There will be minute differences among all the gels and chews and they can be produced with slightly different purposes in mind, such as in-workout use, recovery, etc.

There are some bigger differences. For example, some have caffeine, generally ranging from 25-50 mg though they go up to 100mg. The margarita flavored Clif Bloks have triple sodium which is beneficial on a very hot day. These types of differences show up on the front of the packaging.

That being said, I take a fairly casual approach to running foods as they should all give you energy. When choosing running nutrition, I’m looking at three factors in this order: does my GI handle it well, how does it taste, and does it give me energy. It may seem odd that the energy boost would be last (and I’m sure some people would consider the energy factor to be more important than the flavor). However, even if I don’t feel a boost, I am taking in calories and in theory it should be providing some benefit, even if it’s not obvious. If the taste is terrible, I won’t be too happy but I can handle it. If it creates GI issues, that’s more difficult to run through.

For the announcement:

Going forward, the Running Pantry will be organized by food type (gel, chews, drinks, etc.) and then by brand. For example, all Gu gel products will be listed together in the same section as Clif Shots, and the Gu Chews will be listed together in the same category as Honey Stinger Waffles. That should be more useful for people looking for comparisons.

On those notes, here are the food reviews for this week (note–gels, bars, chews, sports drinks and other items affect everyone differently. Try them on a short run before using them for a key training run or race):

Hammer Gel Peanut Butter: Hammer Gel is traditionally thinner than other gel products whereas peanut butter is a very thick food. I was worried that the texture would be a little off but I was curious and gave it a try. I’ve never had runny peanut butter but this was what it tasted like. For energy and flavor, it’s fine. For a bizarre culinary experience, it takes a top prize.

Gu Roctane Tutti Frutti: Imagine taking every sugary item from a carnival or a circus and combining it into one gooey product. That’s what this tasted like. I’ve leave it to you to decide whether that’s a good thing. On the energy side, it was a solid product though, to tip my hand on the flavor, I won’t be eating it again.

Honey Stinger Gold: I think this was meant to be honey but with energy enhancement. It tasted like honey but was not quite as thick. I used it on a day where it was blowing snow but I only had shorts. At every underpass, I would stop, dry my legs off, then run like mad to the next underpass. It was similar to running a 800/1600 interval training workout. In any event, I felt good the whole way, in spite of my legs being cold. It was also a good reminder to pack tights in the wintertime, especially when you’re on the fence on whether you’ll need them. The run would have been ten times more pleasant.