It was my longest ever run, and I completed it in 2:17:01.
I ran the Cambridge half marathon (13.1 miles) last year in 2:18:28, so this is a really big deal for me. I completed the half marathon distance today in 2:08:15, over 10 minutes sliced off my personal best!
Add in that today was incredibly windy and it rained a bit, I am very proud of myself!
Gels
I tried energy gels for the first time today. I would say that overall it was a success.
I had some concerns as I'd heard some people get an upset stomach from them, and it's not that long since my IBS last flared up.
There are some variations in gels - there are concentrated ones that you need to drink water with, or gels that you don't need to drink water with. There are ones with caffeine in and ones without.
Knowing that caffeine can upset my stomach, I chose caffeine free versions that don't need extra water. I tried SiS gels in blackcurrant, tropical and apple flavours.
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| Not my pic! The tropical and blackcurrant ones are two of the ones I tried. |
I thought I'd try a few flavours to see how I liked them.
SiS recommends up to 3 of the gels per hour. I've read that when trying them for the first time, it's better to have too little than too much to prevent problems. I decided on 2 per hour. I believe the body can only absorb 60g of carbohydrate per hour, so I felt this was a good starting point for me.
I started running. I'd had a good breakfast of oats, barley, milk, banana and honey, so I didn't need to have a gel before starting to run.
45 mins after running, I had the apple flavour. It contains 22g of carbohydrate. The flavour was fine. It was light, fresh and not overpowering. I've had problems with sports drinks being too strong in flavour, and I did not experience this with the apple gel. It was fine.
The texture is a bit weird. It's very smooth. I am trying to think of something it is like... maybe a runny custard?
I messed up getting the last bits of gel out of the sachet and spilled it over my hand. It is really very sticky!
I carried on running. The gel settled well. No problems.
Half an hour after the first gel, I tried the blackcurrant gel. It has a slightly higher carbohydrate content at 25g. It was also fine. I wouldn't have described the flavour as blackcurrant but it was fine and inoffensive.
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| Mmmm blackcurrant |
Half an hour after the second gel, I tried the tropical flavour gel. This also has 25g of carbohydrate in. The flavour was not for me. Combined with the texture, it made me think of a tropical scented hair conditioner. I felt there must be a variety in the Herbal Essences range that this gel is just like!
It wasn't offputting enough to stop me from consuming it though! It was just a little confusing.
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| Not something I want to eat |
I finished running, and felt that the gel trial had gone fine. I might buy them again, just not the tropical flavour!
If you're a weight watcher like me, the gels are 2pp each, 5pp for 2 (or 4pp if one of them is the lower carbohydrate apple flavour), or 7pp for all 3 sachets.
I have a couple of other brands of gel to try, so we'll see how they go on my next long run. Wish me luck!
