The "White Shark" of all Gels

I wanted to talk about gels on my first blog post, but I figure giving away my million dollar ceviche receipt (according to my friend Oscar) will be better than talking about boring gels.

Anyway, the truth is that gels are out there in so many different variations of brands and flavors. Been a Sports Basement (SB) employee, when I first started working there I felt like a kid in a candy store. As a long distance endurance athlete and having access to all this different options of nutritional supplements was like a dream come true. In a matter of a few years I have trained for a few marathons, some half marathons, a few half Ironmans, one Ironman and I have tried every single product you can find at the SB floor.

For a while I was sold in the idea of having gels with a high calorie content, I really liked the E gels and they provided me with enough calories for my long bike rides when I was training for my last ironman. I was used to consume about two E gels and drink some Carbo Pro with electrolyte during each hour spent on the bike to have an average of 350 to 400 calories/per hour. This combination worked great during training. The problem came on race day at my last Ironman (New Zealand 2010), I was feeling great and the combination of Egels and Carbo Pro was working great until mile 70 of the bike, when on a panic attack, I forgot to eat for about 30 to 45 minutes and I ate about 400 calories in a matter of 10 minutes to try to compensate the lack of calories during that last hour spent on the bike. The result: BIG MISTAKE!!!.....my stomach shot down and after throwing up a few times, I was totally racing an Ironman on empty and my body could not take food any more. The rest of the story, I leave to you guys imagination, just picture yourself trying to run a full marathon feeling like you had a full bottle of cheap tequila the night before and you also forgot to eat breakfast before you went on your 26.2 mile run adventure….simply INSANE! Somehow I managed to survive the hardest day of racing I have ever done in 15 years of competitive racing.

I learned my lesson the hard way! Developing your nutritional plan is a science, there is not one mold or one receipt that works for all, everyone is different and what works for some does not mean will work for you. The best you can do in preparation for your next race, is make sure you try different products and test those on different types of workouts and different types of weather. The time, money and effort you will spend figuring out your nutritional plan is one of the best investments you can do for you next event.

I still keep my love for the gels very open. Gels for me are like restaurants, I like to have different options when it comes to eating during my training/racing and I just don’t stick to just one option. I still do E gels on some of my long training days, just because they are higher on calorie content. I have eaten for several years GU gels, they were the original inventors of the “Gel” and they really know what they are doing in the gel world. I also like the Clif Shot gels, but I have to mention that Clif recently re-invented their entire gel line and WOW, this gels are for sure in a different category. The taste is simply amazing, the chocolate flavor tastes like chocolate frosting, my favorite flavor is the Citrus one, but I have to talk here about the White Shark of all gels, the “Double Espresso Clif Shot” is like a grenade of pure energy. Talk about real energy booster!!! Just in the last week, I literally was able to rescue two of my friends and Team Fitness Evolution members from crashing the wall big time when doing bike rides. In both occasions, the guys where running on empty and super low on energy, with still about 20 to 25 miles left to go. For their luck, I packed with me extra grenades and I was caring Double Espresso Shots with me. The result in both cases was incredible to witness. In just a matter of a few minutes after handing the gels to them, both guys where hammering the bike again like if they were just in the first few miles of the ride. I just couldn’t believe it!!

I want to share part of an email I got from one of them last night. His name is Sean and he refers to the Double Espresso Shot as “The Miracle Gel” on the subject of his email:

Luis,

You should really write a letter to Clif Bar, that is too funny how both Oscar and I benefitted so much from one gel, and then went to bought a bunch of them after the ride. 

I look forward to seeing you Thursday morning at the track!

Thanks,

Sean