It was a banner week for online supplies.

Tuesday I received my Hammer Gel variety pack and how cool to find all this free stuff included with my order – it sure took the sting out of the shipping costs (basically nullified it). They sent me samples of all their flagship products; Perpetuem, Heed, Endurolytes, Recoverite and a Hammer Bar, plus a book on nutrition and some other paper stuff. Very generous!

Yesterday I got my order from Zombie Runner; a clip-on gel flask, 6-pack variety of Carbboom gels plus a Strawberry-Banana Powergel.

From reviews and user accounts all over the web, Carbboom is very popular for not being too sweet and pretty thin, as well as not needing water (people say the same about Hammer as well). Powergel, on the other hand, has a lot of haters so I wouldn’t have ordered any but the flavor I got seems to be very popular and supposedly “tastes like yogurt”, so what the hell? Plus, powergels have more electrolytes than other gels, so that would save me taking an electrolyte supplement.

Given all these goodies, I decided to take my flask out for a spin today with a new taste sensation, Orange/Vanilla Carbboom. It has some caffeine but not a whole lot, which is good because I didn’t know how I’d react. I’ve avoided using the port-o-pottys on my route all this time and I’d like to keep that record alive.

The flask is pretty cool, quite light, though the plastic clips on the back are straight up hard plastic, unlike my clip-on pocket, which has these rubber grips attached. Jogging in place with the flask, I could tell there would be slight bouncing, so I wrapped the clips in padded medical tape which worked perfectly, keeping it more snug to my shorts and more comfy on my skin.

I added a touch of water to the gel for easy swigging, took a handheld, my music and I was out the door for a 10 miler. I didn’t bother with the S-caps because it’s possible that they increase my water needs and I didn’t have a lot with me today so didn’t want to get stuck. But back to the gel adventure…

I’m such a dork when I have new anything, I can hardly wait to try it, so it took all my inner strength not to sample the gel at mile 4. Around mile 6, I took a swig. Not bad, a little tart almost, not exactly yummy, but not gross either. Cool.

Then I waited for that energy boost I knew was due to me. And waited. And waited. Hmmm… they say these things give a noticeable surge, but that didn’t happen. Shit. I wanted to get high on my run!

Of note: I didn’t eat anything before the run, as usual – 1/2 a cup of coffee is all I can get down at that time of day. I do, however, snack almost till bedtime and high carb crap at that, pretzels and jelly beans usually, so maybe that covers my bases better than I think. Or maybe I would have been more uncomfortable without it, I’m just going to have to keep testing to figure out what my physiological response really is, if any.

Either way, it’s inevitable I deal with this before the marathon and even though that’s not till October, my best case scenario is to have a few gels I can choose from, not just have one or two I can stomach. To that end, the flask is a great little gem, improving the consistency and concentration of any gel I’ll stick in there, so a major thumbs up to the flask. And no sticky fingers!

On non-running news, got a great new voiceover client yesterday, educational stuff for PBS and the like, which is what I enjoy doing the most, so it was a fun session. They liked me a lot, so here’s crossing fingers for more work with them. Also, last week one of my commercials played during Jeopardy! I was in the other room and Nick yells, “come here, come here.” We have DVR so we can rewind the TV, the better to hear myself ad naseum. Actually, I wasn’t too bad, only rewound it 3 times…you would too.

14 Responses to “More Adventures from the Experimental Runner”