Good evening Ladies & Gentlemen of the LRC,
I'm hoping someone can shed some light on the finer points of Gu consumption during training and during the race (Marathon).
Last Marathon, I took 6 total Gu's in 3 hours. I didn't hit a solid wall at mile 23, so I figured it must have done something positive for me.
So now, I'm training for a Marathon in 2 weeks, and I've been using 2-3 Gu's for the long runs of 18-20 miles. As it happens, I ran out of Gu's and had nothing for the 20 miler today. The odd thing is that my legs felt stronger than they had the previous 2 weeks and I didn't even have a banana with me.
I've always heard that Gu can be a problem if you eat too much and end up having to hit the toilet, but is there any other reason to limit the intake of Gu's? I have a cast iron stomach and bowels to match, so that's not an issue for me. Should I just use the same Gu tactic I had in the first race and not worry about it, or is there a potential downside of eating too much Gu?