Taking gels during training runs

gels are a myth

if you genuinely need gels then you are undertrained for your event.

cheers.

gels are useless bro

jason- wrote:

gels are useless bro

Professional Runner's normally have their secret sauce water bottle.

If you don't think gels help, you obviously never bonked hard Bruh.

Pretzel Man wrote:

jason- wrote:

gels are useless bro

Professional Runner's normally have their secret sauce water bottle.

If you don't think gels help, you obviously never bonked hard Bruh.

Exactly. The pros aren't drinking water from their bottles. They have their special mix of carbs and whatnot in there. Fuel is important.

take gels in training if you plan on using them on race day. You want to get your stomach used to them.

2:50's hobby jogger here but I only do gels on my longer training training runs 20+ miles. I'll only take 3. then for the actual marathon ill take 5 or 6.

Never do anything new on race day. If you know you’ll need calories during the race, practice taking gels during workouts. You may or may not need them, but they’re like $1 each and they certainly don’t hurt.

cotton shirt wrote:

gels are a myth

if you genuinely need gels then you are undertrained for your event.

cheers.

Perhaps you could explain your answer a bit more, because up to now I've always found your views well informed, even when I haven't agreed 100%. In this case, though, basic physiology is not on your side. Perhaps some top-level elites can finish a marathon without additional fueling, but 99% of the rest of us need carbs. The study of glycogen use and depletion at the marathon distance goes back several decades.

You should also do some training runs where you don't take anything at all..get your legs (and body) used to running without anything and try to replicate that "race late stage" feeling.

I’m struggling with this issue too. I have run many marathons in my life, but the last was 15 years ago (I am now 60). I never stopped running, but I have struggled with injuries and have not been able to train up to a marathon for the past 15 years. I now have one coming up in 2 weeks and have had an excellent training block for the past 4-5 months.

Here’s my problem. Back when I used to run marathons, in times that ranged from 3:59 to 2:42, I never took in any calories during the race and ate very little (200 calories) the morning before the race. My stomach is very sensitive and I never experienced “hitting the wall” the way people describe it. But for the past 15 years everyone has been telling me that I must fuel during the race to run optimally, so I’ve been experimenting with taking in a gel toward the end of my long runs. My stomach seems to tolerate it but I have no indication that it helps me in any way, and swallowing a gel does temporarily slow me down during the race. I’m still not sure what I’m going to do in the marathon. Ideas?

my 2c said: Perhaps you could explain your answer a bit more, because up to now I've always found your views well informed, even when I haven't agreed 100%. In this case, though, basic physiology is not on your side. Perhaps some top-level elites can finish a marathon without additional fueling, but 99% of the rest of us need carbs. The study of glycogen use and depletion at the marathon distance goes back several decades.

the OP said he was aiming for a sub 2:20 marathon. my comment was not aimed at a 4:50 jogger, but at the OP, whose glycogen supplies are more than sufficient for the job in hand, and, it is basic physiology that tells us this.

in order to demonstrate how to do this yourself I make some assumptions about the OP. we assume he weighs 78kg and he has a VO2max of 48. if his VO2max is higher, it makes his fuel last longer.

start with your weight in kilograms. (78.0)

multiply by your VO2 max (78.0 x 48 = 3744.0)

divide by 1000 to give you the litres of oxygen you consume per minute. (3744.0 / 1000 = 3.744)

multiply by 20, because each Litre of oxygen produces 20 kJ of energy. (3.744 x 20 = 74.88)

divide by 16.65, the number of kJ per gram of carbohydrate. (74.88 / 16.65 = 4.4972)

this gives you the number of grams of carbohydrate you burn per minute, at VO2 max. (4.4972)

then divide 700g (the average glycogen stored in your muscles) by the above figure to give you your endurance in minutes. 700 / 4.4972 = 155.6524 minutes = 2:35:39, over two and a half hours or more than 15 minutes longer than his marathon will take. therefore, he does not require extra fuel.

see: Lore of Running (2004) by Tim Noakes, Chapter 3, Energy Systems and Running Performance, p.101 for a full explanation of how this is derived.

cheers.

my 2c said: Perhaps you could explain your answer a bit more, because up to now I've always found your views well informed, even when I haven't agreed 100%. In this case, though, basic physiology is not on your side. Perhaps some top-level elites can finish a marathon without additional fueling, but 99% of the rest of us need carbs. The study of glycogen use and depletion at the marathon distance goes back several decades.

in my previous comment I only answered part of your question. here is the rest.

some folk might "need" fuel in the same way that some folk "need" a glass of beer, or some folk "need" a smoke, or whatever. if you "need" gels in that sense then by all means feel free to pig out on expensive sugar. if you want to talk about physiological need rather than emotional need then...

in your comment you said that only the super-elite can go without extra fuel. so let's look at a guy with VO2 max of 80. at 65kg his fuel runs out after 1:52, and at 75kg his fuel runs out after 1:37, so the elite are actually burning fuel faster than the rest of us and run out earlier and would therefore be the folk who need refueling the most. but you said they don't need it, whereas "basic physiology" says they need it the most, and that contradiction should clue you in that something is not quite right.

at VO2 max 80 (a very high level), each kilogram of extra bodyweight costs you over a minute in endurance, at 65kg you can last 1:52:04, but at 70kg you will run out of fuel after 1:44. so, improving your VO2 max also requires you to lose weight to make your fuel last longer, and, unsurprisingly, fitter guys with higher VO2 max do in real life, tend to weigh less. there are exceptions, obviously, but generally, faster marathon runners with high VO2 max tend to weigh less. if that surprises you then you haven't being paying attention.

now, if we make the simplifying assumption that weight gained or lost does not include muscles that store glycogen so that glycogen stored is not weight dependent, then exploring the maths will reveal...

1. at VO2 = 48, losing 5kg from 80kg to 75kg gains you 10:07 in endurance, while at VO2 = 58, losing 5kg from 80kg to 75kg gains you 8:22 in endurance, but either way, losing weight gains endurance, so overweight folk are losing endurance simply by carrying more weight. train harder, lose weight, gain endurance.

2. at 75kg, improving your VO2 max from 48 to 58 (a massive improvement) loses you 27:55 off your endurance, but you would have to have a VO2 of 63 for your endurance to be less than 2 hours. while at 65kg, improving your VO2 max from 48 to 58 (a massive improvement) loses you 32:12 off your endurance, but you would have to have a VO2 of 68 for your endurance to be less than 2 hours. the line is a curve, and it seems to be asymptotic to 2 hours at around the point where low human weight and high VO2 max converge. humans are, in some sense, designed to run for around 2 hours.

3. a guy with a very low VO2 max of 45 can weigh as much as 90kg before his fuel runs out in less than 2:25 (2:23:53) so if this guy were aiming for 2:40 he would need extra fuel for the final 15 minutes of his marathon but ironically, if he were aiming for 2:20 he would not need any extra fuel.

therefore, if your fuel genuinely is running out before you complete your marathon then either you weigh too much or you are not running fast enough, which leads me to the conclusion that only the undertrained need extra fuel.

cheers.

You’re wasting your time typing up all this crap. Kipchoge broke the marathon World Record by maximizing his carbohydrate intake. Paula Radcliffe was doing the same thing 15+ years ago. The Africans have finally caught on, at least the African men have. You’re probably a guy who trains in shorts in the winter and says you don’t need to strength train for the marathon. Meanwhile every African is dressed in a track suit below 70 degrees. Serious elites are doing everything they can to maximize performance.

lol...wtf is this shìt

youre outdated. wrote: You’re probably a guy who trains in shorts in the winter and says you don’t need to strength train for the marathon.

both your assumptions are incorrect. I have been coaching strength training for marathon runners since around 1982, and this morning I trained in Ron Hill tracksters and a hoodie, wooly hat and gloves. I also note, that you didn't claim that any of your examples were using gels, either during racing or training, so whether I wear shorts or not you have not refuted anything I said.

meanwhile...

the figures in my previous post were based on an average glycogen reserve of 700g. but we can suppose that any experienced marathon runner, whether he's elite or not, will have read about diet and how to boost his glycogen reserve and he will have indulged in whatever current glycogen boosting fad is currently en-vogue and at the start of the race he has above average glycogen reserve. how does that effect his endurance?

well, if we use as our model an elite marathon runner who weighs 65kg and has a VO2 max of 80, for each 10g of extra glycogen he has at the start of the race his endurance increases by 96 seconds. which means that if he boosts his glycogen from an average of 700g to an unremarkable 750g his endurance increases by 8:00 which, coincidentally, puts him a few seconds over 2 hours.

if his twin brother who also weighs 65kg but has a more modest VO2 max of 60 also boosted his glycogen reserve he would find that each 10g of extra glycogen would boost his endurance by 2:08, so going from an average of 700g to 750g would push him from 2:29:25 to 2:40:06. no need for extra fuel here as long as he's planning on finishing in under 2:40. if you weigh 65kg, have a VO2 max of 60, and are planning on breaking 3 hours you might need more fuel, but if you have a VO2 max of 60 and are only planning on breaking 3 hours you are under trained for your event.

obviously, we can't all weigh 65kg, so let's see what happens to folks with a more normal weight of 75kg and 85kg, at different VO2 max, with different starting glycogen reserves.

kg / VO2 max / glycogen / endurance

75kg 60 700 2:09:30

75kg 60 710 2:11:21

75kg 60 750 2:18:45

75kg 50 700 2:35:24

75kg 50 710 3:37:37

75kg 50 750 2:46:30

75kg 40 700 3:14:15

75kg 40 710 3:17:02

75kg 40 750 3:28:08

85kg 60 700 1:54:16

85kg 60 710 1:55:54

85kg 60 750 2:02:26

85kg 50 700 2:17:07

85kg 50 710 2:19:05

85kg 50 750 2:26:55

85kg 40 700 2:51:24

85kg 40 710 2:53:51

85kg 40 750 3:03:38

if you actually know of anyone who weighs 85kg and has a VO2 max of 60 the physiology labs of many universities would be keen to hear of him. otherwise, none of these folk need any extra fuel unless they are running very slowly and planning on taking a v e r y l o n g t i m e to complete their marathon, in which case, as I said at the start, they are under trained for their event.

gels are a marketing myth. they consist of very expensive sugar, with flavouring. the only really clever thing about them is that since plastic is currently the devil incarnate gels are now wrapped in a more socially acceptable product called hype.

cheers.

The pros aren't drinking water from their bottles. They have their special mix of carbs and whatnot in there. Fuel is important. https://www.apkjunky.com/

youre outdated. wrote:

. You’re probably a guy who trains in shorts in the winter . Meanwhile every African is dressed in a track suit below 70 degrees. Serious elites are doing everything they can to maximize performance.

What does this mean? I wear shorts down to about 30* F otherwise i'm simply too hot. Maybe I'll wear pants in the mid-upper 30s if I'm doing a workout and want the leg muscles to stay a bit warmer, but I'm sweating my nuts off.

Would I be a better runner if I was wearing a 80s style tracksuit?

How can you say this:-

cotton shirt wrote:

in order to demonstrate how to do this yourself I make some assumptions about the OP. we assume he weighs 78kg and he has a VO2max of 48. if his VO2max is higher, it makes his fuel last longer.

And this:-

cotton shirt wrote:

2. at 75kg, improving your VO2 max from 48 to 58 (a massive improvement) loses you 27:55 off your endurance,

Either higher VO2 max improves your endurance (makes your fuel last longer) or it doesn't. Which is it? And do you understand?

Either higher VO2 max improves your endurance (makes your fuel last longer) or it doesn't. Which is it? And do you understand?

thank you for reading.

the first quote is incorrect. I wrote it in something of a hurry and got it the wrong way round.

mea culpa.

cheers.