Roll Your Own

22 Weeks out

I’ve never had much problem putting food in my mouth. Unless it’s a banana, pineapple on pizza, or out-of-season fruit, I don’t much really care—crickets, offal, stinky cheese, Orange Crush—enjoyed them all. But eating while running has posed problems.

Most runners use gels or drinks to get calories. Those tend to be expensive, making it hard to swing on a skilled labor income. When first getting started, to save some money and because I was iffy about ingredients, I tried fueling with real food like dates, nuts, dried fruit. It was alright but makes your fingers a mess. Being half-way through a long run, facing a few hours with fingers sticky with date gunk or covered in gritty of salt from some peanuts is a special way to go a little crazy. Plus, the calories are slow to process. For a couple years, I ran on Kind and Clif bars for a couple years, again, slow to process.

The gels I tried were too much like eating frosting or jelly. I could feel them working, but they offended my sensibilities. Most people would assume a baker/pastry cook must love sweet things. I don’t. I like richness, creaminess, with some sweetness, maybe a hint of salt. With a career built on food, paying attention to flavor and texture, I just couldn’t turn my professional brain off. The alarms went off, telling me how “wrong” these things were—too sweet, too one-note, too fake. (Being a food professional sucks in so, so many ways. But don’t worry, if you cook me food, I’ll gladly eat it. That critical side only kicks in with purchased items. 😂)

The drinks I tried had different issues. Many included replacement electrolytes, something I’ve never needed. (Maybe years of having the traditional Southerner’s love of salt has left me with a reserve?) One product caused my fingers to swell like sausages. Other’s left me bloated with extra fluids.

Another, with slow-release, super-starches was sweetened with Stevia. Big problem, because artificial sweeteners live on that short list of foods I fucking hate. This goes way back my 80s childhood, choking down Crystal Lite, wanting to scrape my tongue of NutraSweet’s vile aftertaste. The taste. Ugh. The fucking taste. Running sucks already, no need to assault my tongue. No, if I’m gonna have sugar, give me that unadulterated, purified crystal. Hell, I don’t mind high-fructose corn syrup, honey, or in a pinch, maple syrup.

So, signing up for Masochist, now I have to figure out calories for on the go. It has to be budget friendly, stomach friendly, and not offend my taste buds. Thankfully, for similar reasons, I’d already started making my own protein powder. Why not my own gels?

What I thought would be a deep rabbit hole of science, arguments, optimized this and that turned out to be a minor scavenger hunt and pretty straight forward. I finished scratching my head wondering why more runners and trail runners don’t roll their own fueling.

Enter Maltodextrin. It’s a chain of dextrose molecules, effectively the same thing as glucose. BUT! Maltodextrin isn’t sweet. Due to it’s size, it’s also less hungry for water than glucose. To optimize absorption, you only need about 3.3ml per gram versus 19ml per gram for glucose, fructose, or sucrose (table sugar). Effectively, that means it feels easier on the stomach because your gut isn’t stealing water from your blood to process it, causing less bloat. Furthermore, your gut can quickly unlink the dextrose molecules, getting more raw material into your blood stream than if you took straight glucose. It’s like a sugar concentrate, without being sweet.

Not to get too in the weeds, but the typical body can only process 60g of glucose an hour before the pathway gets overwhelmed. There are other sugars though, like fructose, which goes to the liver before metabolizing. Because it utilizes a different pathway, fructose can increase carb intake up to 144g/hour. It’s even been found to work best in ratios of 0.5-1.0 fructose to 1.0 malto/glucose, while causing minimal stress to the gut.

Then cyclists entered the picture. They’ve been doing this shit for years. I even stumbled on 2400 calories in ONE BOTTLE. And that’s where the MCT (medium chain triglycerides) powder came in. It requires fewer steps to digest and is transported more easily than longer fatty acids. For an event where much of the work is being done below aerobic threshold, this provides another source of calories as readily available fuel. Plus, it adds a creaminess to the drink.

And that’s how a giant orange tub of maltodextrin found its way into the house. Along with a bag of fructose, and container of MCT powder. For 100 calories, the current recipe is 14g malto, 7g fructose, 3g MCT, 0.1g salt. It’s running about 40¢ for those 100 calories, significantly less expensive than comparable gels.

Think I never thought would be in my house.

I mix a large batch of dries, and portion out it out the night before or day of. 60’sh grams per expected hour (250 calories/hour). Made with plain water, it’s creamy, slightly sweet, and unoffensive. Mixed with some cold, day-old coffee? Damn, it’s like a Starbuck’s canned espresso, something I can drink all day. Thickness varies based on how much powder. An hour’s worth is like skim milk. 5 hours? Thick, like half melted ice cream.

Performance results have been consistent. I normally take a sip every 20-30 minutes, and supplement with water in between. No gut issues. Easy to drink. Steady energy. It keeps my stomach going, so I’m normally starving and ready for a meal half an hour after finishing. Almost every long run fueled by this has resulted in a near record pace at lower effort.

I haven’t grown tired of the plain or coffee version, but it could be good with lemon or lime juice, some caramel or cocoa. Rolling my own has definitely solved one of the major problems I’ve faced over the years. Current plan for Masochist is to portion out packets, maybe with instant coffee or other flavors, for my pack and drop bags, mix at aid stations as needed.

Week 3 Summary

Goal: 51 miles, 5000’ gain
Actual: 50.3, 7400’

Hard week. Third week in a row over 45 miles. Biggest week in the last ten. My body always starts to feel mileage hits 50+. Few aches, maybe a little PF in my left foot. Missed a day because of work and plans (but found it Sunday evening 🤣). Heat started to set in this week. Time to embrace to suck.

Left ankle had had some issues for awhile, but after doing some drills, adding plyometric exercises the other week, and changing some strength exercises, the issues went away and my left foot started striking the ground a more normally. Because of that, the PF (plantar fasciitis) isn’t a complete surprise. I expect it to go away with some stretching, drills, and time as the structures adapt to the new form.

Week 3 Log

Mo: 5.1
Easy miles up Swindler Hollow and back. Honeysuckles are in bloom and would catch an occasional waft of them. The morning was threatening rain, and I did NOT beat it. Got hit by a small downpour on the last half mile. 😆

Tu: 16.9
Did the Crazy Ex-GF loop. It always seems like a good idea, then 3/4 of the way through, you start questioning why you’re back. Hit it after a night of rain but before everything had dried out—big mistake. Rocks and logs were slippery as shit, grass and vegetation wet. Sounds miserable, and it did take 30 minutes longer than I’d hoped, but finished in a good mood, not wrecked. Climbs felt good, run was well fueled. Looking at the stats, the major climbs were at a significantly lower HR while also ranking second fastest. Under drier conditions, finishing it in 4:30 might be in the cards.

We: 7.5
Stacked a tempo on top of yesterday’s long run. The body took some prompting to speed up, but when it got in a rhythm, it wanted to go. Quads felt like they were about to explode—tight and powerful, hamstrings and glutes kept moving at a happy pace. Knees and ankles made no complaints, no niggles or twinges. Should be hitting the gym this evening, then two days of near rest!

Th: 0
Planned rest day after a few heavy days.

Fr: 0
Unplanned rest day because of work and life commitments. Couldn’t even squeeze in a measly 3 miles.

Sa: 7.3
A not so fun day at the track. Over two months since my last track workout?? And last time it was like half the temp. Might explain why it kinda sucked. Inconsistent repeats. Not much “Oomph.” Try again in about two weeks.

Su: 9.9+3.7
Sundays are turning into Woodard Rd Day. Hard to say no to a nice ten miles of road with 1,000’ of gain. Legs are feeling the last few weeks. So glad a recovery week is right around the corner.

Found time in the evening to make up Friday’s missing miles. Slow and easy, rando dog followed me a mile back to work. Everything a little achy. Bring on the Recovery Week!!!