Homemade energy gel – ssswwwwweeet!

In search of a more natural alternative to the commercial energy gels available on the market for endurance athletes today, we came across some weird and wonderful recipes.

Even though I have never tried any of the commercial goos or gels, Craig has. The main concerns he had were:

• It wasn’t very friendly on the gut and created queasiness – the last thing you want while running a marathon (many runners and cyclists have shared similar experiences)
• One of the main ingredients being Maltodextrin (a corn syrup, which in most cases is genetically modified)
• The use of artificial flavours and preservatives. 🙁

This was enough to put me off. So, in true Purple Tiger fashion, I set out to find a natural alternative that was better for us. After having searched for a while, I was SUPER excited to find Derek Nolek’s “homebrew power goop”  Yes we aren’t that clever to have made up our own, although we came close, given we knew what the main ingredients needed to be. We did alter his recipe by adding an extra ingredient.

The super simple recipe is:

• 7 and 1/3 tablespoons of honey
• 3/4 teaspoons of blackstrap molasses
• 1/10 teaspoon of table salt (finely ground)
• 1/4 – 1/2 lemon or lime juice *

* This was our added extra to loosen the very thick paste as well as take the edge off the sweetness of the formula. Tasted great! If you want to experiement even further, like we are going to do, you could add cinnamon, or cacao powder or any other natural food sources that contain magnesium, potassium or other beneficial minerals and vitamins. But don’t go overboard. I like to keep things simple. The formula above works a treat.

Estimated cost per serving of gel is approximately $0.50. Compared to about $2.50 a hit from the commercial gels – Now that is ssswweeet!!

We took it out for a test run today on our 2hr 20 long run and it went down well with no issues at all. I was really surprised as I half expected some sort of upset tummy, given I have never trained my body to take any sort of carbs or begin digestion during a run. Amazingly all went well with no hitches and after having knocked out 25km, I still felt really fresh and legs felt great. I’m not completely attributing that to the gel alone, but I think it had a part to play. 🙂

I know this isn’t me running… but this is how I felt today 😀

Packaging wise, we are still experimenting. While our temporary solution was to store it in ziplock bags, we have ordered 2 Endura gel flasks (on recommendation from a friend) and we’ll see how that goes.

Let us know if you try the gel and how you went with it!! Love to hear your experience.

~ Diana