Saturday, November 17, 2007

Homemade sports drinks and food

For a couple of months now I have been contemplating creating my own sports drink, gel, and energy bar. I goes hand in hand with my home brew beer and homemade sake (first batch coming this winter).

At the Fat Ass last week, I found others have already ventured into this to some degree. So this is the start of some experimenting with different recipes, and testing them on longer runs. I know Steve has created some stuff and Allan Holtz has created his own concoctions. I will be using this blog as a testing ground for these homemade products. If you want me to try one of your recipes, email me at mattmcpatten@comcast.net

I am brewing my first Belgian Tripel today (2 weeks overdue), and picked up a pound of maltodextrin when buying the ingredients.

It looks like a standard use is Maltodextrin mixed with some Cool-Aid powder plus some sodium.

I am trying to achieve a mix which will minimize or eliminate the need to take sodium caps, plus gel, plus water etc.

By spring, I hope to have a concoction that works for me (I seat a ton, in all weather conditions, and run fast enough to need a steady stream of significant calories for runs longer than 3 hrs).

I am even thinking of getting some funky food coloring to make it look weird to scare other runners. LOL

Let me know any recipes you have tried.

1 comment:

Carl Gammon said...

I've never tried to make my own gels or drinks, but in the past have used a homemade "energy bar" recipe. It was a concoction of Rick Krispies, peanuts, raisins, peanutbutter and marshmallow. I don't know if it was scientifically sound as an energy bar, but they sure tasted good.