When it comes to money things can always change - and have in the past. One year…was it 96 or 97…the drink on the course in Kona was a brand new product called ORS (oral rehydration system) from MetRx. No one racing had tasted this stuff until 3 days before the race. I think it was on the market for about 9 months and then it evaporated.
Gatorade is not a lock with WTC it’s just another big money corp with a current contract. That could change anytime.
yep they went through the exceed period then this metrx(was some nasty stuff and the water bottles that year the tops would pop off when you squeezed them I had red metrx stains all over my bike jersey(white one of course).
Then they had the bogus year with exceed come to find out it was like 3 or 4 years old stock they had long time in the warehouse leftover from years past… It was aweful.
Canada one year had all sport (man that sucked that was also 98 when it was so hot I beleive and lot’s of hyponeutremia cases that race allsport I recall had less sodium than gatorade and lot’s less than the endurance formula we have today.
I say don’t mess with a good thing you can say what you want but gatorade has been with ironman off and on for years and for the reasons mentioned(you can buy it everywhere (well except the endurance formula I guess) it’s proven and works for the majority of folks) I say don’t mess with it…
I’ve experimented with all kinds of different drinks in the 25 ironman races and 20 halfs I’ve done but I always come back to gatorade and if ironman changes you can bet they will be back to gatorade in a year or two once more…
So I’m riding in a group this morning here in Florida and hear Ironman WTC wants to get rid of Gatorade and bring in another drink. Wow the best drink (not to mention easiest to get) in the world on course no longer, it must be a money deal. Certainly not thinking of the athletes. Even to me being a newby it doesn’t make sense.
Definitely not the “easiest to get” for many people doing Kona who live outside the US. They don’t sell Endurance Formula here.
Agree-good call. I used the Power bar drink at IM Austria this year. Its okay.
Glad you liked it. I thought it tasted like crap, and I think my choice (yes. my choice.) to rely on it for second half of run cost me some time. I ended up trying to use it on the last quarter of the bike because one of my bottles malfunctioned…didn’t like it. And then was going to use it for 2nd half of run (had gels for 1st half) and couldn’t stomach it…pushed through on coke and water.
It tasted funny…like really weak??
If I had to “go to” something because my own stuff (CarboPro/Nuun) wasn’t working, I would pick Gatorade over Power Bar drink for sure.
all the maltodextrin u see i other drinks is used by your body just as fast. they are both high glycemic index sugars.
In truth, HFCS is a* low* glycemic sugar – almost half the insulin response of pure glucose. HFCS is over half fructose, and fructose cannot be used directly by cells. It has to be processed by the liver first, and most of it ends up converted directly to triglycerides, something we don’t need in an endurance race (we store enough to do an IM every day for a week).
So…HFCS is a lousy race fuel. Something that converts directly to glucose in the gut is preferable.
The fact that HFCS doesn’t trigger an strong insulin response is one reason it’s thought to be so bad for us – we don’t get the satiated response that we get from normal carbohydrates. We consume more and more of it. Finally – HFCS is, for all practical purposes, identical to table sugar (sucrose). Sucrose has the same bad effect, and is a lousy race fuel.
Ive tried lots of different drinks and Gatorade Endurance has been the best for me, especially in the heat. If WTC changes suppliers, I will need to bring my own supply of Gatorade.
This had been stated before, but for those that don’t know, only the premixed gatorade has hfcs in it. If you buy the powdered form it doesn’t. Also, Gatorade endurance doesn’t have HFCS in it either. If that’s changed in the last few months, I apologize.
My, oh, my…they better stick with Gatorade. Simple, and readily available.
This is one of the problems, Gatorade Endurance Formula is NOT readily available. I used the store finder function on the Gatorade website and could not find a store that stocked the stuff within 100 miles. I checked every major chain in Detroit and nobody had ever heard of it. In Canada GEF is not approved for sale, and when I contacted Gatorade Canada they said that it could be a long time before it was approved. If Gatorade is going to sign up as a sponsor you would think that they would at least put some pressure on their distributors to see that GEF is readily available.
Fuelbelt is the exclusive distributor of GEF - www.fuelbelt.com Not sure if you can order it into Canada, as I haven’t tried. My training partner’s parents brought me back 2 big cans in 2006 when I was training for IMLP, and I still have some, despite all of the IMFL training…
You could always send it to an address in Buffalo, and then transfer it to plastic baggies before driving back across the border…just to see if the CCRA guys are on the ball…
You could always send it to an address in Buffalo, and then transfer it to plastic baggies before driving back across the border…just to see if the CCRA guys are on the ball…
Sheesh, you trying to get me arrested?
I will try Fuelbelt and see if they will ship to Canada. I have contacted some of the larger US mail order companies like Trisport and they will no longer ship nutrition related products to Canada due to border issues.
For most of my training I just bump up the electrolytes in regular Gatorade, but I like to do some training with what is at the aid stations.
Glad that my government is doing such a fine job protecting the country from salty drinks.
I’ve been a fan of the Powerbar system for about a year. Like most have said, there’s not a lot of flavor, but that’s what I like about it. Heed is WAY too sweet, and possibly not enough sodium for heavy sweaters. I wish I could remember what I was using when I blew up at Boulder Peak in '04, but I attribute it to not enough sodium and not enough water to digest the gels.
I’m going to try Infinit or Gatorade Endurance once I run out of Heed.
I have to agree. I have been to bike shops, running and grocery stores and the like for 100’s of miles around me and have NEVER seen the Gatorade Endurance. Another problem I think is that it only comes in the Windex-flavored Lemon-lime. YUCK!!!
