Alameda Runners – Get After It!

I mainly drink water and milk, but occasionally seek a drink that offers a bit of flavor without high fructose corn syrup and the other garbage many sodas and have.  Years back, another endurance runner had a similar thought about tasty drinks that aren’t unhealthy, which led to the creation of Honest Tea beverages.

Honest Tea can be found in Safeway, Nob Hill and other California supermarket chains, while also available at Whole Foods and other specialized food stores.  To learn more about how the company was founded, Alameda Runners chatted with Seth Goldman, Honest Tea co-founder, who spoke about the company’s history, best selling products, and expansion to new markets. Read more… »

Clif SHOT recovery drink “Protein – Enhanced” French Vanilla

Ted’s thoughts on the CLIF shot. We have a lot of recovery and electrolyte stuff on hand. Most of the products were purchased but we received a fair amount of stuff to review. I grabbed a random handful of different samples to take to work for my workouts during lunch.  I am still in base training so my workouts vary as to how I feel at any given time. Today I did a mile run near race pace145-155 HR. When I finished my run I drank the recovery drink while my heart rate was still a high 115-120. My normal HR is something like 41-resting, 120-130 for long slow runs, 140-150 for tempo runs and 163 max at a sprint. Read more… »

During a recent 13-mile training run around Alameda, I sampled the relatively new GU Roctane Pineapple flavor a try.  Here are some brief thoughts.

The flavor of the Roctane Pineapple is a sharp pineapple taste that is actually quite tasty.  In my experience, many energy gels don’t taste like the flavor they’re marketed as – this is one of the first that does.

The after taste isn’t too bad, and an extremely high amount of water isn’t necessary to fully wash it down (which occasionally happens to me with other flavors).

My favorite flavor is Tri-Berry, but this pineapple flavor slots in at No. 2 on the list.

Each GU Roctane Pineapple has 100 calories, 25g carbs, 5g sugars, 125mg sodium, 55mg potassium, and a combination of histidine, leucine, valine and isoleucine.  This flavor is the first one in the Roctane brand to not have caffeine.  It’s a bit of a shame, as I love the flavor – but a caffeine boost would have been great.

Similar to other GU Roctane energy gels, they cost $2.50, which is more than the company’s regular flavors.

Ted’s note: We each tried a pineapple GU gel, one was purchased and one was a sample. Ted does not like caffeine boosts while Mike does. We both agree the pineapple gel is good.