Honey Stinger Review.

Today I took a lovely run--it was short because I might try to do another long one tomorrow, and my legs were definitely still tired from Sunday. So it was easy pace, but that was fine with me. I really gave it an extra kick at the end though, bringing my pace down 30 seconds for the last .75 of a mile. Combined with the beautiful weather, it was super fun and started off my hectic day perfectly!

I think some of the credit is due to my purple compression socks though...

Purple is slowly overtaking my whole body and soon I will become a complete grape.

Of course, blue is still my number one color of choice when it comes to Gatorade...

I wanted to talk a little bit about Honey Stingers, which are athletic-fueling foods that are completely organic and composed of mostly honey for the energy. The concept is the same as GU, but it's supposedly better and more natural for you. I picked up some of the Chews and one of the "Waffles" at the CLE Marathon Expo, curious about more natural products. You can also choose between bars and gels, depending on what sport you're engaging in and what you might want to the nutrition for. During my 8-miler, I took some of the Chews before and during my run to experiment with them.

I could totally dig the flavor (Cherry Cola) and texture (not too sticky) but the chews themselves didn't seem to float my boat. First of all, let me get back to my original reason for taking energy during a half-marathon (this distance is short-enough that most people can probably scrape by without out any solid-intake during it). I wanted to take chewable Gatorade for the electrolytes because I didn't want to drink Gatorade and get all sticky during the race. When I'm running in races and start to feel the discomfort, I get quite easily miffed and P.O.ed, to the point where I suddenly want to rip my music out and throw it at something or throw my hat on the ground and stomp on it. Being sticky would NOT make me a happy camper at all. So, I took chewable Gatorade that I'd practiced with and bought lots of when I was at school. This worked well for me, and banished any cramps that usually hit me mid-way through the half-marathon distance, especially when I take water. The use of the Gatorade Chews led me to be interested in the use of other chewable items like CLIF Blocks, etc., which might have been more substantive. 

For my next (probably extremely hot) half-marathon, I have made the decision to just stick to the little packet of Gatorade Chews. For this distance, I really only need a few extra electrolytes during the race, and can easily stock up again at the end, by which point I will really need it. I thought the Honey Stingers might do the job equally as well, but they didn't sit well with me and will require further investigation on a real long run at some point this summer. As for the CLIF Blocks that are sitting in my cupboard, I'll definitely try those, because they seem to be nearly the same exact thing as the Gatorade Chews, but I've decided to save them, again, for a "real" long run this summer. They're bigger and there's more in a package, so I can just stick with my Gatorade, remembering that the initial purpose of having them was just so I wouldn't have to actually drink something sticky that I inevitably needed to take in during the race. Soooo... those are my thoughts on that!