Fail to prepare…

…prepare to fail! When you’re prepping for a big race I’d recommend finding out who the nutrition partners are and stocking up. I always prefer to have my own gels and drinks on race day - you know you’ve got it and you know it works - but it’s comforting to know that you can use the nutrition products available on the course. This is harder when your races are abroad, in which case you’ll need to be super organised and pack plenty with a gel belt to boot.

Rather happily, Clif are the nutrition sponsors for the Brighton marathon. I love Clif products. Their energy and protein bars are all natural and full of goodness, as opposed to the crap (silicone protein?!) you can find in a lot of other mainstream brands. Their shot bloks are also a big favourite amongst runners and having something solid to chew on can provide much needed variety on the run! I have stocked up already and plan to use them in training to make sure I can stomach them and that they’re effective for me on my long runs.

I also have a lot of love for Torq gels. They have a maltodextrin/fructose blend of carbohydrates, which provides quick release (maltodextrin) and slow release (fructose) carbohydrate energy, which I think helps maintain energy levels and support endurance, as opposed to the sugar rise (and fall) of pure maltodextrin or glucose gels. There’s lot of cool science on their website which you can read and see how clever they are. They also contain no artificial colours, flavours or sweeteners, and their ‘caffeinated’ options find their caffeine from natural guarana. They have a syrupy texture rather than a gooey one and, most importantly, they’re super yummy. Think strawberry yoghurt, rhubarb and custard and banoffee!

All these gems go in to my jar of marked improvement. I originally wanted to call it the jar of victory, but decided that there’s always room for improvement and that each victory is just another step on the journey to a new success. So, it’s the jar of marked improvement.