Homemade Sports Drink
Ingredients:
Water (amount determined according to Saturday’s personalized hydration recommendations or using a reputable source like Precision Hydration)
Fresh Pressed Organic Ginger Juice (1/4-1/2 inch piece organic ginger per 500-1000ml total liquid, to taste)
Honey (measured in grams on a food scale according to Saturday’s personalized fuel recommendations or using a website like Precision Hydration to calculate your personalized needs)
Caffeine (recommended dosages)
Salt or an electrolyte product like LMNT Electrolytes. Grapefruit and Citrus are my favorite flavors (amount determined according to Saturday’s personalized hydration recommendations or a website like Precision Hydration to calculate your personalized needs)
L-Glutamine 5-10 grams per serving, up to 30 grams per day (spread out over the course of the day)
Instructions:
To make fresh ginger juice, peel and slice fresh, organic ginger and place it in about 1 cup of water. Blend it on high for about 30-45 seconds or use the juice setting with a Blendtec blender. It will turn into a pulpy liquid. Pour this pulpy liquid through a fine mesh strainer or a squeeze in a juicing bag. You can prepare a few days worth and store it in the refrigerator in a glass jar.
Using a food scale set to measure in grams, tare the scale with a container for mixing. I like a Mason jar. Calculate your glucose needs for your workout using an app like Saturday or following the guidelines found on Precision Hydration or a similarly reputable source. For example, if I was going to do a two hour ride at a zone two (conversational) pace, the Saturday app recommends (according to my profile) that I consume 70 grams of carbohydrate during the ride. So I would add 70 grams of honey to the mason jar.
Add about one cup of warm water to the mason jar and stir, froth, or shake with a lid until the honey is dissolved. It will dissolve better in warm water. Once it is fully dissolved, add the remaining water that you will need for hydration according to your needs (again–no guessing here–calculate, calculate, calculate using an app or reputable recommendations).
Add caffeine, electrolytes, L-glutamine, and any other ingredients you want to experiment with according to your specific calculated needs (but remember “nothing new on race day”). Stir, froth, or shake until well dissolved.
Why Honey?
I am not a Registered Dietitian or a doctor, so take what I say “with a grain of salt” (my favorite endurance sports pun) and re-read my disclaimer at the bottom of every page of this blog. That said, here’s my train of thought–
I stopped doing endurance sports about 8 years ago. One of the reasons I stopped was because I was experiencing improved health and easier weight management by leaning towards a low glycemic diet with moderate exercise. I didn’t like the idea of messing that up with high glycemic foods and endurance sports products like goos, gels, and sports drinks that were made with sugar and other questionable ingredients. When Stephen and I started extending our workout length and intensity in preparation for the Ironman race, I was conflicted about how to fuel. I did some research and decided to try honey for a few reasons–
Honey has health benefits like being antiinflamatory, an antioxidant, and antibacterial. It is used in products in the hospital to treat burns and wounds and it has been used in many therapeutic ways for over 5,500 years. It has benefits for your gastrointestinal tract, as opposed to table sugar, which has negative effects on the gut like harming your microbiome and weakening your immune system. Gut health is very important to me and research shows that the health of our gut is one of the main foundations for good health.
Honey is a blend of glucose and fructose, which may improve carbohydrate availability as opposed to glucose alone.
Honey can be sourced locally and can be bought from small farmers in raw, unfiltered forms which means the nutrients are intact. This is in contrast to sugar that has been highly processed and stripped of all nutrients. I buy honey from the most adorable elderly couple at my local farmer’s market and I love knowing that I am supporting a small, local business. The husband was an engineer, but made honey his passion after he retired. I use his honey for my tea and other treats, but it is fairly expensive so for our long, 200+ gram honey endurance workouts, we have been buying Costco’s raw, unfiltered “Southern California” (local for us) honey.
Also, honey makes me happy. One of the habits that has improved my ability to eat intuitively and improve satiety, consequently making it easier to maintain my weight, is tuning in to foods that, as Geneen Roth says, make my body hum. Honey does that.
Why Ginger?
Like honey, ginger has many health benefits. One of the benefits is improved digestion. Intense and/or long bouts of exercise can stress your digestion because your body moves blood from your gut to your muscles. This can cause gut discomfort, especially on long runs or rides when you have to consume calories to fuel your workout.
Ginger is one of those flavors that people tend to either love or hate. If you hate it, don’t use it. But I love it. It’s another food that makes my body hummm!
Why Caffeine?
Caffeine is used by endurance athletes to improve performance. I generally try to minimize caffeine on a daily basis. I reserve use of this recipe, including the caffeine, for rides and runs that are longer than about 90 minutes. For multi-hour workouts, I usually make two bottles of fuel and I don’t add caffeine to the second bottle because I try not to have caffeine after about 2pm so as not to disrupt my sleep. Caffeine starts to take effect about 15-20 minutes after ingestion and peaks after about an hour.
Recommended dosage is 3-6 mg/kg of body mass up to about 400 mg total per day. There are certainly negative side effects, especially at higher doses, so start with smaller doses and increase slowly to observe your body for optimal positive effects while avoiding possible negative effects like anxiety, nervousness, and sleep disruption. Try not to ingest caffeine later in the day (avoid caffeine at least six hours before bedtime).
Why Electrolytes?
I am embarrassed to say that I did not understand the vital importance of electrolyte replacement until I started training for the Ironman with Stephen. When I used to regularly train for half marathons and marathons, I was replacing some electrolytes by hydrating with coconut juice, but I’m sure I was under hydrated. This probably contributed to the heat and exercise-related headaches that I usually got after long runs. Dehydration also hinders the gut’s ability to absorb nutrients, which likely added to the GI distress I often got during long efforts. There are many reasons to make sure you are replacing electrolytes that are lost through sweat, including preventing dehydration, improving performance, improving glucose absorption in the gut, preventing cramping, and improving cognition. The rate at which you need to replace your electrolytes depends on your personal loss rate, your effort, the temperature, and other factors. Try to dial in your replacement needs by using the resources listed above.
Why L-Glutamine?
L-Glutamine is found in many popular endurance sports products and for good reason. It is an essential amino acid that is important for gut and immune health and that is depleted with endurance exercise. Gut and immune health have proven to be foundational, vital keys for my personal overall health and well-being. So finding ways to maintain my gut and immune health have been a focus for me since I was a teenager. I was adding about 5 grams of L-Glutamine to my fuel recipe on long runs and long rides, but looking back at the last several months of Ironman training, I wish I had added it to my daily routine. My immune system struggled during the last 8 weeks of training. I did some research and realized that depleted L-Glutamine may have been a factor. Since then, I have been taking about 8 grams, morning and night. The recommended dosage is up to 30 grams per day, broken into 5-10 gram increments taken throughout the day. Benefits include improved digestion, improved muscle growth, stronger immunity and improved neurotransmitter production which improves brain function.
Conclusion
Creating a homemade fuel for our endurance training has been a trial and error process and we may still alter the recipe as we continue to experiment with what works best for us. Every body is different and what works for us may not work for you. If you are going to try making a homemade fuel, be sure to test it several times during training first. Remember, NOTHING NEW ON RACE DAY!
References
Blow, Andy. “Why sodium is crucial for athletes performing at their best.” Precision Fuel & Hydration.
Blow, Andy. “How much caffeine should you use during training and races?” Precision Fuel & Hydration.
Braun-Trocchio, Robyn. Graybeal, Austin, J. Kreutzer, Andreas. Moss, Kamiah, Shah, Meena. “Caffeine supplementation strategies among Endurance athletes.” Frontiers in Sports and Active Living (National Library of Medicine). April 6, 2022.
Coquiero, Audrey Yule. Rogero, Marcelo Macedo. Tirapegui, Julio. “Glutamine as an anti-fatigue amino acid in sports nutrition.” Nutrients. Published online in The National Library of Medicine on April 17, 2019.
Farkhondeh, Tahereh. Samarghandian, Saeed. Samini, Fariborz. “Honey and health: a review of recent clinical research.” Pharmacognosy Research. April-June 2017. Published online in The National Library of Medicine.
Fuchs, Cas J. Gonzalez, Javier T. Van Loon, Luc J.C. “Fructose co-ingestion to increase carbohydrate availability in athletes.” The Journal of Physiology. Published online July 2, 2019.
Hills, Samuel P. Mitchell, Peter. Russell, Mark. Wells, Christine. “Honey supplementation and exercise: a systematic review.” Nutrients. Published online in the National Library of Medicine on July 12, 2019.
John Hopkins Medicine. “Ginger benefits.” John Hopkins University.
Mayo Clinic Staff. “Caffeine: how much is too much?” Mayo Clinic. March 19, 2022.
Mayer Irvine, Heather. “6 Reasons you should try fueling with honey for your next long run.” Runner’s World. June 19, 2019.
Palmer, Alice. “Honey: the facts.” Runner’s World. May 7, 2010.
Penick, Charles MD. “What are the benefits, uses, and side effects of L-glutamine?” Revelation Health. August 24, 2020.
Penney, Stacey. “Caffeine and performance: benefits for exercise.” NASM.
“Skinning the glucose: fructose ratio in carbohydrate sports beverages.” 6D Sports Nutrition.