Posted on June 04, 2014 by Jenny Cromack

All the trainers at motive8 North have been blogging about supplements. What are your thoughts on them? I must say that my view was that if you had a varied, balanced diet and a healthy lifestyle then you shouldn’t need to take supplements but over the past few years my views have changed. That’s not to say you should foresake a healthy, balanced diet in favour of taking supplements or think that just because you take supplements you can afford not to eat well, that’s certainly not the case! If you search’ What is a supplement’ on the t’internet you will find that they are ‘a thing added to something else in order to complete or enhance it’. So, bearing this in mind, sometimes it might be important to take supplements in order to optimise your performance, enhance your recovery, improve your health, etc.

Did you read Kate’s blog on electrolytes? I personally take an electrolyte solution when I am on a run above 13 miles, maybe even 10 miles if the weather is warm (chance would be a fine thing!) . I use Zero Tabs by High 5 – they don’t contain any additional calories just electrolytes including sodium, magnesium and potassium.  If you want to know more about what electrolytes are and what they do then have a read of Kate’s blog. I also like using these as it tastes a little bit nicer than water when running! I ran 14 miles on Sunday and I was so glad that I had my Camelbak to take with me and carry my drink……it was so warm! I was about 20 minutes into my run and thought I had a little bug crawling on my neck only to find it was sweat dripping from my hair! Nice! So on a day like Sunday when it was hot (for the UK) I was glad to be using my High 5 Electrolyte supplements. When I’m marathon training I also take supplements in the form of energy gels, although at the moment I’m trying not to use them on my long runs so that I allow my body to become more efficient at using fat as a fuel, but I guess that once I get to the 16 mile mark I’ll probably need to start using them. I think energy gels are personal preference as people like gels of different consistency. I personally like gels which have a thicker consistency, again I use gels by High 5 but I’ve recently also discovered gels by Gu and I think these will become my favourite! When I’m on my long runs gels are like a little treat along the way but also signify that I’ve achieved certain distances, for example I may have one at 13 miles, which if you’re doing a 16 mile run then only means you have 3 miles left….whoop whoop!

One supplement I don’t use at the moment is protein, I am a massive believer in making sure you get enough protein in your diet. However, I’ve decided that I’m going to start using a Vegan protein shake for post long runs to see if they help my recovery. One of my biggest barriers to protein shakes is how they taste (in my opinion not too great!) but if it’s good for me and helps me improve my performance then I’ll stomach it…. I’ll let you know how I get on!