Forums >General Running>How old is your GU?
It may sound like a personal question, but....How old is your GU?
Lately on my long runs I have been skimping on using GU's unless prepping my stomach to handle them preceding a race. I was organizing my running supplies and the net result is I have a collection of GU's that are a few months outside the expiration dates. I usually view expiration dates as suggestions for the weak stomached but how long are they really OK to ingest? I'm sure I have probably had a few that have been at least a few months out without even realizing it until now.
What was I chasing again?
Funny question! (Only funny because I was thinking about the very same thing a couple days ago). I have a box of chocolate outrage GU that I ordered a long time ago. I ordered them while overseas when I was in Afghan in 2010 when I first started running. Someone said I "needed GU", so I bought a good bit of it. But I later noticed that personally, I do not ingest anything on any run of 20 miles or less.
Therefore, what I have now is a box of GU that expired in... April 2012 I think?
I took one with me to eat when I ran my first 50K last December, but just as I opened the package, I tripped on a root, went to the ground and never got to eat it anyway!
As it is, I will use a couple GU on an upcoming Marathon in March, but since these things are now 3 years old and a year expired, I am going to toss them and just buy a couple at the Expo. --- I tend to think these that I have are fine, even if they are a year expired, but why test it...
I am sure that a GU only a few months expired is probably still just fine though.
.
The Plan '15 → /// "Run Hard, Live Easy." ∞
Best Present Ever
they expire?
an amazing likeness
They expire?
What about them could expire sealed in a airtight... and completely impossible to open with your sweat covered hands...so you try to bite a corner of the tab with your teeth...and since your hands are sweaty you have to squeeze the living crap out the pouch to hold onto it....then you actually do manage to bite the top open and spit away the little tab without choking to death on it...all while running and gasping for your last breath...only to find you haven't bitten enough of the little tab off to get any flow of GU...pouch.
Acceptable at a dance, invaluable in a shipwreck.
Tessa
Consistently Slow
An expired GU won't kill you. The texture does deteriorate a little, though, apparently, so they are less viscous and more liquid. This may or may not be a bad thing depending on your opinion of GU. Check the ingredients because if it has aspartame in it (I'm not sure any of them do) that deteriorates with time and loses its sweetness. But at $1 to $1.50 a packet, I wouldn't be tossing them just because they were a bit past the sell-by date.
+1
Now I need to find the case I have.
Run until the trail runs out.
SCHEDULE 2016--
The pain that hurts the worse is the imagined pain. One of the most difficult arts of racing is learning to ignore the imagined pain and just live with the present pain (which is always bearable.) - Jeff
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Zeus
Just going through my old gu and saw that they do expire. Took one out on a run and it was fine. As stated, viscosity might be different and you may not get the same caloric intake, but they will work and won't kill ya. Taste was the same for me but I would expect others might disagree.
2nd life PR's: 19:24 5k / 39:52 10k / 1:27:36 1/2 mar / 3:08:03 marathon
The oldest Gu I've eaten was over two years past it's expiration date, and the clear plastic cover had started to come off. The outside looked bad, but it tasted fine and there was not texture change. However, I've found that Accel Gel goes nasty once it's a few months past it's expiration date.
This morning, I had my last Roctane which I bought last August. It was fine.
"dancing on the path and singing, now you got away,
you can reach the goals you set from now on, every day"
Sonata Arctica
I saved an extra espresso GU that I received from a race, and took it last week on my long run. It expired in November 2011, apparently, but still tasted fine.
Still working on a box that expired in 2009. They're fine.
2009 and still fine...I think that is the current record. Anyone eating any that are older than that?!
(And on second thought, I have decided not going to toss mine that expired in Apr 2012, they should be just fine.
Chocolate Outrage. The most tasty of them all if you ask me. :-)
Already regretting tossing the 2011 ones. lol