Ultra Runners

1

Tailwind Endurance Fuel (Read 426 times)

TeaOlive


old woman w/hobby

    Has any one tried this product?  

     

    The described taste sounds like a winner.  It isn't supposed to be too-too sweet.

     

    My concern is with the amount of sodium compared to gels or even S-Caps.

     

    Three servings an hour would be 300 calories and 909mg sodium.  Three gels-150mg and 2 s-caps-682mg.

     

     

    Thoughts?

    steph  

     

     

    xor


      25g carbs, all "sugars". We like sugar when we run, so there's nothing necessarily wrong with that.  Unless you are sensitive to blood sugar swings.

       

      Interesting that it isn't "too-too sweet".  Gatorade has 14g (all "sugars") in 8oz.... so depending on how you mix ye olde tailwind, it probably is a little sweeter than gatorade (two scoops of tailwind in 24oz, say... 42g of sugars from gatorade vs 50g of sugars in the tailwind).  Which is pretty sweet to me when full strength.   Compare this to HEED, which isn't that sweet (and also kind of nasty to many, but I digress).  HEED also has 25g of carbs in a scoop that you'd mix with 20oz of water.  So, less than Tailwind.  BUT... only 2g of that is/are "sugars".  Tailwind is all sucrose and dextrose.  HEED is mostly maltodextrin.

       

      As for all them electrolytes, I suppose it depends on whether you are buying into the Waterlogged stuff or not.

       

      Anyway, 24oz of gatorade would be 330mg sodium and 90mg potassium.  Tailwind, mixed with two scoops in that 24oz, is 606 and 176.

       

      I guess it depends on what you will be using this for... but I'm not sure what would be compelling about this over gatorade, unless you buy into their source of sodium (sea salt, for example) being better.  I would be mixing it one scoop instead of two, though.

       

      35 bucks for 50 servings (scoops??  25 24oz bottles worth?).  Not super spendy compared to some gatorade form factors.  Not cheap.

       

      I don't think I'd be drinking three servings of tailwind in an hour.  Regardless of how many scoops you put into that 24oz, I'm not drinking 72oz an hour.

       

      I notice that it says to mix it stronger for longer stuff, over 3 hours.  3 scoops (75g of carbs and 909mg sodium) in 24oz.  I think I'd rather drink a coke.  Unless you are going to cut that with another source of plain water (say from a hydration bladder) I'm not sure I get the logic of mixing something stronger for longer stuff.

       

      TeaOlive


      old woman w/hobby

        Thanks SRL.  

        I thought that this might be a good way to replace gu's.   Gu's are way too sweet tasting for me.   

         

        I just worry about the amount of sodium.  On  5-7+ hour run ( I am slow) in heat / humidity I 

        can't tell the difference using s-caps or not using s-caps.

        Either way I drink like a horse after the first hour or so.

        steph  

         

         

        Jenny V


          Hi,

           

          This is Jenny and I am from Tailwind. We just launched our product about 8 weeks ago, so please excuse me for being late on the reply...

           

          Just to give you a little bit of background, we created Tailwind in response to problems we were experiencing in races like the Leadville 100 MTB race, Paris-Brest-Paris randonneur race, and other similar events. We found that we experienced a lot of GI issues, and had to juggle multiple items to ensure enough that we were getting enough calories and electrolytes, and we just couldn't stand the sweet taste of drinks out there. We literally tried everything out there and nothing worked...so we created our own.

           

          To answer your question specifically on electrolytes, the composition of Tailwind's electrolytes mimics our sweat. So, basically what you sweat out is what we put back in. The composition of sweat varies from person to person (and even day to day), but on average contains sodium at 900mg/L, potassium at 200mg/L, calcium at 15mg/L, and magnesium at 13mg/L, with additional trace elements.[i] We recommend starting with 2.5 scoops/hour so we're looking at 757mg of sodium p/hour. As a side note, each 8oz serving of Gatorade G Series Pro has 200mg of sodium for every 50 calories - which is actually more than Tailwind's 303mg of sodium for every 100 calories.

           

          With regards to the sweetness factor, we intentionally dialed back the sweetness factor so that it's more mild. This was huge for us - because quite honestly after 12 hours on the bike the last thing anyone wants to eat/drink is more sweet drink or some gels. This is actually a horrible scenario because then you cease ingesting the calories and electrolytes that you need! (We call it the gag reflex).

           

          Finally, we recommend starting with 2.5 scoops of Tailwind/24 oz. of water per hour (250kcal). You can adjust up or down based on your personal needs. Some ultrarunners are running it at a 300kcal/24 of water concentration.

           

          I hope this helps, and please let me know if you have any other questions. If you are interested, Trail Runner Nation recently had a podcast with the developer of Tailwind. The podcast can be found here:  http://trailrunnernation.com/2012/08/run-tailwind/

           

           



          [i] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspiration