I am looking for an alternative fuel for my longer running events (think weekend or longer) where the convention is to use reheated freeze dried pouches for your main meal when in camps.
I am thinking about using Huel instead, what are your thoughts on this? We would likely need a decent number of calories after hitting the mountains for a day - likely near 2000 to keep us in the game. We will use a trail mix and Soreen in the day as there is no water on the course.
Points that we need to consider are:
Weight of food compared to standard pouches (these weigh around 148g for 800 calories) but we need to factor in we would need to carry a burner and gas…
How easy it is to prepare in field…
Can we use cold water to prepare?
I don’t fully understand how your event works but if this helps I do a lot of swimming and I can swim (2k+) 45 minutes after Huel (90g/450ml) but I do get some discomfort. I try and have a minimum of 1hr.
If you have water, a shaker and pre-weighed portions it would be very easier to make in the field. I do pretty much that if I go out for the day and just buy a bottle of water from a shop.
Huel could work for recovery purposes and fueling purposes. There was a thread a while back about a guy using it for ultra running.
As the guys said, the easiest would be preparing the Huel portions in advance; either in the shakers of freezing bags (because the Huel bags are too big).
I agree that Huel might feel a little heavy if you consume while exercising or too close before. I think while exercising I would go for glucose gels and isotonic drinks.
But if you are asking for after, 2000kcal of Huel is going to be quite a shake ( you will most likely to divide it in 3). It is going to be gritty and thicker than other shakes out there. It will give you awesome nutrition, but maybe I would look to boost each shake with extra calories from somewhere else.
What event are you doing? My friends run ultras and OMMs and there’s usually water en route.That’s definitely a hindrance!
Jacob Bloch has run a few MDS events and used Huel for parts of it but it might be good to reach out to him to see what he does. I’m not sure it made up as much as 2000kcal of his diet.
With a shaker and pre packaged Huel powder it won’t be an issue
It’s the OMM in the bLack Mountains (this year). They never have water on their courses, you just nav around under your own steam for the day, very cool events. I do run ultra races as well, these usually have checkpoints with water and food at them…
Yes I think this is how we are going to use it - so we will have various snacks in the day whilst out on the course, then when back in camp and when you have water, we would use this to refuel, ready for day 2!