Nutrition rewind

***More discussion on this can be found here***


I was asked at the shop the other day how long I have been racing. My response was "going on 15 years". Then I got to start thinking of a conversation I had with Anne Hed from Hed Wheels a couple years ago. We talked about how much things have changed in the tri world.

Times sure have changed from when Powerbar only offered Malt nut, chocolate, and Apple cinnamon. I remember how stoked I was when banana nut flavor came out--that was a great day. There were no Harvest bars, power gel, Pria, protein Plus, or any of the many products they make now.

Gu had just come out the prior year. It took me a while to start to use them, but again only a couple companies with just a few flavors.

Back in the day the best sports drink ever was around. It was called XLR8. It was a liquid concentrate from a company out of the twin cities. I also could be seen drinking Cytomax before they were became a product of Cytosport. I never drank it, but that was when MetRX was starting to come out and make a big push in the multisport world.

There was not much support for recovery products back then. Back then there were no Recover Ease or Endurox R4, two products I can't live with out now. Instead I drank Slimfast shakes with did have a 4:1 ratio like Endurox does. We did have JogMate. It was sold in a pink tube and had a coffee flavor. Dirtram and I received a whole box of them from JogMate to test. The stuff worked, but it was way to nasty tasting for me to use.

We are very lucky today. So many companies making so many great nutritional products. I guess this is proof that things weren't always better in the old days.