Homemade energy gel

This year I ran my second half-marathon. If you've read about long distance running then you would have heard about energy gels/chews which keep you fueled up for your runs. When I was preparing for my first half marathon, I tried a few different chews. I didn't try any of the energy gels. Of the ones I tried, I liked Honey Stinger ones. What I didn't like was the trash that I generated in every run. I searched online and surprise, surprise I was not the only one. There were many people who shared my sentiment and hence there were already solutions to my problem. I need to make my own energy gel and then one of the reusable energy gel containers.

This year before I started my training, I thought of getting my energy gel ready. Guess what? The link that I had saved for the recipe was no longer working :(. And if you're like me then you don't want to "guess" the recipe for your running fuel! After some search I found a recipe that I liked and after trying it out on my runs I felt it was even better than last year. Of course, that is just what I "felt". Anywho, after my experience last year I decided I'm going to save the recipe on my blog in case the link stops working in the future.

I wanted to have a photo of the gel here but completely forgot about it; and turns out the quantity of the gel was (almost) just right. I hardly have any left after my final run.

Recipe:

•  4 dried, pitted dates
• 1/2 cup maple syrup or honey
• Grated zest from 1 lemon and 1 lime
• Juice from 1 lemon or 1 lime
• 1 pinch salt
• 2 teaspoons chia seeds.

I used maple syrup; the dates were medjool dates and I didn't have any chia seeds on hand so skipped that. Next time I'll try those because apparently they are supposed to be "superfood" for runners! I put all the ingredients in a blender and blended them together!

This year during my half-marathon I generated zero trash and I was so proud of it especially when I saw all the paper cups littered along the way!