My friend stopped reading the directions there, ripped open the package, tossed the powdery substance down her throat and promptly made a face similar to a child tasting something sour for the first time. She didn't need to be encouraged to "wash down with water."
And so the experiment officially began, a two-month search into the world of energy-boosting products, such as drinks, bars and gels.
Remember the days when it seemed the only choice for rehydration/recovery formulas was between Gatorade's lemon-lime and orange flavors? Not so today.
Visit the nutrition aisles of your supermarket or favorite outdoor recreational store and you'll find shelves packed with numerous products geared to helping you exercise harder and longer. Don't like to get the energy lift in a bar? Fine, take it in a drink or gel form - or be daring and try the big gummy bears, jelly beans, pills and other new forms popping up on an ever-growing market.
If one believed all the promotional materials, it's a wonder any of us can make it to the mailbox and back to the couch without some sort of energy supplement. Is it all necessary? How much you need and how much you want is up to you, whether you are a serious athlete training for an endurance event like a marathon or merely a weekend warrior, according to Kathleen Laquale, a dietary nutritionist at Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts.
"It's really what your wallet can afford," she said. "If you are exercising for only about an hour, all you probably need is water; a sports drink isn't going to help you much."
If you plan on pushing yourself longer, Laquale recommends paying careful attention to the labels and going for energy boosters that contain large amounts of carbohydrates, but low amounts of sugar. In her estimation, mixes that contain 5 percent to 6 percent sugar are ideal.
"If you have too much sugar, you're going to drop like a lead balloon," she said.
The big marketing ploy now is drinks with added protein, but Laquale said everyday athletes shouldn't be too concerned with how much protein their energy boosters have.
"We already get more protein than we should," she said. "And as long as you eat some protein four to six hours after exercising, you'll be fine."
Convenience is the main difference between drink, gel and bar forms. If you won't drink water without a taste, then a drink mix is good. Bars are good, but sometimes too filling and hard to open if exercising at your max. Gels are some of the most convenient, unless the little package breaks and leaves you with a sticky mess.
Even if you know what to look for, the choices can be daunting, confusing and awful-tasting. What looks yummy, but has little more appealing flavor than tree bark? What will give you an energy boost long enough to complete that long run or make it up that steep mountain you've been eyeing, without so much of a lift you get the jitters?
The Tribune embarked on a gastric quest, using my body as the lab, to see if we could make the often chalky, medicinal-tasting world of energy boosters a little clearer.
So off I went on my mountain bike, for work purposes only, of course, huffing and puffing up hills and throwing down a variety of gels, drinks and bars that I hoped would make me feel like Lance Armstrong climbing the famed L'Alp d'Huez.
More than once I replicated my friend's initial reaction to the concoction she gamely tried, a combination of amino acids made by Amino Vital that taste much better when initially mixed with water.
Some things that sounded great, such as a banana peach gel, were downright awful, while other flavors, such as a double latte, had me skeptical at first but were surprisingly digestible on the trail.
There were some missteps. The worst had to be a hot day on Park City's Spiro trail when a chocolate Powerbar disintegrated only enough to wedge remnants of itself between all of my teeth. Two miles later I was still working on the blasted thing and tried to wash it down with an Ultima drink mix. The packaging had reminded me of laundry detergent, and unfortunately it tasted like it, too.
Another time I swallowed a big fuzzy bug while riding Mueller Park in Bountiful. It stubbornly refused to die or leave despite my gagging, so I tried to drown it in a Maxim vanilla-flavored gel. When I bought it, the guys at the bike shop told me they called it liquid crack. I'm not sure what kind of reaction I'd have to such an illegal drug, but I do know the buzzing critter finally died and my own buzzing was so strong I had a hard time focusing on the trip down the trail.
Those were some of the worst experiences; here are the best.
---
* LYA WODRASKA can be contacted at lwodraska@sltrib.com or 801-257-8907. Send comments about this story to livingeditor@sltrib.com.
The odd things
It's fashionable now for nutritional companies to come up with new forms on the market other than drinks, gels and bars. You can go for the bizarre, such as energy poppers in the form of jelly beans. They aren't that convenient to eat on the trail, but could come in handy if you get lost and need to mark your way. Enervit makes a chewable tablet and Eletewater makes a seawater concentrate you can add in drops to your water (or maybe you should just pay a visit to the Great Salt Lake). Clif has come out with Shot Bloks, which are basically big gummy blocks that are hard to eat in a race, but are a nice option if you are out to only exercise and can afford to tangle with the plastic packaging. Another gummy option is Sharkies, based on the same theory as Clif, but in a slightly more fun form.
