Firstly, be warned that this post comes from an over tired, nursing student, training for a marathon, coaching and working . I basically exist on homemade shakes, decaf coffee (I quit caffeine 2 years ago - for better or worse?), homemade sourdough bread (from my amazing bread guy & friend Owen) and lots of butter.
With that as a preface, I have spent the last month trying out Energy Bits during my various workouts. I am the worst marathon athlete in training. I don't have time to give my training plan the time it really deserves, but few things make me happier than running. It's the real reason I coach biathlon and do dry-land training and drive my husband crazy with the amount of running shoes I buy. It's my therapy, and for that everyone needs fuel.
I digress; I spent the last month testing out Energy Bits. They are an awesome company, based out of Boston, and were wonderful enough to offer me a some of samples in exchange for feedback on their product. As someone who has tried every type of gel and block and training supplement, I was overall mostly happy with the Bits.
I have to say as someone with a background in science I was initially very skeptical over a zero carb option for running energy. Normally I take gels, which consists mainly of easily broken down sugars and caffeine. The downside of gels are the havoc they wreak on my GI system (you try downing 20 to 40mg of caffeine and 25g of carbs every 45 mins!!). Gels are definitely high in energy, but they certainly don't come without side effects. The lack of side effects was my favourite part of Energy Bits! I used them on speed workouts, hill workouts and three distance runs (25+km) and definitely didn't feel any of the exhaustion that comes with improper fueling! I also didn't have any of the typical GI discomfort I frequently get with many gels. After a ton of research in scientific journals (I learned a lot too!) I found that although Spirulina (the only ingredient in Energy Bits) doesn't actually provide energy directly, it allows for energy in your body to be available for use, which is why you don't get the sugar spikes and crashes associated with many sugar based supplements. They also boast being full of protein & tons of other essential nutrients which makes them a great nutritional supplement even if you don't find them effective as a training tool. One thing I found about Energy Bits was that if I was lacking energy it took a long time for them to kick in (so for those long end of the week workouts I definitely needed a carb kick too). I assume this is because my body was on a micro-scale at a nutritional deficit.
The biggest drawback of Energy Bits was actually swallowing them. I had no problem taking them pre-run and pre-race, but taking them, on the fly, while running at race pace would be a huge challenge for me. I'm someone who is super sensitive to tastes and smells (which is usually heightened when I'm running flat out) and I gagged an awful lot trying to down 30+ tablets during a workout or race. To be completely fair, I also gag when trying to take gels on course as well. Part of the problem with Bits was the amount of water I take during a race, which is quite minimal. I don't normally slow enough to take enough water needed to swallow the equivalent number of Bits required to keep me going. In the case of a race I felt like a gel that would give me later GI discomfort was well worth the time I would save over trying to swallow Bits. At the advice of Catharine Arston, the delightful founder and CEO of Energy Bits, I tried chewing them as well. They taste awful, but it did cut down on the amount of water needed to swallow 30 tabs.
Overall, my Eval is that I loved the Energy Bits for training, but struggled to use them in a race. I found they provided me with great energy for shorter workouts, but I think to gain full benefit during long training or racing runs I'd need to be taking them more frequently in order to ensure that I maintained a bioavailable energy level. I would hesitate to use them in a race because I don't know how I would actually be able to take the required number of Bits to keep me going, but will certainly continue to use them as one of my sources of energy for training! Maybe I'll try them out on some shorter races this fall, I plan on running a 5-8km trail series, which would probably be the perfect distance to pre-fuel with Bits!
