I headed up to North Shore Athletics on Wednesday after my massage and found myself in a conversation with one of the employees about nutrition products. 30 minutes and $65 later, I have a sampling of new nutritional products to experiment with...

1) NUUN tablets. These are intended to be dropped into your water, and have the same effect as Gatorade and such in terms of electrolyte balancing and hydration. I have heard mixed reviews on their effectiveness. Apparently people who have lactose intolerant stomachs report having bigger problems with the NUUN tablets. I am not lactose intolerant so I don't anticipate this sort of problem. Desiree Ficker uses the tablets and seemed to do alright at the Ironman World Championships this year (2nd place :)). The website is: http://www.nuun.com/

2) Endurox4 Recovery drink. I realize that I need SOME form of recovery drink after exercise. I am warming up to the notion that a lot of exercise does not give me permission to over indulge in burgers after my workouts, and in fact it is counterproductive. The Paleo Diet re-emphasized that the first half hour to one hour after the workout, the recovery drink is essential. I bought a tub of this powder to try out after workouts through the winter. This is a KEY component to training, in that the muscle damage and stress from workouts is, I feel, the main limiter to my performance in other training throughout the week. The website for Endurox4 is http://69.94.64.50/enduroxr4.com/index.html. I am trying the lemon flavour.

3) Possible the more experimental of these is the Carbo Pro 1200 concentrated drink. The claim by the company is that one bottle contains the equivalent of 8 bottles of gatorade or 12 gels. If this is the case, this may solve my inherent issue of not getting in enough calories on the bike. The bottle contains 1200 calories. Theoretically that would probably do the trick on the bike. It is like putting a concentrated form of the CarboPro in with Thermalyte salt tablets... The description on the website can be found here: http://www.nvo.com/sportquestdir/products/skudetail.nhtml

Ad per convention, it is wisest to test these nutritional products out early. So, it's December, and I'm using this time to make sure they work for me. I even used the Endurox4 yesterday to overcome a little hangover from my birthday celebrations... It worked like a charm ;)