Hydration and nutrition for HM

Well the Powerade Zero has no carbs in it, so won't be giving you any energy at all. You might as well just be drinking water, which is what I would suggest anyway.

I'm with Millsy and Paul - just have a decent meal the night before and breakfast with decent carbs that is easy to digest (not much fat) 2 or 3 hours before the race.

Just grab a few mouthfuls at the water stations, drinking a bit more if it turns out very hot.

When is your half Crimson?  If you do want to experiment with jelly babies or drinks then best to try it out now.

If you're running your training on no breakfast then a Breakfast on the day 2-3 hours before will give you enough of a boost for the actual run, practice it first mind you, don't want to encourage the trots! and hydrate the week before not the night or on the morning and you'll get round without carrying anything. Good luck

You will probably be fine with whatever's on the course, but if you are planning to take anything other than the water then might be worth trying some out beforehand in training to make sure it's not going to react badly with your stomach. I personally do use my own gels for halfs, but I have a planned strategy and I also have a bit of a funny/weak/allergy-prone stomach so I don't take the risk with unknown items on the course.

Agree with DIS if you're set on using a gel, try it out, I was used to the simple lucozade gels and did the Manchester marathon on the Shot Gels provided, I spent half the time running with Stomach cramp and the other half sprinting as the Portaloos came into sight. Not a good day

Thanks all. HM is 3 weeks yesterday.

Have done weekday runs up to 8 miles with breakfast so have a tried and tested breakfast for them so planning to use that for HM.

Used Jelly Babies in past (long past) but not used them for a while for running so was just going to stick with them as an emergency back up!

Thanks again!

You will probably not need anything other than water, but nice to have an emergency supply of jelly babies in your pocket if it gets a bit rough around mile 10- something to look forward to- can give you a real pscychological boost. Do NOT experiment on race day- lucozade sport makes most people sick, these "zero" sports drinks have no calories/ carbs/ anything in them other than a bit of flavour/ some electrolytess- stick with water, unless you are going much longer distances!

Agree with everything above.I personally found that anything over 10 miles with breakfast doesn't go well. Like you, I do my long runs first thing without breakfast, and that works out fine, but when the race starts at 11am I feel I should eat some breakfast and it gets a bit trickier. If you're away from home for the race you might want to consider packing some Immodium or Windeze just in case.

I do my long runs without water (for convenience really) and it's very do-able. On the couple of halfs I've done I just took a few sips of the water provided when I felt like it.

tricialitt wrote (see)

You will probably not need anything other than water, but nice to have an emergency supply of jelly babies in your pocket if it gets a bit rough around mile 10- something to look forward to- can give you a real pscychological boost. Do NOT experiment on race day- lucozade sport makes most people sick, these "zero" sports drinks have no calories/ carbs/ anything in them other than a bit of flavour/ some electrolytess- stick with water, unless you are going much longer distances!

Thanks was working on the umbrella principle with the jelly babies i.e. if you have one you won't need one!

Am a bit funny about water after catching cryptospiridium (don't think I spelt that right!) from mains water in Weardale (Thanks - Northumbrian Water!) of all places so try and avoid plain water wherever possible! Going to have to get over it for HM though doing it at place visited for years and never had a problem!

Thanks again!