As a natural food junkie, I never relied on these energy concoctions. On a 100km trail run, I was happy with two apples between aid stations, peanut butter bread, soup or some hot chips.
I always believed that fitness, even extreme fitness, should be a way of life, not a result of extreme training bouts, tonics or outlandish diets. With the value added benefit of plain peanut butter bread, boiled potatoes or the joy of a canister of coffee or sweet mountain water. Nothing was going to change my mind.
So it was only by chance that another friend and professional athlete introduced me to Spring Energy gel. At this time I had accepted that not everybody was like me and the use of these energy gels was a necessity. Only a few seemed happy to come last, as I have often done. I was also only recently (at the time), given my upbringing, introduced to a no sugar diet and its obvious benefit to all of mankind. Eventually succumbing to using chocolate as my weapon of choice in challenging situations.
Spring Energy gels are different. Its ingredients have no fancy words, it literally reads like a recipe. It was genuinely an all natural product. Just compressed into a tiny, weightless, litterless and recyclable plastic sleeve. Yes, litterless, when the plastic is torn open, a simple design ensures that the entire packaging stays together. Smart, and how I enjoy something smart.
So, as per the norm, off I went into the vastness with only a few tiny plastic sachets, a world away from a bag of boiled potatoes and four slices of bread. Each container told me exactly how many calories I was getting and an extremely accurate flavour description. I am a five-a-day coffee addict. And this flavour said and meant Koffee.
Without ever experiencing a cramp or a tummy which gets bloated with unnatural or unfamiliar nourishment, Spring Energy ended up on my shelf. It has the highest return buyer rate, not only because it’s a perishable product but because those that choose it, learnt the same lesson I did. There really is no comparison to it.