About a month ago Hornet Juice asked me if I'd like some samples to try out and sent me some info. on their product. It sounded interesting so I tried it out to see how it worked for me. Here's my thoughts.

What is it and How Does it Work?

Hornet Juice is a mix of 17 amino acids developed after researching the giant hornet's ability to fly 50 miles a day. The short description of what it does is that it metabolizes fat to give you energy during extended workouts since glycogen can only take you so far. See their site for more info.

Usage

They suggest you take Hornet Juice 30 mins. prior to a workout on an empty stomach. It comes in individual servings that you mix with 8.5 oz. of water, juice or sports drink. For longer workouts, they suggest taking it every one and a half hours.

Workouts

My first workout I used Hornet Juice was a 50 min. run after coming off a day off after a pretty tough weekend of riding and running. I did a strength workout in the morning so my legs weren't feeling the freshest when I started my run. I felt good throughout the run and even though my legs were heavy, I felt like I had a good energy level the whole time.

The next day I did an hour bike on the trainer and had some Hornet Juice about 30 mins. prior and on an empty stomach. I felt good during my ride but really no different than any of my other hour trainer session over the past month. My stats were about the same and my energy level felt normal.

Two days later were my longer weekend workouts: a 2:15 ride on Sat. morning with a 20 min. run in the evening and a 1:40 run on Sun. morning. On Sat. I didn't have the Hornet Juice prior to my workout but put it in my water bottles with Gatorade. This turned out to be a bad idea without diluting the Gatorade since it made the flavor too strong and sweet. It wasn't undrinkable but it would have been much better with diluted Gatorade or another sports drink or just water and some Carb Pro. I felt good during my ride and my energy level was strong throughout. Usually on longer rides, my energy starts to taper off toward the end and the last few miles end up hurting, but not this time. It was an easy ride since I had a run the next day but not much slower than I normally do that distance.

On Sun. I drank the Hornet Juice on a full stomach about 30 mins. before my run. The workout was an hour warmup followed by 30 min. at tempo pace and then a 10 min. cool down. My legs were tired for the warmup and my tempo pace was only 0:15/mile faster than the warmup pace but I was able to complete the workout and not cheat on the cool down :-) I was happy that I was able to finish it and do pretty well on my times.

Conclusion

So, did it help? I think I'm mixed on this one. It felt like it did help on my runs and may have made a difference on my longer bike. I do want to get some more and try it for a couple months to see how it works on various distances and disciplines. From most of the reviews I've read online, everyone felt like they performed better and their longer workouts with it.

You can buy it directly from their web site. Shipping is free and they accept major credit cards and PayPal.

If you try it out, here's a few tips:

• It does not taste good (at least to me). This doesn't bother me too much but I don't think that it "tastes like a mild fruit drink with a berry flavor" as they say. It tastes like a workout supplement.
• Don't mix it with another full-strength sports drink.
• Don't drink the last few sips in your glass/water bottle. Whatever is in there that doesn't fully disolve is very bitter.
• Check out their FAQs for tons of other info.

Well, after the Gulfcoast Half I've been doing very little training. I was good for a week or so after the race and then my training frequency became inversely proportional to the temperature in Central Florida (for you non-geeks, that means I haven't been doing much since it is damn hot).

I've been running on and off which is a bad idea since the off makes the on hurt that much more. I ran last night and carried a water bottle with me (the Ultimate Direction FastDraw Plus, which I highly recommend) and went through the whole thing in less than an hour. And that was on an overcast, somewhat cool night.

Julie and I had plans to do the Loggerhead tri in Jupiter on Aug. 11 but we may skip it since we haven't been training much. In the next few weeks, I'm going to try to ease back into things by scattering a ride, run, and swim in when I can. I'll be in Ohio next week and plan on running, open water swimming, and plenty of wakeboarding.

Thanks to MapMyRun.com I was able to create a Garmin course file for the OUC Half Marathon here in Orlando without actually running/driving the course. If you are doing the race with your Garmin and want to use the course feature, you can download it from the map.

When you download the course file using MapMyRun you tell it what your target pace is so the course file is created with that information to track against. To use this during the race, go to Training/Courses and select the course and choose Do Course. According to the Motionbased Wiki, you should see the following information:

• Dist to Pt - Distance to next course point (Starting Point in this case)
• Time to Pt - Time to next couse point based on previous activity
• Dist to End - Distance to end of course
• Course Time - Time to end of couse based on previous activity

I'm fairly sure that the course points will be each point on the map instead of just water stops and mile markers but I can't tell for sure. For more info. on using the courses feature, see the MB Wiki. I'm going to try to test this out on a smaller scale tonight to see exactly how it works.

Track is whack! We did track for the first time in a while. We ran up to Lake Highland to the lightning detector going off so we ran to Howard. Nothing like running on asphalt instead of whatever that squishy stuff the nice tracks are made of is.

The workout was 6-800's. I felt pretty good so I tried to keep a consistent pace and pick it up on the last one. My times:

3:23
3:23
3:23
3:21
3:20
3:09

The plan was to swim 2500 yards and then ride/spin for an hour. Lightning cut the swim short to about 1100 yards so I went home and hopped on the trainer. I made it 45 minutes until boredom and hunger got the better of me. Did get to catch up on a few episodes of Inked though...

We met Ann and her friend out at the Oviedo trail and ran what was supposed to be 1:30. I made it to the end of the trail and since I didn't know that it continued past the bridge over 434, I went for a run in the woods on a horse trail for a bit. Unfortunately, it was a bit too technical and I was worried I'd sprain something. I got in 1:20 when I got back to the car and by that time it was getting hot and I was tired so I called it a day. I felt so much better than I did on last Sunday's run.

In the afternoon, I went to the Y and swam 2500 yards straight. Trying to keep an accurate count was the hardest part of the workout.

Julie, Pam and I did the UCF to Fort Christmas route in the morning. The weather was nice since it was overcast the whole time. Still humid, but better than it has been. Saw a couple deer--ironically when we got back into town, not in BFE.

Today was a bust. Nothing was accomplished re: training. I don't recall why any more.

After work, we started at Steve's in Winter Garden and did a 1:00 bike/0:15 run brick. I adjusted my gears on Saturday and beat my front chain ring back into somewhat of a plane and all seemed well. I forgot to actually get on my bike and test it which was stupid considering I was planning on racing the next day. Turns out that with me on the bike, my last three speeds before the highest were useless since my rear derailleur was out of whack and the chain either wouldn't take or would skip automatically. So, I had to either go with a really high or really low cadence for the ride. The latter worked out well on a short, slightly downhill stretch where I hit 28MPH which I don't often do without the assistance of a large hill.

I felt really good on the run and went out at a good pace. My first mile was 8:05 and second was 7:17. I felt great at the end and it has been a while since I've run that fast even on short runs.

After, we had a b-day party for Steve and had some pizza, chips and salsa, and wine. Oh, and cake and ice cream, too. Very nice.

We did a 3000 yard swim after work. We were supposed to do a short run w/drills but skipped it since we were hungry and ran on Monday. I felt OK during the swim--not bad but not strong.

We saw Jaime and Judy at the pool and they both did the Sprint on Sunday and said it was miserably hot. This reinforced my decision to skip the race being a good one.