Mega banana gel
This is my take on a homemade energy gel. I’ve not used energy gels since my first ultra back in 2021. They’re expensive, full of strange ingredients, and create a whole load of waste from their packaging. I needed something a bit lighter and more compact than my usual bananas for a 5 hr recce on the Anglesey Coastal Path, so decided to just blitz as many bananas as possible in a blender and add a couple of extras to make an energy gel.
Ingredients
8 medium ripe bananas
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Salt
Method
Add everything to a blender and blitz into a puree.Add a little salt based off your required intake (this will vary depending on how much you sweat).Pour into a soft flask or two and store in the fridge until your run.
Note: it should just about fit in one 500 ml soft flask unless your bananas are giant.
In action
This is a seriously punchy gel. 8 bananas gives you around 8 x 27 = 216 g of carbs, plus an extra 35 g from the honey and around 28 g of fat from the olive oil. That’s close to 250 g of carbs and 28 g of fat - good enough for a long long run. I reckon at least 5 hours, but I’ll have to test that claim!