Gerald Staley

I am 62. I am new at running marathons. I have trained and ran many miles in preparation for one, but actually ran my first marathon in Little Rock, AR. with a PR of 4:39:53.

Until recently, I had only ran one 1/2 marathon and had a PR of 2:01:47. I remembered the coaches telling us to start the race slow and save the energy for the last half of the run. Save that energy, they would pound in me.

I was intorduced to Crank’s e-Gel by a biker who had read about it and was impressed with the content. I felt, well if he thought it was good and being far more of an endurance running/biking athalete than I had ever thought about being, I would give it a try.

The first time I tried it was on a 12 mile training run. I felt an immediate energy boost in about 2 minutes. I thought, hu o, I’ve taken it too soon. I have natural energy left, I didn’t need it. I held my pace down thinking that I was too far out to speed up and did not want to run out of energy before I saw the finish line.

I noticed I kept having the urge to speed it up. Wow, this feels good. I must be in better shape than I thought. The last mile I decided to turn it on and finished in a blaze of glory.

The second time I tried the e-Gel was in my next 1/2 marathon in Little Rock, AR. I decided I was going to use this as a gauge just to see what would happen if I just ran smart and used the e-Gels.
I took a Tropical Blast about 30 minutes before the gun would go off. As we started off, I felt so good. I didn’t even feel I was making an effort to run, but I knew it was a long run and still concentrated on not starting out too fast. So I stayed around a 10.5mm.

Mile 5, time for another Tropical Blast. With in two minutes, I had the urge to speed it up. This time, I gave into it and increased my pace about 30sec. per mile. When I saw the 10 mile marker I knew I was going to set a new PR.
I had so much energy and felt so good, I sped my pace up to an 8.5mm. After starting the race out and running 1/3 of it at a 10.5mm, I finished just under 9 at a 8.97. I blew across that finish line and beat my last years time by almost 4 minutes and finished 2nd in my age group. If I had known then what I know now, I would have ran that race 10 minutes faster.

Now I have my next marathon coming up March 6, 2005. It also is in Little Rock, AR. I can assure you I will be using e-Gel as directed and set a new PR in this marathon.

I am so inspired by my new PRs that I have entered the Tom King Classic 1/2 Marathon and the Country Music Marathon in Nashville, TN in March/April of 2005 and entered the lottery for the INGNYC Marathon in November of 2005.

Running into Crank’s e-Gel has added a whole new meaning to ‘Running into things.’