Gear Review: Hüma Energy Gel

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Chris and I have a wonderful local running store, Tortoise and Hare Sports, owned and operated by a lovely set of folks including Nathan (the main dude) and Kristen.  Personally, I’m eternally thankful to Kristen for winning the overall women’s division in the recent City of Peoria Runner’s Series, as her removal from the age group awards allowed me to place first in mine, winning my first major running award:


Sweet!

We’re often in Tortoise and Hare, but it’s mostly for packet pickup for City of Peoria events – T&H is one of the major sponsors.  This time, however, we were there with an intent to actually spend money, since it was their Semi-Annual Sale and Clearance!  Hooray!  I initially didn’t find anything I desperately needed, but since I was killing time while waiting for Chris to get measured for shoes, I wandered around and found a few things.  Time for a gear review!*

We’ve been subscribing to the Chow Locally veggie box delivery service for the past four months and we’ve taken delivery every week with the exception of one when we were in Montana-Wyoming for the Ashley Family Bonding Trip.  In pondering things one day, I realized we’ve gone pretty much all natural in our food sources, with the notable exception of race nutrition.  Thus, when I saw that these Hüma gels were on sale at T&H for buy 3, get 1 free, I jumped at the chance to try them out. 


Delicious energy gels.
Nomnomnomnomnom.

According to the packaging and website, Hüma gels are 100% natural and are made from just a few ingredients like fruit puree, cane juice, sea salt, citric acid, water, and most notably, ground chia seeds.  The chia seeds make up the main part of the gel, and they’re supposed to be a great, natural source of energy; each packet of gel is 100 calories, which is just a bit lower than some of the other brands out there.  Hüma currently has four flavors – mango, strawberry, apple cinnamon, and blueberry – and to get the buy 3, get 1 free deal, I found one of each flavor for sampling.

I tried out my first gel on my 9 mile progressive run this past Saturday, and I’m happy to report that it worked well!  I selected the blueberry flavor, and I have to admit to being initially skeptical of the viscosity of the gel.  I tend to not enjoy gels that are too thick (Gatorade Gu, Clif Shots, etc) and because of this, I primarily use Powerade gels; when I squeezed the packet of Hüma in my hand, I thought the viscosity felt like that of a Gu.  However, when I opened it and actually tried it, the viscosity was on the thinner side, which was nice.  No gagging!  Hooray!  


None of this face

The taste was good – like actual blueberries, not chemical-ish blueberry flavor – and it didn’t stay with me too long**.  I also didn’t experience any GI issues from the gel, at least that I could tell.

The one thing that’s a bit odd about the Hüma gel is that, while the chia seeds are ground, they are not completely pulverized.  Thus, when you take a shot of the gel, you can feel a bit of a bumpy/grainy consistency on your tongue; it’s not completely smooth like other gels.  I tend to be sensitive to stuff like this,*** but it didn’t bother me overall.  As far as other downsides go, Hüma is a bit pricier than other gels – around $2.25 each at T&H – and I don’t know that it’s stocked at a ton of retailers at this time (but they will sell you their products on their website).  Also, in the four flavors I found, I don’t believe there was any caffeine, which I normally like in my gels.  I may need to find another way to introduce this in my race nutrition, but I can play with this a bit more.

I can’t wait to try the other flavors, and I hope they continue to work well.  I'm running the Aravaipa Vertigo night trail run tonight and may have a chance to sample another one.

Later!

Amy

* As always, I’m never compensated for these reviews by the manufacturers of the product or the retailers where I bought them.  I spent my own, hard-earned coin on these.

** No lingering “gel burps.”  Sorry, but if you’ve had this stuff before, you know what I mean.

 ***Feel free to ask my Mom about my food texture issues growing up…

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