Runners poll: Gel packs

This excerpt from marathon my race report will explain my feelings about gel packs.   In my opinion they ALL taste like flavored snot but they are a necessary evil for long distance runs.   The fruity-ish flavored ones are WAY more tolerable than the coffee, chocolate and vanilla flavors.   The "Expresso Love" flavor by GU is pretty much the worst thing that has ever passed my lips.  I still gag thinking about it.  I've seen the energy block thingamajigs sold alongside the gels and and was thinking about trying some of those or maybe even some of the energy jellybeans on my next long run instead of gels.  

"Hunter peeled off shortly after I exited City Park so he could get back his car and make it to the finish line of the race.  This was only after he sprinted to the store to get me a bottle of cold water because I was refusing to eat another gel pack with the ho****er I had in my jug on my hip.  I threw up shortly after taking in the "Espresso Love" GU Gel pack which I DO NOT recommend.  Gel packs by nature are nasty, nasty, nasty. Imagine flavored, warm snot.  They should actually label all their flavors as "snot" because that's what they taste like and that's my accurate description of them.  I think I threw up because it was just plain nasty more than my body rejecting it.  I did manage to get a bit of it down after I puked though.  I took a few big swigs of the wonderful COLD water and hoped that it would be giving me 'the boost' that I so desperately needed within a few minutes.  Well it did... Sheer willpower and that nasty gel pack boosted me all the way back to within a mile of the dome."

Great question.  I got a few different types:  The Jelly Beans, The Performance Gel packs, Performance bars and the Cliff bars.

Yesterday, I ate a 1/3 size chunk of the performance bar - pretty good (like a tootsie roll), easy to eat while running.  The challenge will be carrying it, so I think I will have hubby carry it for me and meet me at every mile marker in case I want it - haha.