Marathon endurance advice

Congrats on your success and welcome back to the board.  My experience has been that a half banana during the run, usually around 15-miles really help take the cramping out of the legs.  I don't do gels at all, although sometimes I do the sport beans.   I rely almost totally on what is available a****er stops at this point.   Two other things that I do, one is I use the compression sleeves which really help alleviate cramping, and my latest find is I have my chiropractor apply Spider tape on my legs before every weekend run.  Good luck.
Rob

in my marathon (and my long runs that maxed out @ 20) i took in a clif shot mocha gels (w/ caffeine) every 5 miles, this took me straight through the race without hitting the wall.  i did not perform an elaborate carbo-load program pre-race, i just added a couple of extra hundred carb calories per day the 3 to 4 days prior (i.e., whole wheat dinner roll here or a bit of rice there).

durning my half marathon i took in gels every 4 to 5 miles, no issues there as well.

best of luck, and i hope you stick around, your experience and input would be invaluable to the board.

 Hammer has a lot of interesting products and a lot of good info in their materials for endurance folks.  

Welcome,

I am a firm believer in you will do in a race what you do in practice. I use a 16 week plan slowly building up mileage. Last year I ended with a 23 mile long run. I don't have a big problem with sugar and tolerate carbs pretty well also. I break it up into several 5K's. I use Power Bar gels. I do one just prior to the start and every three miles after. Last year I had a problem with cramps as well. I read they are usually cause by electrolyte imbalance, exhaustion or dehydration. When I started to have, cramps I started taking a cup of water and cup of Gatorade at every water station, after 2 or 3 miles the cramps went away. I ended up finishing in 4:21:16. This year my goal is to go under 4 hrs. If I hadn't have had to stop to stretch and work out the cramps I think I would have made it last year. Also I think doing speed work one day a week and hills one day a week helped me a lot.

pan head

I am glad to see a Marathon group here.  I am going to walk the Half in Denver if my body will cooperate.  Post surgery once I got active I found I had arthritis in my knees and back as well as scoliosis.  I would love to run but not really wanting knee replacement surgery any time soon. 

Nutrition is my biggest deal - I can't do gatorade and I have been taking Electorlyte Stamina capsules from Trace Minerals Research - i get them at Sprouts.   Gu sets well on my stomach but Gatorade doesn't.   I was getting headaches after training in July and August last year.  It gets pretty hot around here in North Texas.