Anyone run a marathon without gels?

I'm considering a paleo/primal diet to see if it helps my motility issues. Currently no wheat and dairy. I have a 19k run on Sunday, and I will see how I do without my P28 bread and peanut butter pre-run. I will have a banana and almond butter instead (which i've run on before).

But gels are a no-no with this diet....is a full marathon possible without them?

Hmmmm..... do they allow for dried fruits and/or nuts? I'd just be concerned of bonking b/c you'd be burning so much while running and need to replete somehow. Personally, I do strong coffee 3 hrs before a long run for *ahem* movement.....

I'm not going to do it after all. I'm afraid of bonking, like you said. I get up and run, so having coffee before is impossible....but coffee doesn't get me "moving"...nothing seems to.

I think it would be hard, especially as a relatively new runner to run in a glycogen deprived state. It can be done but to me the risk of a bonk seems very high!

Check out the forums at the Whole30 website. I'm contemplating a change to more "whole" eating to see if alleviates some of my gut sensitivities that I suspect are related to diet. I haven't made changes yet but was specifically interested in questions as well. Some of these folks use Buddy Fruit type things, which I'm not sure if you guys have in Canada - they're basically nothing but pureed fruit in a pouch. Some people make their own purees out of compliant foods and pack them up in sealable baby food pouches which can be found on Amazon and ebay. Some of will depend on what you decided to eliminate but dried fruit without any added sugars could work, dates or raisins. Also, you could use coconu****er as a calorie/electrolyte replacement. It's compliant and if you can carry it or have somebody waiting for you with it, it might work. Only 46 calories in a cup of liquid so might not be enough. Some of the Larabars are paleo-friendly as well.

http://forum.whole9life.com/forum/11-whole30-for-athletes/

Yep. I'm all over the Whole 30 sites. But I don't have much feedback from those who had WLS, Paleo and running long distances. I want to be safe.

I don't like gels. I've never done a stand-alone marathon but I've done two Ironmans. They have a marathon in them. It's not exactly the same. But similar.

For my first one, I started out with a sports drink but carrying the bottles drove me crazy so after about 5 miles, I dumped them and lived off the course. I tried everything. I liked cookies the best. And also grapes. I did grapes at my second IM because they had no cookies.

What I do is eat one way while not racing and then for racing it's all carbs, carbs, carbs! LOL

That sounds about right. It's weird to actually eat carbs carbs carbs!! Seems so against the "rules" lol. Thanks for the imput.

whole foods has  1 oz packets of almond butter 7 grams of protein.  Try totally excluding corn and corn frutose as well and if you really want to eliminate soy anything that helps as well.   I never knew that peanuts were not good for motility issues .

Good luck

Thanks Ann!! My mom has diverticulitis and is a lover of peanuts....poor lady had to give them up!

You may want to look into Metabolic Efficiency Training or Andrew follow another plan.  The basics are Load your meals with Fruits and Veggies as an oncourse supplement many people are having success with UCan, I will be conveting over to it after Augusta, only because my training has been so off I have not trained with it yet.