It’s a thought you share with thousands stareing bleakly into the neon glow of a sport drink bottle. Sure, it might replace sweat better than water, but does it really have to be so sweet, so syrupy, and taste like its been on the shelf for 15+ years. Haven’t we learned anything new in the last 30 years?Enter Mark Jensen, former sub 4-minute miler, a Nike guy and like all competitive marathoners, a little insane. Sick of wondering, he set his performance obsessed sights on re-examining the science of human fuel.
What he found was surprising. While current sports drinks were adequate for re-hydration, they did nothing, in fact they actually hindered athletic performance. (Maybe that gag reaction was trying to tell us something.) The problem is that sports drinks use carbs that need to be digested into a simpler form before they can be used as energy. You have to “expend energy to get energy.” The answer, Jensen found, was glucose. The most efficient fuel the body can use, glucose requires no digestion. It’s instantly absorbed into the blood stream and is delivered to muscles and cells as immediate energy. After thousands of miles, races, and training-runs later, Gleukos has earned converts among competitive athletes from Eugene to Boston, as well as coaching gurus at the nation’s most elite sports labs and training centers. Better still, when you look at a bottle of Gleukos you don’t have to wonder, “Is this as good as it gets?” Just outrun, out-leap, outlast the other poor sucker next to you and think to yourself, “See you later, gator.”
