{"id":3461,"date":"2015-01-25T11:48:12","date_gmt":"2015-01-25T10:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/?p=3461"},"modified":"2025-10-16T14:50:59","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T13:50:59","slug":"the-hidden-power-of-gummy-bears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/?p=3461","title":{"rendered":"The Hidden Power of Gummy Bears"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am a clumsy person, unsuited for any sport that involves any sort of stick, ball or other implement. \u00a0Running after a ball with a stick would pretty much be a guaranteed serious injury. \u00a0My peers in elementary school gym class recognized this well before I did, and could find no better way to convey this observation than consistently picking me last for pretty much any team sport in gym class.<\/p>\n

So I decided I wanted to be a runner. This was 35 years ago. \u00a0They didn’t have sports drinks, sports gels, etc. The modern running shoe with the Bowerman\/Nike “waffle sole”<\/a> had only been invented 9 years earlier. \u00a0But even then, I had trouble keeping up my speed beyond 4 or 5 miles. \u00a0Nowadays we call this “hitting the wall”<\/a> – it’s when glycogen stores in the liver and bloodstream are depleted. \u00a0Gifted endurance athletes carry more and hit the wall later. \u00a0But the rest of us can delay this point a little by consuming easily digestible, simple sugars along the way. \u00a0As a 13-year-old, I addressed this by carrying little bags of gummy bears along with me on runs.<\/p>\n

\"MINOLTA<\/a><\/p>\n

So nowadays they have these fancy sports gels, with vitamins and sometimes caffeine and other things, along with sugar, in an easily consumable goop. But living in India, I sometimes have a hard time finding them. I’m not sure if they even really work – they may be a security blanket or a placebo, but whatever it is, I’ll take it. \u00a0I have a bunch on the way from Amazon.com.<\/p>\n

But the mail here is unpredictable; and for this morning’s Cool Runners Republic Day half marathon,<\/a> I had none of my magic gels. \u00a0I was hoping to run sub-2-hours; not really all\u00a0that<\/em> impressive a time, but in south India’s heat and humidity (it was 75 Fahrenheit and 79% humidity this morning at 5 am), a 2-hour half marathon has eluded me thus far.<\/p>\n

So I\u00a0had to resort to my tiny gelatin-filled friends from 35 years ago. \u00a0And with their help, and on bare feet (no waffle soles for me!), I managed to eke out a 1:57 or so (my watch crapped out at the start, so it’s a guess from those who finished around me).<\/p>\n

Which goes to show, sometimes “back to basics” is the way to go. \u00a0Regards to the people at Haribo!<\/p>\n

I’m actually happier than I look in the photo below!<\/p>\n

\"half<\/a><\/p>\n

(Caveat for my Indian and\/or vegetarian running friends who may stumble across this post – gummy bears are usually not vegetarian, often containing beef or other animal gelatin. \u00a0And lots of yummy sugar.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am a clumsy person, unsuited for any sport that involves any sort of stick, ball or other implement. \u00a0Running after a ball with a stick would pretty much be a guaranteed serious injury. \u00a0My peers in elementary school gym class recognized this well before I did, and could find no better way to convey […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[1544,1545,1547,1540,1541,149,1548,1546],"class_list":["post-3461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-random-musings","tag-cool-runners","tag-endurance","tag-energy","tag-gummy-bears","tag-haribo","tag-running","tag-sport","tag-sugar"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3461"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3462,"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3461\/revisions\/3462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}