Gulden's and GU

These are really the opposite of each other: One has essentially no nutritional value, but just adds flavor. The other has flavor, sure, but the purpose of the product is to efficiently get easy to use calories into your system.

I tried GU for the first time while about 2/3's of the way through the Boston Marathon. I nearly gagged on it, but in fairness, I would have found it hard to stomach anything at that point. By pure coincidence I came into possession of the scanned GU (the same flavor as I had in the marathon) as part of a goodie bag given to participants of the Groton Road Race.

I'm not sure what value the GU is--I tried it because...well, it was there and free. It only has 100 calories and I burn around 800/hour while racing, so I don't see how it could have much impact. Even if you could choke one down every 30 minutes that would only provide 1/4 of the calories being used.

I put in the Gulden's mustard packet for scale and because I love their graphic design.