Maurten Gel 100 & Caf 100
The gel my stomach actually tolerates hour after hour. Expensive, oddly textured, and the one I keep coming back to when the day is long
The scorecard
The hydrogel moves through differently to a syrupy gel. On long days where other brands turned my stomach, this one hasn't.
Closer to a jelly than a gel, thick and jiggly. Fine early, wears on you by gel four or five deep into an ultra.
Neutral is a relief on an unsettled stomach, a chore late in a long day. The Caf 100 carries a slightly bitter edge.
Well above most gels on the market. Worth it on race day; hard to justify on an easy training run.
The texture is the thing I'd flag hardest for a first-timer. It's not a gel the way most people picture one, it's a thick, jiggly jelly, and it took me a while to get used to swallowing it without water. A couple on a long run is fine. Get to number four or five deep into an ultra and that consistency starts to wear on you in a way it doesn't at the start. Not a dealbreaker, but real, and nobody tells you until you've felt it yourself.
Ultra runners chasing a gel that works over hours, not minutes, and anyone whose stomach has turned on syrupy gels late in a long day.
Anyone on a tight budget, or reaching for a gel on easy training runs where GI distress isn't really on the table.
The long run
Calories are calories, in the end. That's become my whole approach to gels over the years: find the one your stomach actually tolerates, then train with it relentlessly until it stops being a variable at all. Maurten is the one that's earned a permanent spot in my kit, though not without a couple of things worth knowing before you commit to a box.
The stomach tolerance is real, and it's the reason I keep coming back. The hydrogel texture means the carbohydrate isn't sitting in your gut the way a syrupy gel does, it moves through differently, and on long days where my stomach has turned on me with other brands, this one hasn't. That alone has been worth the price for me on anything approaching ultra distance, because a gel that works is worth more than a gel that's cheap and doesn't.
The lack of flavour is genuinely a mixed bag, and I've landed on both sides of it depending on the day. Early in a run, or when my stomach's already unsettled, the neutrality is a relief, nothing sweet, nothing cloying, nothing to manage on top of everything else. But deep into a long day, gel after gel, that same neutrality starts to feel like a chore. I've had long runs where I'd have paid real money for something with a bit of punch to it, just to break the monotony.
The caffeinated version, the 100 CAF, carries a slightly more bitter edge than the original, worth knowing if you're sensitive to that, though I've never found it strong enough to put me off using it late in a race when I need the lift. Price is the other honest consideration. These sit well above most gels on the market, and I wouldn't necessarily reach for them on an easy training run where GI distress isn't really on the table. Where they've proven their worth is on the long days and the races themselves, when the stakes are high enough that a gel actually working matters more than what it costs.
None of this changes the core thing I keep coming back to. Calories are calories. Find the one your stomach can handle over hours, not minutes, and train with it until using it is automatic. For me, that's been Maurten, jelly texture, flavour fatigue and all.