My Triathlon Journey

Nutrition Category: Health, Recovery, Supplements

Active Edge Nutrition don’t have a mass of products but a range of natural and minimal ingredient health products all using Montmorency Cherry Juice concentrate.

Buying:

• Available here at XMiles UK – £1.99 (Single Serve) / £44.75 (Box of 24)

Why?

I’m always looking for nutrition that’s as simple as possible, with nothing artificial or UPF ingredients and these Cherry Juice sachets from Active Edge tick that box. I don’t take many nutrition supplements, which a food first approach, but sometimes being able to get a ‘top-up’ for health is important for me.

My racing this year has gone a bit more global, picking up more international and championship racing opportunities as I enter the Junior category next year for triathlon, so with a lot of travelling between races keeping on top of health becomes a highly important factor. The sachets allow for an intake of natural antioxidants perfect for helping support my immune system while travelling and great if catching a flight or in busy places, especially when my immune system may be weakened.

I’ve used cherry juice often, but that proves to be more difficult depending on location and ease of carrying. Right now I’m in the triathlon off season, and whilst still racing, I’m very much training well, so on my higher training stress days, incorporating this sachet between sessions has shown to be a great hit, used once a week, for the past 3 weeks, allowing me to hit two efforts sessions strong on the same day.

Ingredients: 100% Concentrated Montmorency Cherry Juice

Use:

To use the sachets they recommend to add to 300-500ml of water for a immune boosting drink, which has been my method, or mix with juice or a smoothie, or simply just straight from the sachet.

Over the last 3 weeks I’ve found the benefits supportive and a noticeable difference in my ability to hit a double efforts day strongly, by aiding a boost in recovery as well as immune system, which is just as vital when training stress is high. This helps me for the rest of the week too on recovery or rest days.

The taste is great. Being natural, which is another benefit, thanks to the single ingredient (Montmorency Cherry Juice Concentrate), there is no synthetic-y flavour which can become consistent with many nutrition products. It’s literally just cherry juice, made easy to use and carry, and with a noticeable gain recently in cherry juice’s benefits from WorldTour Pros and Teams using it especially, I think this is one of the best supplements to incorporate into my sport. Being Informed Sport Certified too is a great bonus for anti-doping purposes which is important for anyone, but just as much me, knowing I’m putting clean nutrition in my body.

The cost is good I think, especially considering that Amacx’s Cherry Juice, used by WorldTour cyclists like Jonas Vingegaard and Tom Pidcock is £6 a bottle (single serve) so this is quite a benefit here.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Compact antioxidant intake
• Ease of Use – Small, sachet
• Bigger bottle versions available instead of sachets
• Functional
• Recovery, health and immune system benefits
• Cost – 8/10
• Taste
• Natural (Single Ingredient)

Cons:

• The brand discontinued other products like Beetroot, Blueberry and Pomegranate Juice – I would’ve liked to try them

Verdict

This is probably my favourite nutrition product – it’s natural, simple, easy to use, tastes great and the cost isn’t bad compared to how much most supplements are now. The recovery and immune system benefits are huge, packing a mass of antioxidants into a small product.