Finally, finally, finally! Snow on the ground and to make my week, I’m sitting on a fresh shipment of Skratch Labs Exercise Hydration Mix. The brainchild of physiologist/visionary Dr. Allen Lim, with a healthy dose of taste-good performance from Chef Biju Thomas, Skratch is the best hydration drink on the planet, period. From NASCAR teams to Tour de France riders to professional climbers, Skratch has built a cult following. It’s clean, effective, delicious…and the Skratch crew is top notch.
My nephew in Bozeman will certainly want a cut of my shipment, so I’m down a kilo right there. Ouch. The rest of it I’ll savor and use for rando events, long days in the mountains, and the occasional workout at The Alpine Training Center. Skratch blends real fruit (zero artificial glop for flavoring), easily metabolized sodium citrate (instead of sodium chloride, or table salt, which upsets the stomach in the ratios needed for hydration), and not as many calories as some of the junked-up mass-market brands.
Lim formulated Skratch Exercise Hydration Mix while working with Tour de France riders. He’s also consulted for dozens of professional athletes on the sly–for example, he currently has a team using Skratch, despite its multimillion-dollar contract with one of the two big soda companies. The team pays full retail for his products and uses them in place of its sponsor’s product.
Part of the reason Skratch is so popular is its proprietary ratio of sugars. After painstaking experimentation, Lim blends just the right balance to optimize fuel supply and gastric emptying. His salt content, too, is precisely calculated to match the amount an average athlete loses while sweating. By using sodium citrate he avoids stomach upset, common when other brands use the right amount of salt, but shortcut on the type of salt.
The flavors, too, make Skratch a delight to drink. Nothing syrupy and all-natural, you won’t gag at the end of a long, hot day when using Skratch.
I make no money from Skratch and have no business relationship with Dr. Lim, other than writing some product packaging for him once. I use and covet Skratch because it’s the best, no other reason. Give it a shot yourself and see what you think. Check ’em out online, drop by Whole Foods, or any of the bike shops in town to score a batch!
