Cherry Active was recommended to me by Dr Glyn Howatson at the University of Northumbria. Glyn is the Laboratory Director and Associate Director for Research in the Centre of Sport Exercise and Wellbeing at the university. Readers will remember that, apart from this recommendation, Glyn arranged for me to train in the University's state of the art environmental chamber. I was able to train at a simulated 11,000 ft and at high temperatures. Not only was I was well looked after by the PhD students, Jamie Tallent and Chris Toms, but I also learned a lot from them during the training sessions. Looking back, the time I spent in the chamber, made such a huge difference to my preparations for the USA.
Cherry Active made a monumental difference to the actual run across the USA. It's a fantastic recovery product and using it on a daily basis in the USA meant that the aches and pains in my legs were kept to an absolute minimum. Cherry Active contains a high concentrate of Montmorency cherries. This particular type of cherry is packed with high levels of antioxidants and flavonoids, including Anthocyanin and Melotonin. Incidentally, it also counts towards the 5-a-day target. When I compared Cherry Active with other similar cherry drinks I found that it had a far higher concentrate of cherries than any of the other products. This is confirmed in the literature that I got with the product that claimed the product had "8260 ORAC units – approximately the same antioxidants as you’d find in 23 portions of fruit and veg".
I used the Cherry Active concentrate in the USA, mixing 30 mls of Cherry Active with 500 mls of water. You can also buy capsules. I've never tried them however. It is recommended that you take the drink within 30 minutes of finishing exercise. The effects the next day are unlike anything I've experienced before. In simple terms, if you have a hard session and you know you're going to suffer with muscle soreness the following day then you probably won't suffer anything with Cherry Active. It is that good a product. This is how it works for me and I've heard the same from the other people that I've recommended it to.
I'd like to say a huge thank you to Cherry Active for supplying me with their product during the run across the USA. I will continue to use it going forwards and would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone to use. If you do use it, then I'd appreciate your feedback at sponsorship@rungeordierun.com.
My first use of the product was back in March. You can read all about that here.
