burning a hundred calories an hour is trivial. Most people will burn 100 calories per mile when walking or running, and more if moving as fast as these athletes, and many, many humans can do this for far, far longer than 2 hours.
It's the absorbtion that's the challenge. Maurten is not somehow alone in the particular stuff they've developed - ultra runners are generally shifting up into the 90-120 gram/hr range (or beyond!), using a variety of different companies' products. The gut training protocols for this are widely discussed in the world of running for almost any distance above a half marathon.
GP left out the units but is clearly talking about grams ("absorb ... 100 carbs per hour"), not calories (no one needs training to absorb 25g/hr). Carbs are 4 kcal/g. 100g of carb (400 kcal) an hour isn't replacement level for even casual athletic efforts, but it does mitigate the loss of glycogen in muscle somewhat.
> Even if you can absorb 120 grams per hour, it might not make you faster. In Podlogar’s study, cyclists burned more exogenous carbs when they consumed 120 rather than 90 grams per hour, but that didn’t reduce their rate of endogenous carb-burning—that is, they were still depleting the glycogen stores in their muscles just as quickly.
https://www.outsideonline.com/health/training-performance/en...
Is that all the science to it?
Gut training is consuming large amounts of carbohydrate (preferably in the same form you intend to use when racing), yes.
It’s also about the methods of achieving that under stress without spewing it all back up. Ironman athletes would stuff their faces on the bike under the assumption that this volume of carb absorption wasn’t possible while running.
Some of the challenge in research will come from competitors not wanting to publish results to maintain an edge. It is mitigated by the visual of the race by (you can see athletes pounding carbs), as well as the nutrition companies wanting to sell more product. This will cause them to publish some information to convince us amateurs to quadruple our purchase volume ;-)
The race to tolerate lots of carbs is usually something you think of in 8 hour Ironmans. The good part is you can do most of it on the bike, which is much easier to eat as you go. As far as I know, many elite runners were doing like 50% water, 50% sports drink and consuming way under 100g.
This used to be true, and is still true for many athletes up the marathon distance. Above that, however, the momentum has swung heavily to very high carb intake. Most (though not all) of the world's best ultra runners (we're talking 7:00 min/mile pace through mountainous terrain) are picking this up, with many getting to and beyond 100g/hr of carb consumption.
So ~2800 calories of carbs with some fat being burned.
If fueling during the activity stops you from overeating afterwards and possibly allows you to exercise a bit longer it is worth it, even though it seems counter productive.
Dang… I was hoping for some cheat level wisdom :)
That common knowledge, nothing revolutionary here.
There are 2 types of sugar, fructose and glucose, you can max out on glucose around 60g/hour and train you guts to max out also on fucose.
Personally I reached 90g/hour without training, no diarrhea or vomiting.
And you know the best ? White sugar in everyone kitchen is almost perfectly 50% glucose, 50% fructose.
You don't need 'advanced' gel to do that, a bottle of water with 120g of white sugar an hour.
And the shoes, yeah they're light but guess what. Other competitors also have sponsors and excellent shoes, some even run bare feet and yet they don't go faster.
No the real reason why he is able to run so fast is first excellent genetic, that's the common base.
Secondly, excellent training, coaching.
Third, his steroid/peds program is on point and his body is responding well to it.
Typically for endurance runner you want profiles with low natural hematocrit so you can max out on the EPO, but there are also other considerations. For instance, are his tendons responding well to GH and other peptides ?
I've never read about that. So it's not "common knowledge" - except maybe in the running community.
I like your comment for putting some facts into place (how far you can go with common options). But as I never heard of this before, I have no idea how common it actually is and the effects and the science around it, what research does say to this, how and why this is used in other sports - or why not.
You a cyclist or have you been doing that from running?
From homemade concoctions… you can use maltodextrin for pure glucose.
Do you have any evidence of this?
If you watch Kelvin Kiptum break the world record at the 2023 Chicago Marathon and Eluid Kipchoge break the world record in the 2022 Berlin Marathon, you see the joy and exasperation of their achievement.
That joy was missing in the winners of the London marathon. It's not evidence, but it's an interesting data point. Another data point: Not only did the first two finishers break two hours, the third place finisher, Jacob Kiplimo, broke the world record.
Like, if we find out the top two finishers here doped very few would be surprised.
That said - it's still an amazing accomplishment.
> Determined to prove he is competing clean, Adidas provided $50,000 (£36,900) to the Athletics Integrity Unit, the sport's anti-doping body, to frequently test Sawe over a 12-month period.
> That began with a reported 25 out-of-competition tests in the lead-up to Berlin in September, continuing at a similar rate as he prepared for London.
> Sawe said on Monday: "It's very important to me because it gets out the doubt in my career of athletics and yesterday's performance.
> "It shows Sabastian Sawe is clean. It shows running clean is good, and we can run clean and we can run faster.
Did you carry all of these bottles on a marathon? Did you have to stop to get them out of your bag? How did you find drinking whilst running?
I find gels much more compact and for the amount of time I need to run one - over 4 hours there's a lot of weight I need to carry. I can store a lot of them up front in my running vest and keep going.
Now I just throw honey into water on my runs.
It doesn't upset me even though maurten does feel a little better, its worth saving tons of money over buying maurten
It was confusing when the running industry switched from calories to grams of carbs, but that's all anyone talks about now.
"In the aerobic exercise domain up to ~100% of maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max), CHO is the dominant fuel, as CHO-based oxidative metabolism can be activated quickly, provide all of the fuel at high aerobic power outputs (> 85-90% VO2max) and is a more efficient fuel (kcal/L O2 used) when compared to fat."
https://www.gssiweb.org/sports-science-exchange/article/regu...
Try eating 100g of grass per hour during a marathon and you will see. That's the metabolic edge horses have over humans.
1 food calorie as listed on a food label is enough to heat 1kg of water by 1c
https://www.futilitycloset.com/2008/11/16/the-mensa-diet/
(If the nutritional calories in the drink had been only the same number of thermodynamic calories, the drink would have been energetically negative for the body because of its low temperature.)
But yeah, this is a thing. There is some gut distress for sure at higher levels of intake. See guy finishing second -- still under 2 hrs! immediately puking, which is fairly common at the high intakes. I've heard of Blumenfeld (the triathlete) taking like 200g/hr or more. Insane. Though he's had some epic GI disasters too, lol.
But I only buy for actual races, rest of the time, I do my own 1:0.8 mix with a bit of thickener, in soft flasks. Much more cost effective.
From the picture it looks like he is only wearing a watch and there is perhaps a little bulge on his left side.
Super shoes are changing the game here allowing for more volume for months without injuries. When you look at Sawe's training his volume is insane. His easy/endurance days are 20km in the morning and 10km in the evening. This is some 100-110 minutes of running on "easy" days. His total time on feet must be around 14-15 hours per week - approaching cycling volume territory (especially when you consider that cyclists do significant % of their volume cruising/descending without putting almost any power at all which inflates the time).
The reason I am asking - I hike a lot, and for shorter hikes (<35km) I don't even bother with food. Just last Saturday I did 28km hike with 550m elevation gain - last meal I had was 5pm on Friday. No breakfast. No problem. I walk at a brisk (for layman) pace, ~7±2 km/h. Am I missing something by not caring about food there, or for my level of "performance" it does not matter anyway? The original question still stands.
These gels and drinks are trying to replenish glycogen stores. The idea is to keep the runner using glycogen for the entire race, as it provides more energy per unit time than fat metabolism.
In your hikes your energy demands probably aren't exceeding the rate that your fat metabolism can provide.
I'd recommend you to do your own research though.
But to add - yes, if you don't eat you will "bonk" on a long bike ride.
In trail running especially it's not uncommon to exceed the recommendation of 1g/Kg bodyweight/hour, up to 120g of carbs per hour, for those that can take it.
Its great they don't sit idly around in the body and get transformed into fat but rather they are burned in muscles, but still flooding body again and again with this may have long term negative effects that far outweigh any health gains gained from doing these sports, even at such intensity.
Definitely not a diet one could recommend for regular sporty guys, unless they are uber-competitive freaks who have to win at all costs.
Do you have any evidence for this? The problem with simple carbs (if you don’t already have insulin issues) is that they’re easy to digest and provide minimal satiety so you end up consuming significant calories.
But as far as I’m aware there is no evidence that they’re worse for you than the rapid calorie addition.
That said, pretty much everything about highest-end athletics is net negative for long-term health. It’s incredibly hard on the body to run a marathon in general, let alone at record breaking pace.
adidas introduces the Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3 – the lightest and fastest Adizero shoe ever, weighing an average 97* grams.
The race-day shoe represents the culmination of three years of cutting-edge research. It is 30% lighter, delivers 11% greater forefoot energy return, and improves running economy by 1.6% compared to its predecessor - making it a record breaker before it’s even laced up.
The shoe will launch with a highly limited release, with ambitious runners able to sign up for the chance to get their hands on a pair from April 23. This will be followed by a wider release in the fall marathon season. The Adizero adios Pro Evo 3 will cost $500/€500.
The Nike Alphafly 3 is the lightest in the series, weighing approximately 7.0–7.7 oz (198–218g) for a men's size 9, and 6.1 oz (174g) for women's sizes.
The PUMA Deviate NITRO™ Elite 3 is exceptionally lightweight, typically weighing 194g (6.8 oz) for a men's size 8 (UK)The other conditions as I recall are there is only allowed to be one carbon plate in them and a maximum stack height of 40mm.
It really is incredible that Nike kicked off this Supershoe arms race ten years ago and spent (presumably) an incredible amount on R&D, marketing and hype to try and complete the mission of being the first shoe to go Sub-2, and Adidas has pipped them at the last minute... twice in one race. Oh to be a fly on the wall at HQ today...
Though I assume they made a lot of that cash back in the interim selling these things to weekend warrior suckers like myself!
> Improved durability: Supercritical foaming produces a more consistent cell structure in a midsole. This should translate to pressure and weight being more evenly distributed, which should lead to greater durability of the midsole. “We’ve done a lot of testing of what foams look like on a dynamic impactor fresh versus 300 or 500 miles later, and we see less degradation in those materials longer-term,” FitzPatrick says.
> At least in terms of the midsole’s life span, super foams may have done away with the conventional benchmark that running shoes last about 300 miles. “I think it’s a dated standard,” Caprara of Brooks says. “It’s an easy go-to to help simplify. But every foam is different, and it’s not just the foam—it’s how it’s constructed, the shoe’s geometry, the rubber underneath it. There are so many factors. If I were to tell you the Glycerin Max lasts 300 miles, that’s probably less accurate than it is accurate. It’s probably closer to 500.”
https://www.runnersworld.com/gear/a64969945/secret-to-super-...
I’m sure someone will happily sell them to you if you enjoy wasting money.
The continental rubber outsole on these Adidas Adios Pro EVO 3 shoes are so thin (less than two sheets of paper, I think), that they don't even appear in side/profile views of the shoes. The outsole doesn't even extend the length of the entire shoe, it stops around the middle of the shoe. So heel strikers aren't welcome and will have loads of fun in wet weather. see https://www.adidas.com/us/adizero-adios-pro-evo-3/KH7678.htm...
In general, these high stack, forward-leaning shoes are meant for going straight ahead - imagine ladies' high heel shoes with an inch and a half of foam on the bottom - any sharp turns will force the runner to slow down or they'll twist their ankles. Looking at the London Marathon course, https://www.londonmarathonevents.co.uk/london-marathon/cours..., there's about twenty ninety-degree or sharper turns.
There’s a lot of people trying to get a 3 hour marathon or some other goal where chasing the marginal gains is worth the cost to them.
If you are a 3:02 marathoner in normal shoes then run a 3:00 in a super shoe, you are still a 3:02 marathoner in normal shoes.