Comment by chongli
17 hours ago
Wow so he was absorbing 400 calories per hour with this gel, but he was likely burning 3-4x that amount (or even more) while running 13.1 miles per hour!
17 hours ago
Wow so he was absorbing 400 calories per hour with this gel, but he was likely burning 3-4x that amount (or even more) while running 13.1 miles per hour!
In a two hour race that’s still 800 bonus calories, that’s something.
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.
> 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.
Your body stores roughly 2000 calories in glycogen. They are burning calories but nowhere near the amount a middle pack would be at this pace.
So ~2800 calories of carbs with some fat being burned.