# How Most Runners Get Their Marathon Fuelling Wrong

**Channel:** This Messy Happy
**Source:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etr9r93_mk4
**Transcript page:** https://www.withtranscript.ai/video/etr9r93_mk4

## Chapters

- 0:01 — Marathon Fueling Starts Before Race Day
- 1:32 — Carb Loading Strategy for Marathon Day
- 4:03 — Gel Timing and Hourly Carbohydrate Targets
- 8:40 — Practice Your Fueling and Hydration
- 13:19 — Body Size, Final Tips, and Recovery

## Transcript

**[0:01]:** I'm standing on the start line of a marathon I'm hooked up to a continuous glucose monitor so we've got real time evidence and today we're going to talk about fueling in a marathon the science behind it but we know also that it doesn't begin here Marathon fueling starts way before the start line so we got to go back before we can go over this line look at these crowds okay there's two parts to this fueling thing there's how we fuel for life generally and how we carb load so let's go part one how we feel for Life generally we tend to live our lives by five simple fueling principles that you can learn more about by watching this video or reading this book by Matt Fitzgerald but when it comes to our fueling we've got five rules one eat quality pretty self-explanatory most food cooked fresh and not processed two eat carb centered not to

**[0:55]:** be confused with carb heavy by the way but carbs form the basis of most of our meals three eat enough we make sure we properly fuel to ensure training is high quality but not OV we try to tune into the body signals four eat everything we don't restrict a particular food group and we eat a bit of everything even treat meals a good healthy balance across all five eat individually we've experimented enough to know what works for us what foods make us feel good and make us perform well trial and error of course but everyone is different so that's how we live our about General Life fueling wise but you want to know how you

**[1:32]:** would fuel for a marathon right let me try and break it down in 1 minute as simply and as quickly as I can first of all follow featherston nutrition and rosna performance on Instagram great sources of the science behind it and how to do it now Mary followed a 3-day carb load which means she was aiming to take in 8 G of carbohydrates per kilogram of her body weight for each of the three days if you are a 100 kg human you'd be looking at getting 800 G each of the days in I did a two-day load so it's a bit more aggressive I was looking for 10 to 12 G of carbohydrates per kilogram of body weight I'm 63 kg give or take so I'm looking at 630 G of carbohydrates minimum it's quite a lot by the end I was like pushing spaghetti into my mouth and it was falling back out but

**[2:23]:** the way that we found worked for us was you eat your normal breakfast which had carbohydrates cuz it was oat cereal fruit pasta or something for lunch pasta or potatoes or something for dinner and then in the periods through the day things like Bagles orange juice is a great source of carbohydrates in this in the form of fructose carbohydrate drinks from the likes of bicks or Tailwind we were just keeping it topped up throughout the entire day and that clearly worked for us when it came to the Chicago marathon and then on the morning of the race it's just topping it up it's having a breakfast having orange juice topping up those stores off you go in fact off we go to the buy Ram Marathon which is like the craziest marathon in

**[3:15]:** Thailand all right we might as well go run a

**[3:25]:** marathon now I know what you're thinking I already know how to fuel for a marath I've got a strategy that works for me and it's something like bang a jail every 5 miles or jail every 45 minutes or or whatever it is and that's okay but what I want to do in this video is talk you through the science so that maybe you can adapt or tweak your approach if it hasn't been working for you or even if it has to make it a little bit better

**[4:03]:** what I now intend to do is spend my entire Marathon banging on about what I do when I do it why I do it so that you can uh you can give it a go as well we're just standing behind the that's the 4H hour Pace we're aiming for a 4H hour marathon today cuz Mikey and Paulie are pushing Coco in a buggy somewhere over

**[4:27]:** there okay here's the first thing to take into account when you're running in a marathon and it's the gels don't hit quite as quickly as I think you think they're going to hit so if you're standing on the start line with 5 minutes to go and you bang a Jael that's not going to hit for 20 to 25 minutes into the race which might not be a problem but I've always been a firm believer of keeping your glucose topped up the whole time the carb levels up so if you want to time it right you want to be looking at taking a gel between 20 and 30 minutes before to have the peak of that hit when you cross the start

**[5:10]:** line the proper party Vibe here we're actually running around the Chang race circuit I think there's like a lot of car racing that goes on

**[5:28]:** here why don't we address the misconception here on how many cars you should be putting in an hour because I think a lot of people they really under fuel in the marathon and and again the evidence is pretty overwhelming you look at 80 to 100 G of carbohydrates an hour and think about it in some gels there's 25 G four GS an hour quite a

**[5:58]:** lot so you might be asking how do I combat needing to get that much carbohydrate in my body with not being able to take four gels an hour that's just insane so number one is a lot of the gel Brands nowadays are making kind of 40 GS of carbohydrate type gels where it's a bigger hit but for a similar size packet so I tend to rotate between a 40 G and a 25 G and take gels every 20 to 25 minutes when I'm giving it a full send not doing that today but that way I'm looking at getting up to 80 just over per hour near enough when you average it out so I took my first gel at 30 minutes in it was just gone 5K uh it's about 6:30 no about 7:00 p.m. right so actually that should be hitting around now because we're about 25 minutes later so I think it's about oh there we go I think it's about 725 so this is when I'm going to take my next gel

**[7:00]:** so as it's waning as we're at the peak I'll take another gel should hit again but this time I'm going to take a 40 G Joe a bit pretty much touching it B on the 1 hour as I say if I was racing full send I would have traditionally taken this way earlier but I'm running very conservatively today cuz we're having a lovely time

**[7:41]:** we're 5 minutes away from taking our next show so let's touch on the importance of the timings rather so rather than distance I focus on time and I'll tell you what look at the cck at the crowd it's like a full party so we take them every 20 in a race 25 we're taking them every 30 today and that's because time is pure time doesn't change right if you say you're going to take your Gils every 5k Every 6K every 5 miles I can guarantee you this a 5k at the start of your race probably is not going to take the same amount of time as a 5k at the end of the race arguably when you're going to need it the most so if you stick to time it's really pure you take them every 20 minutes every 25 minutes without fail and then your fueling strategy can't go

**[8:40]:** wrong an hour and a half in just over 17 km in and it's time to take the next jail and I'm going to take for comparison purposes this time a Morton 40 G they're called Morton 160s

**[9:21]:** here's what will be interesting to me at the halfway stages uh because I've taken gels every 30 minutes and not every 20 minutes my susp I don't know I'll put the chart up on the screen in a minute is that I'm not really taking advantage of keeping the glucose High I suspect it's going in real Peaks and troughs because I'm just leaving it a little bit too long between Jael hits but I don't know it's just a feeling I

**[9:53]:** get Mike is an absolute hero today he's getting all the cheers we're halfway and uh what I feared might happen is going to happen this blood glucose monitor it's happened a couple of times in my 28 days of testing so far but it just cannot handle the sweat um and it's coming loose and I did try and really stick it down with plasters before we left but you know the rest of the points I don't need a blood glucose monitor I know enough I know the science and I'm hoping I'll still be able to help so it is coming off I got to stop it stabbing me in and out for some reason the microphone just decided not to work for this clip but no worries because I can show you some of the amazing buy Ram Marathon course while I'm narrating but the essential part of this point was that you need to practice

**[10:39]:** with the gels that you're going to use on race day or at least whatever fueling you're going to use and whether that be gels with caffeine or not it all makes a difference because just grabbing gels at the side of the road those that the race puts on is never usually a good plan usually a recipe for disaster because it can cause a lot of gastro intestinal distress and you know what even with caffeine if you haven't practiced with it properly and you start to take it during a race it can go very pearshaped all you need to do is just ask Mary how that went in Seville this is her telling you it didn't go well but the basics is you can train your gut to take pretty much anything so find gels that you know work for you and practice with them in training as much as possible and take them with you

**[11:25]:** on the course take no risks you are not going to bring your best race out without a good fueling

**[11:36]:** strategy one thing we haven't talked about yet when it comes to fueling is hydration which is a really important part of it and my strategy has always been and will always be get myself completely hydrated Before the Race make sure I kind of almost need to go to the L at the start line and then during the race I don't think I really have to worry about dehyd ation as such just need to keep topping it up rather than keeping myself out of the danger zone I never feel like I dip too low it's just top UPS all the time little and

**[12:25]:** often actually this is a point I could have made much earlier in the video but I'll make it now because it's quite relevant I'm running along I've ticked over the half hour mark where I'm supposed to take my gel but I'm in a rhythm and I'm like ah I don't want to break it by faffing around I don't feel like I need it it's a trap hang on let me turn the lights on it's a trap I do need it I must have it it's not for now it's for a little bit later so don't be lured into that feeling of like I'm all right I'll have it a little bit later trust me when I say this I've been caught out before so onto the Mortons again just making sure I'm keeping myself topped up is sensible the marathon doesn't really start until 32 km

**[13:19]:** so while we've got 8K to go it's worth touching on the fueling needs of Runners with different Siz bodies because let's be honest we looking around this Marathon lots of Runners of all different sizes no less of Runners by the way but everyone is different and there's a recent scientific paper that's come out saying that Runners over 70 kg actually require more fuel than less even if they run at lower intensity or slower because their body is just burning that much more fuel so the misconception is that if you're running slower if you're running easier you need to put less fuel back in but that's a misconception you actually need to put more back in if you're over 70 kg so don't be fooled into thinking okay I don't need to use I don't need to fuel as often you do in fact you need to fuel more

**[14:22]:** often I guess my penultimate piece of fueling advice is quite a simple one take the plan seriously viously have a plan and take it there's no way you bring out all of that hard training over weeks and months without a really good fueling plan to match it because if you just come into a marathon with no plan or you disrespect the plan you have then you're not going to do yourself Justice I think it's just that simple would you agree totally got to have the plan got to stick to it got to have the plan got to stick to it

**[15:00]:** and my final tip is I think it's my final tip unless I think of something else by the time I get to the finish line but if you get to about this distance into a marathon and you're really struggling oh it's not easy hang on if you get to this distance in a marathon and you're really struggling you know don't be afraid to reach for the Coca colola that's on the table or the sweet drink or something you know if you're really struggling what's the worst that can happen you end up in a poalo but you know it could be the thing that saves your skin so in the depths of a race reach for something that might help if you need it

**[16:01]:** we did it we made it

**[16:09]:** something this is Coco

**[16:32]:** finish I got to tell you buy Ram Marathon was amazing we'll definitely be back and if you want to know how to fuel after your race then just eat carbohydrates and protein to recover it's not that it's not rocket science if you liked the video then please first of all consider subscribing to the channel as we are aiming for 1 million by tomorrow is and also I think you're going to like this video If you like this one which was the one that started it all the endurance diet based video with Matt Fitzgerald and again hopefully that will help you dial in your diet for your running and get the best out of yourself thanks for watching see you next week