(Image credit: Adidas)
As a keen marathoner who’s always looking for ways to improve my PR, I take great interest in what the best runners in the world use when tackling the event, and one product has taken all the attention in recent years as world records have tumbled.The best carbon plate running shoes are used by all elite runners and most keen amateurs these days, with their lightweight, springy designs helping to improve running efficiency.These so-called super-shoes have been controversial because their impact on the sport has been so dramatic, but they’re not the only recent innovation that has helped elites and amateurs smash world records and PRs.Swedish sports nutrition brand Maurten’s energy gels and drinks have been used by every World Marathon Major winner since 2017, and to set every new marathon world record since 2018.Sebastian Sawe used them when he ran the first sub-two hour marathon at the London Marathon in April, consuming an astonishing 115g of carbs per hour during his run.There are a lot of energy products available so Maurten’s dominance among elites is remarkable. In contrast, carbon racers from a wide variety of brands have been used to win races and set records.To find out more about how and why pros use its hydrogel drinks and gels, I spoke to Joshua Rowe, head of sports tech at Maurten.Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips.How do Maurten’s hydrogel products work?The difference between Maurten’s gels and drinks and other brands’ products is the hydrogel technology used by Maurten, which changes how the carbs enter your body, putting less stress on the stomach.“Hydrogel technology is not new technology in the sense that it came from the medical industry,” says Rowe. “It’s classed as a drug delivery system.“The stomach is really acidic. It's designed to kill bacteria. The problem with that is if you end up ingesting a really acidic drink, which tends to be the case in the nutrition industry, it enters an acidic environment and it creates a bit of a boiling pot. That’s where athletes get GI issues. They feel sick, they bloat."By forming a hydrogel Maurten's gels and drinks bypass the stomach entirely and enter the small intestine at a faster rate. At that point the hydrogel degrades and the carbohydrates are released to be absorbed.“The Kenyans put it the best way," says Rowe. "They say it's the ‘disappearing drink’.”How many carbohydrates are elite runners using in races?“I would say nowadays they’re all having an aggressive intake, getting close to 90g per hour,” says Rowe. “If we look at like Sabastian [Sawe], there's some that are getting close to 115g to 120g.”Are there downsides to consuming so many carbs in races?Compared to cyclists in particular, runners tend to take on a lot less fuel during long activities, and one of the reasons for that is simply that it’s harder to consume carbs during runs than bike rides.“The biggest difference runners have compared to cyclists is that because there's more muscle movement and more muscle recruitment when you're running, more blood flow is diverted away from your stomach,” said Rowe. “That's why a lot of runners have stomach issues.As Rowe explains it, the blood flow is going into the muscles, plus blood needs to go to the skin to help expel heat. That menas any internal organs that don't really need the blood almost go into a hibernation state, and that's what happens with the stomach.So when you consume a large amount of carbs, your stomach can struggle to process them because it's in this slowed-down state. The hydrogel helps with this, as it delivers the carbohydrates effectively even when there's not much blood flow going to the stomach.Should amateurs try to copy this high-carb strategy?
