High Carb Fueling for Runners

What is high carb fueling?

• High carb fueling has gotten a lot of attention lately with marathon and longer endurance events. In general, you could say that it is fueling with carbohydrates (gels in most cases) in a larger quantity per hour than recommended. Most gel companies will say it is best to take a 20-30 gram gel every 30 minutes. Some athletes are taking upwards of 150 grams per hour.

Who is doing this successfully?

• The elite of the elite are experimenting using high-carb fueling as a means to provide their bodies more fuel to be able to increase output and decrease fatiguability throughout the race and they are having remarkable results.

What are the benefits?

• The benefits are looking very promising. With the constant influx of carbohydrates going into the bloodstream and muscles, the glycogen is more readily available and used prior to draining the glycogen stores in your body. These stores typically will become empty around 2-3 hours if not bringing in carbohydrates during the race. With high-carb fueling, you are able to sustain more time at increased effort AND help to delay muscle breakdown that will slow you down. This equals faster times without bonking. Wouldn't that be nice?

What are the risks?

• Well, the biggest risk in the literature is GI distress. This can happen to runners for many different reasons. Fueling. Types of fueling. Hydration, or lack there of. The main reason you can get GI distress is too much of one type of carb sitting in the stomach.

• Your body metabolizes glucose and fructose at a 2:1 ratio with most people maxing out at 60 gram of glucose per hour and 30 grams of fructose per hour.

Is 90 grams of carbs the limit?

• In short, no. Gut training is something that a lot of athletes have been doing and once well practiced, some can achieve 150+ gram of carbs per hour. That's 600 calories per hour! 🤯

How much should I practice?

• You don't need your first attempt at this to be in your upcoming goal race. You should be able to increase carbs/hour by 30 grams or so without too much extra effort however and you might find that this helps you sustain energy levels and continue to push it. Practice should come in your long runs.

• Lower effort levels will decrease the amount of carbohydrate needs also. So if you're doing a long slow distance run, you would not take the same amount of carbs per hour as you might in a race effort.

• Try different gels and fuel sources and look into what the sources of carbs are in those gels. Most people don't know how many carbs they are taking or which kind. My personal favorite is Precision Fuel & Hydration because it is formulated in the 2:1 ratio already, so you only need to count the total carbs.

When to know if it is right for you?

• If you have tested out increasing your carbs/hour without frequent GI distress calls, I can almost guarantee you'll feel better in your runs and perform better in your workouts. And if this is helping you run faster and keeps you from getting injured it may be worth it.

The other things you can do for performance are endless. If you have questions about fueling, hydration and sweat testing, or nutrition just reach out and ask.

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Dr. Dylan Glass, PT, DPT, SMTC

Return 2 Sport PT

www.Return2SportPT.com

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