A history of marathon fueling

Carbohydrates. Fluid. Sodium. The three fundamental elements of what modern science says you need to execute a successful marathon nutrition strategy.

But, how did we get here? I'm going to walk you through the chequered history of marathon fueling, from Ancient Greece to the modern day majors...

If legend is to be believed, Pheidippides' run from the town of Marathon to Athens to deliver news of a Greek victory over the Spartans in 490BC inspired the 26.2 mile event we all know today.

Ironically, he was perhaps more on point with his carb, fluid and sodium intake - consuming fruits, figs, honey, water, olives, and cured meats - than some of the have-a-go heroes who stepped up to compete at the inaugural modern Olympiad 2,385 years later...

1896-1908 (Pick your poison)

In 1896, the victorious Sypridon Louis sipped on cognac for the final six miles of the very first Olympic marathon - which is one way to beat the infamous 'wall' - and, despite this rather unorthodox fueling strategy, went on to win the race.

Fast-forward to the 1904 Olympics in St Louis, Missouri, and things got even stranger...

The 1904 Olympic marathon was an absolute farce. The race director, James E. Sullivan, decided it would be a great idea to withhold water from athletes to study the effects of dehydration on the human body.

Here's how that turned out:

Cuban postman, Felix Carvajal, stopped to eat apples from an orchard by the side of the road before the race turned to champagne after 17 miles. Two miles later, he collapsed and DNF'd.
Ahead of Longboat, South Africa's Charles Hefferon led with two miles left, but couldn't resist a quaff of some champers, which caused intense stomach pains and he had to settle for a bronze medal.
America's John Hayes was eventually awarded the gold medal after finishing without 'unfair assistance' in 2:55:18.

And in the 1908 London Olympics, the legendary Dorando Pietri of Italy was leading the marathon but collapsed multiple times in the stadium before being helped across the finish line by officials - and was subsequently disqualified.

Albert Corey - or 'Champagne Charley' as he was known - drank champers during the race and took the silver medal.
Thomas Hicks was handed the gold medal after the first man across the line was found to have hitched a lift in a car to skip part of the course. Hicks fueled his race by regularly sipping on brandy, strychnine and sulfate in egg whites. It's a novel way of trying to beat ' flavour fatigue ', but we wouldn't recommend it as Hicks ended up hallucinating during the last two miles of the race, probably because strychnine is a pesticide more commonly used as rat poison.

At the time, athletes used strychnine, cocaine and heroine as stimulants to help mask pain, increase aggression and gain an energy boost. Needless to say, post-race drug testing and doping control wasn't a major concern back then.

1908 (Champers isn't just for post-race)

The 1908 London Olympic marathon was the first to take place over the 26.2 mile distance that we run today. The race was initially fixed at 26 miles, but the start was reportedly moved further back so that the Royals could get a better view of the start at Windsor Castle.

Regardless of the truth of that particular tale, the change in distance had a significant impact on the result of the race...

On the hottest day of the year, the race leader Italian Dorando Pietri collapsed five times in the final 400 metres before he was eventually helped over the finish line.

To add insult to injury, Pietri was then disqualified for receiving 'outside assistance'. The official Olympic report justified the decision to help him across the finish line, "It was impossible to leave him there, for it looked as if he might die in the very presence of the Queen."

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was in the stadium covering the race for The Daily Mail, and it wouldn't have taken his most famous character, Sherlock Holmes, very long to work out the cause of Pietri's downfall. After fueling with brandy and strychnine, Pietri was no doubt taken down by a combination of dehydration, drunkeness and poisoning.

1909-1950 (Don't eat or drink)

In 1909, James E. Sullivan - he of "purposeful dehydration" fame from St. Louis five years earlier - was head of the US Amateur Athletic Union.

He advised athletes, "Don't get into the habit of drinking and eating in a marathon race; some prominent runners do, but it is not beneficial".

Despite the advice, Olympic marathons during this period did include some aid stations that provided water, oranges, lemons and sugar cubes as refreshments.

And whilst the 1924 Paris Olympics featured wine pourers, a group of scientists assessed athletes crossing the finish line at that year's Boston Marathon. They concluded: "The competitors who had extremely low blood sugars presented a picture of shock!"

A year later, the scientists repeated the study, but encouraged athletes to eat sweets and gummies during the race. Those runners finished in a much better condition and with higher blood sugar levels, leading the scientists to conclude:

"The adequate ingestion of carbohydrate before and during any prolonged and vigorous muscular effort might be of considerable benefit in preventing low blood sugar and the accompanying symptoms of exhaustion."

This was the first recognition that proper fueling was important for endurance performance.

A few years later, the earliest iteration of what we now recognise as a 'sports drink' was launched. 'Glucozade' (which would be shortened to the catchier 'Lucozade') - a citrus flavoured sugar water - delivered quick, digestible energy and fluids to people who were struggling with illness.

But sports drinks wouldn't come to market for another 40 years, so athletes continued to use trial and error. Mostly error...

Jock Semple ate a steak one hour before the 1934 Boston Marathon and succumbed to a crippling bout of nausea. And Jim Peters drank no water for 24 hours before or during the 1954 Commonwealth Games marathon. He succumbed to heat exhaustion and took 11 minutes to cover 200 metres.

Peters never raced again and later said, "I was lucky not to have died that day".

He obviously hadn't read E.H. Bensley's paper called The Feeding of Athletes, which was published in 1951. Bensley suggested that replacing salt was beneficial for athletes suffering from muscle cramps, and that sugar is valuable "if exercise should be prolonged".

This hinted at an early understanding of 'The Three Levers' of carbs, fluid and sodium for endurance sports nutrition...

1960s (The scientific 60s)

The recognition that athletes required carbs, sodium and fluid to maintain performance led Dr Robert Cade to create a concoction of sugar, salt and lemon juice mixed into water for American Football players. As a result, Gatorade was the first ever sports drink to be launched in 1965.

Two years later, Swedish scientists discovered that stocking your muscles up with carbs before exercise resulted in athletes being able to exert themselves at a higher intensity for longer.

Legendary British runner, Ron Hill, took an interest in the Swedes' research with skiers and felt that the benefits of the Saltin-Hermansson diet - or what we now call carb-loading - could apply to marathon runners. Most marathoners hit 'the wall' after 18-20 miles, and Hill recognised that this 'wall' was the point at which the muscles had run out of glycogen.

He became a carb-loading trailblazer by eating pasta and potatoes during the two-and-a-half days leading into races. Hill was ahead of his time and went on to win the 1969 European Championships, the 1970 Boston Marathon, and the 1970 Commonwealth Games marathon.

And yet, Hill ate and drank nothing during a marathon. "I had taught myself not to drink during a race," he said. "I did all the drinking I needed before the race, and I would just rinse my mouth with a sponge."

This 'tough it out' mentality would endure for years to come...

1980s (The Wall)

Despite the invention of the first energy bar in 1983 and the energy gel in 1987, marathon runners were slow to adopt in-race fueling practises (although at least they were drinking far less alcohol and poison by this point!).

Veteran runner, Gerard Dummett, recently shared his marathon journey with us...

"I had high hopes of going sub-3 hours at the Glasgow Marathon in September 1985. My fueling strategy involved a 'pasta party' the night before a race, and my hydration plan was simply a case of drinking 'enough' water.

"It didn't work. I hit 'the wall' after 20 miles, going from 6:45 minutes per mile to nearly 8:30's. I staggered from side to side of the road at 23 miles. I eventually stumbled over the line in 3:06:32. It took me a week to recover.

"It would take me another 40 years to learn the value of fueling and hydration."

For Gerard and his fellow marathoners, there wasn't a huge amount of guidance for in-race fueling at the time. And the advice that did eventually arrive wasn't always beneficial to performance...

1990-2000 (Replace all of your losses)

Or replace some of your losses... Possibly...

In 1996, the American College of Sports Medicine recommended that "athletes should consume fluids at a rate sufficient to replace all the water lost through sweating."

This led to issues with athletes suffering from a nasty (and potentially fatal) condition known as hyponatremia (which occurs when your blood sodium gets too low).

The ACSM revised its guideline in 2007 to, "The goal of drinking during exercise is to prevent excessive (>2% body weight loss) dehydration and excessive changes in electrolyte balance to avert compromised performance."

This notion that anything more than 2% dehydration must be detrimental to performance was challenged when a study demonstrated that legendary runner, Haile Gebrselassie, dropped a staggering 9.8% when winning the 2009 Dubai marathon.

Of course, we now know that most athletes can probably tolerate somewhere between 2-4% body weight loss before performance suffers. It's worth measuring your sweat rate to get a handle on how much you should be drinking to adequately replace your losses in different conditions.

And, the ACSU were on to something with their recommendation to avoid excessive changes in electrolyte balance. Replacing an adequate proportion of the main electrolyte you lose in your sweat - sodium - is crucial during marathons.

2010-Today (The Personalisation Era)

It was during this period that marathon nutrition strategies started to be guided by science and 'The Three Levers' came to the fore.

A century after Boston Marathoners first recognised the benefits of fueling, carbs remain king when it comes to fueling endurance exercise. But, a 2012 study examining carb and fluid-intake rates showed that 73% of marathon runners didn't reach the relatively modest recommendation of 30–60 grams of carb per hour during races.

Marathoners appeared to be a little slower to embrace fueling during events. Until very recently, hitting 'the wall' was seen as an inevitable part of running a marathon.

We asked Mel from our Athlete Support Team about her early experiences...

"My fueling strategy at my first marathon in Jersey in September 2012 involved relying on a carb-rich breakfast. I only drank plain water from aid stations during the race. I felt broken afterwards.

"I ran the London Marathon a year later and I actually ditched my race belt at the last minute because most of the runners in the starting pen were wearing nothing but what looked like knickers and crop tops (that included the men 🩲). So, I figured I'd look like an idiot if I wore mine.

"I ate one gel and took gulps of Lucozade; so I consumed ~17g of carb per hour my 2 hours and 53 minutes on course. I had another gel tucked into a wristband but I didn't use it, even when I hit 'the wall' and almost came to a stop at mile 19.

"It was like a badge of honour that I gritted it out, but who knows how much faster I could have run if I'd fueled properly."

"More than anything, I've learned that the human body can do some amazing things and mental strength can get you a long way. But if I'd practised then what I know now, I'd undoubtedly have run faster and recovered better.

"Ironically, I think I fueled myself much better for triathlons during that same time period, but for some reason - possibly a cultural thing - I treated fueling and hydrating for marathons very differently."

A 2014 study found a positive correlation between more carbs and marathon performance. So, why were marathon runners like Mel so reluctant to fuel at that time? We've previously discussed the cultural fueling differences between marathoners and athletes from other sports with renowned marathon coach, Mario Fraioli.

Encouragingly, we've seen marathoners begin to embrace consuming enough carbs per hour to sustain performance. Since we started publishing athlete case studies, we've crunched the race nutrition strategies of 77 marathon runners and seen a rise in average carb intake...

Over the past four years, our marathon cohort averaged:

~72g of carb per hour
~339ml (11oz) of fluid per hour
~755mg of sodium per litre of fluid

If you're unsure of the numbers you need to hit to perform at your best, use the free Fuel & Hydration Planner to get your carb, fluid and sodium recommendations...

Get a fuel & hydration plan

Once you've got your numbers, use some trial and error during training runs to dial in your numbers and work out which fuel formats are best for you.

For context, 89% of our marathon case studies used gels during their races, and 0% tried to hit their carb numbers with champagne...

Pick up some PF 30 Gels

If you're looking to experience the old ways of fueling a marathon, you could always sign up for the Marathon du Médoc - it features 23 wine stops... Just please steer clear of the strychnine!