115 Grams Per Hour: What Sawe's Sub-2 Marathon Teaches You About Fueling

The number that broke the internet

On April 26, 2026, Sabastian Sawe ran 1:59:30 at the London Marathon — the first legal sub-2-hour marathon in history. Within hours, one number dominated every running forum, group chat, and comment section: 115 grams of carbohydrates per hour.

That was Sawe's average carb intake across the race. Maurten, the sports nutrition brand behind his protocol, revealed the full plan: Drink Mix 320 every 5km for the first half, caffeinated gels from 20km onward, and a final push fueled by a protocol refined over 12 months and six trips to Kenya.

It is an extraordinary number. For context, the standard recommendation for marathon fueling has been 60–90g of carbs per hour for most of the last decade. Sawe blew past the ceiling.

And now every runner with a marathon on the calendar is asking the same question: should I be doing that too?

The short answer is no. The longer answer is far more useful.

Why 115g worked for Sawe (and probably won't work for you)

Sawe's fueling plan was not a number pulled from a chart. It was the end product of a year-long personalisation process involving lab-grade metabolic testing, sweat analysis, gut-training protocols, and progressive carb-tolerance work.

Here is what went into it:

Metabolic testing. Maurten measured Sawe's exogenous carbohydrate oxidation — how efficiently his body actually absorbs and uses ingested carbs during exercise. Most recreational runners have never had this tested.

Gut training. Sawe followed a structured gut-training protocol for months, systematically increasing the volume and concentration of carbohydrates he consumed during training runs. He practised with the exact products, exact dosages, and exact timing he would use on race day. His gut adapted to tolerate 115g/hour without GI distress. That adaptation took months, not weeks.

Body composition and pace. Sawe weighs approximately 56kg and was running at roughly 2:50/km pace. His energy expenditure per hour at that intensity is radically different from a 75kg runner targeting 4:30/km. The same gram-per-hour number applied to a different body at a different pace produces a completely different outcome.

Product-specific formulation. Maurten's hydrogel technology encapsulates carbohydrates in a gel matrix that reduces gastric sloshing and slows gastric emptying rate. The specific products matter — swapping in a different gel brand at 115g/hour would likely cause severe GI distress.

The lesson is not the number. The lesson is the process.

The real takeaway: your plan should be built on your data

What made Sawe's plan work was not that he consumed more carbs than anyone else. It was that his plan was calibrated to his body. Every variable — sweat rate, carb absorption rate, body weight, pace, gut tolerance, product choice — was measured and accounted for.

Most runners do the opposite. They Google "how many gels for a marathon," find a chart that says "one gel every 30–45 minutes," and follow it regardless of whether they weigh 55kg or 90kg, whether they are finishing in 3 hours or 5, and whether they have ever tested their gut tolerance at race intensity.

That is why so many runners bonk, cramp, or feel sick on race day despite following a plan. The plan was not wrong in general — it was wrong for them.

How to build a fueling plan that actually fits you

You do not need a lab and a team of nutritionists flying to your house. But you do need to account for the same variables Sawe's team measured — just at a practical level.

Step 1: Know your carb target range

The general guidance of 60–90g of carbs per hour is a reasonable starting point for most marathon runners. But where you sit in that range depends on:

• Body weight. A heavier runner burns more energy and can typically tolerate more fuel.
• Finishing time. A 3-hour marathoner spends less total time fueling than a 5-hour marathoner, but burns fuel at a higher rate per minute. The 5-hour runner needs more total carbs across the race, not fewer.
• Training history. If you have been practising with gels on long runs for months, your gut can likely handle the higher end of the range. If you have never taken a gel beyond 90 minutes, start lower.

Step 2: Test in training, not on race day

This is the single most important lesson from Sawe's protocol. He did not experiment on race day. He tested every element — product, dose, timing — on training runs that mimicked race conditions.

Here is a simple gut-training progression:

• Weeks 1–2: Take one gel at 45 minutes into your long run. Note how your stomach responds.
• Weeks 3–4: Add a second gel at 90 minutes. If tolerated, increase to your target interval (every 30–40 minutes).
• Weeks 5–8: Run your final three long runs with your full race-day fueling plan — same products, same timing, same fluid intake.

If a product causes GI issues at a given dose, the answer is not to skip fueling on race day. The answer is to adjust the dose, switch the product, or extend your gut-training window.

Step 3: Match your hydration to your fueling

This is where most plans fall apart. Gels need fluid to be absorbed. If you take a concentrated gel without enough water, it sits in your stomach and ferments. If you take too much water with a sports drink, you dilute electrolytes and risk hyponatremia.

Your hydration plan and fueling plan are the same plan. They have to be designed together.

The variables:

• Sweat rate. This varies enormously between athletes — from 400ml/hour to 2,000ml/hour depending on body size, fitness, heat acclimatisation, and environmental conditions. A runner who sweats 1.5L/hour in 25°C heat needs a fundamentally different hydration plan than someone who sweats 600ml/hour in 10°C.
• Sodium concentration. Some athletes lose 200mg of sodium per litre of sweat. Others lose 1,500mg. If you are a heavy sodium loser, water alone will not rehydrate you — you need electrolytes at a dose that matches your losses.
• Weather on race day. A plan built for a cool spring morning will under-fuel you if race day turns warm. You need the ability to adjust.

Step 4: Adjust for race-day conditions

Sawe's team built in contingencies. If conditions at London had been warmer than expected, his fluid intake would have increased. If he had gone through halfway faster than planned, his gel timing would have shifted.

Your plan needs the same flexibility. A rigid "gel at mile 6, gel at mile 9, gel at mile 12" schedule ignores the reality that your body's needs change with conditions.

The adjustment factors:

• Temperature above 20°C: Increase fluid intake by 25–50%. Consider an extra electrolyte serving.
• Pace slower than planned: You have more time between aid stations. Spread fueling more evenly rather than front-loading.
• Stomach distress early: Switch to liquid carbs (sports drink) and skip solid gels until your stomach settles. Do not stop fueling altogether.

The gap in every generic plan

The reason generic fueling advice fails so often is not that it is wrong. The guidelines of 60–90g carbs and 400–800ml fluid per hour are evidence-based and broadly correct.

The problem is that those ranges are enormous. The difference between 60g and 90g of carbs per hour across a 4-hour marathon is 120 grams of total carbohydrate — roughly four extra gels. The difference between 400ml and 800ml of fluid per hour across the same race is 1.6 litres. Getting it wrong in either direction means bonking or stomach distress.

Narrowing that range requires data. Your data. Your sweat rate, your body weight, your pace, your training load, your gut tolerance, your race-day weather forecast.

That is exactly what Sweatr does. It pulls your training data from your Apple Watch, Garmin, or Strava, combines it with your body metrics, and calculates a fueling and hydration plan that is calibrated to you — not to an average. When conditions change, the plan adjusts.

You do not need Maurten flying to your house six times. You need your wearable data turned into a plan you can actually follow.

What 1:59:30 really proves

Sawe's record is extraordinary. But the fueling story behind it is not about elite genetics or a secret product. It is about the principle that has been true at every level of endurance sport for decades: personalised fueling outperforms generic advice.

The difference in 2026 is that you no longer need a lab to get there. The data is already on your wrist.

Whether you are targeting a sub-4 marathon, a first half marathon, or a century ride, the process is the same: know your numbers, test your plan, adjust for conditions, and fuel with confidence.

Sawe took 115 grams per hour because that is what his data said he needed. Your number will be different. The only question is whether you know what it is.