How Maurten fueled Sabastian Sawe to the first sub-two-hour marathon

Sabastian Sawe crossed the London Marathon finish line on April 26 in 1 hour, 59 minutes, and 30 seconds. The Kenyan became the first person to break two hours in an official marathon. Behind the record was a 12-month fueling project led by Maurten, the Swedish sports nutrition company whose hydrogel technology is now standard in elite endurance sport.

Maurten made six trips to Kenya to build Sawe’s protocol. The team ran exogenous carbohydrate uptake measurements, VO2 max testing, lactate sampling, body composition assessments, and ongoing training-load monitoring. They built a personalized gut-training plan to condition his gastrointestinal system for the extreme carbohydrate load race day would demand.

Joshua Rowe, Maurten’s head of sports technology, described Sawe as “once-in-a-generation” and noted that the athlete is also “one of the best fuelers the marathon has ever seen.” During training, Sawe took a Maurten gel before long sessions and Maurten Drink Mix at set intervals, mimicking his exact race-day schedule. Rowe said the approach was “aimed at progressively conditioning his gut, reducing the risk of GI distress while maximizing his ability to oxidize exogenous carbohydrate during competition.”

On race day, the delivery was precise. Two days out, Sawe carbo-loaded with Maurten Drink Mix 320, which packs 80 grams of carbohydrate per 500 milliliters. Race morning brought the Maurten Bicarb System, a sodium bicarbonate dose encased in hydrogel to buffer muscle acid without the stomach upset that typically accompanies plain bicarb. Another Drink Mix 320 went down on the way to the start line. A Gel 100 followed five minutes before the gun.

During the race, Sawe consumed small amounts of carbohydrate drink at the 5, 10, and 15 kilometer marks. At 20 kilometers, he took a caffeinated energy gel plus more drink mix. He repeated the carb drink at 25, 30, 35, and 40 kilometers. The cumulative intake reached 115 grams of carbohydrate per hour, well above the 60 to 90 grams per hour typically recommended in sports nutrition guidelines.

What the evidence says about hydrogel carbs

Maurten’s hydrogel technology uses sodium alginate from seaweed and pectin from fruit fiber. When the drink mix hits stomach acid, it forms a semi-solid structure the company describes as behaving “like a sponge, with lots of microscopic holes filled with the carbohydrate component.” The claimed benefits are less stomach sloshing and steadier delivery of carbohydrate to the small intestine.

The scientific record on hydrogel carbohydrates is thinner than the marketing suggests. A 2020 review by King, Rowe, and Burke in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism found that carbohydrate hydrogels did not produce better exercise performance or lower gastrointestinal distress compared to traditional carbohydrate fluids in the studies available. Rates of exogenous carbohydrate oxidation, measured via isotopic tracers, were similar between hydrogel and conventional formulations.

The review’s lead author was Andy King. Its second author is Joshua Rowe, the same Joshua Rowe who now leads sports technology at Maurten. The paper is explicit about a key limitation: the existing research had “largely failed to investigate the conditions under which maximal CHO availability is needed; high-performance athletes undertaking prolonged events at high relative and absolute exercise intensities.” The studies had tested hydrogels at intensities below the threshold where the technology might matter. Sawe’s 1:59:30 marathon, run at roughly 21 kilometers per hour for two hours straight, sits in the untested zone.

A separate 2020 crossover trial by Pettersson and colleagues in Frontiers in Nutrition found that a hydrogel drink with high fructose content produced higher exogenous carbohydrate oxidation than two comparator sports drinks. The study was small, with 12 endurance athletes, and the advantage came with a tradeoff: the hydrogel drink produced a larger drop in dental biofilm pH, raising questions about tooth enamel exposure during repeated use.

A 2025 analysis by Tiller and colleagues, also in IJSNEM, examined the actual contents of carbohydrate gels from eight brands including Maurten. On average, products contained less energy than stated on their labels, though the study did not single out any individual brand.

What Sawe’s result does and does not prove

Sawe’s world record is not a randomized controlled trial. It is a single case study with no control condition. He did not run the same race with conventional carbohydrate drinks for comparison. The Maurten protocol was one piece of a larger preparation that included altitude training in Kenya, genetic endowment, and a flat London course with good weather.

What the result shows is that a fueling strategy tuned to an individual athlete, built on physiological testing and months of gut adaptation, can support performance at a level few thought possible. The carbohydrate intake rate of 115 grams per hour is among the highest reported in competitive marathon running. It fits with research suggesting some elite athletes can oxidize exogenous carbohydrate at rates above 100 grams per hour when multiple transportable carbohydrates are used.

The approach Maurten applied, months of testing, protocol iteration, and gut training rather than days of pre-race loading, follows a wider trend in sports nutrition. A 2025 review by Sutehall and Pitsiladis in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports argued that the field is moving past generic intake guidelines toward protocols tuned to individual physiology.

For athletes and coaches, Sawe’s performance does not mean a specific gel or drink mix produces a sub-two-hour marathon. It shows that systematic fueling, months of gut adaptation, precise carbohydrate dosing, and pushing intake rates past conventional limits produced an outcome that extends what is possible in the marathon. Whether the hydrogel delivery system was essential is a question the current evidence cannot answer. Any well-formulated multiple-transportable carbohydrate source might have worked.

References

1. King AJ, Rowe JT, Burke LM. Carbohydrate hydrogel products do not improve performance or gastrointestinal distress during moderate-intensity endurance exercise. International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijsnem.2020-0102
2. Pettersson S, Ahnoff M, Edin F, et al. A hydrogel drink with high fructose content generates higher exogenous carbohydrate oxidation and lower dental biofilm pH compared to two other, commercially available, carbohydrate sports drinks. Frontiers in Nutrition. 2020. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2020.00088
3. Tiller NB, Burke LM, Howe SM, et al. What’s (not) in your supplement? An energy and macronutrient analysis of commercially available carbohydrate gels. International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism. 2025. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijsnem.2024-0174
4. Sutehall S, Pitsiladis Y. Personalized nutrition for the enhancement of elite athletic performance. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports. 2025. https://doi.org/10.1111/sms.70044