When the Kenyan Sabastian Sawe crossed the finish line of the 2026 London Marathon in 1 hour, 59 minutes and 30 seconds, many analyzes focused on his physical preparation, his running technique or the extraordinary level of African athletics. However, behind actions like that there is a silent revolution that is transforming endurance sports: nutrition.
Modern marathon runners consume amounts of carbohydrates during the race that would have seemed unthinkable just two decades ago. Some elite athletes exceed 90 grams per hour and even approach 120 grams (the equivalent of a large bowl of pasta every hour, while running), using specific combinations of glucose and fructose to maximize intestinal absorption and delay fatigue. The difference may seem small. It is not.
In a test that lasts just over two hours, an adequate nutritional strategy can provide hundreds of additional calories and avoid the dreaded “wall”, that moment when glycogen reserves decrease drastically and performance plummets. When an elite marathoner crosses the finish line in just over two hours, Your muscles have consumed about 2,500 calories. Without a carefully designed nutritional strategy, the body would simply run out of fuel before reaching the end.
To delve deeper into this transformation of sports nutrition We spoke with Reyes Ródenas, pharmacist, doctor in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology and Nutripure nutritionist. The company, founded in France in 2017 by Christophe Carrio, currently has a presence in Spain.
“We have moved from a culture of ‘more is better’ to a much finer understanding of performance as a phenomenon of biological adaptation – Ródenas explains to us in an email -. For years, sport has focused almost exclusively on the physiology of effort (the heart and muscle), but today we know that performance does not depend only on training more, but on how the body responds in an integrated way to effort. A marathon is not run only with the legs, but with the entire metabolic system. In that sense, the intestine plays a key role. There is little point in increasing carbohydrate intake if the type and intake strategy are not taken into account or if the digestive system has not been previously trained to tolerate and absorb them under conditions of effort.”
The rise of sports nutrition has been accompanied by exponential growth in the supplements market. How to determine which products take advantage of this and which follow rigorous controls? According to Ródenas, Nutripure develops its supplements based on scientific evidence. “In clinical studies, the evaluation of the effectiveness and safety of supplements focuses mainly on the study of their active ingredients. – adds Ródenas -. However, in clinical research the same complete formulations found on the market are not always used, which limits in some cases the direct extrapolation of the results to final products with different excipients or matrices. For this reason, at Nutripure we opt for formulations that are as simple as possible, incorporating only the additives necessary for flavor, stability or conservation.”
The idea of training the intestine may seem strange to those who do not practice endurance sports, but today it is a regular part of the preparation of many elite athletes. For months, runners rehearse exactly how much gels, isotonic drinks or supplements they will consume during the competition. The goal is for the digestive system to be able to absorb the maximum possible amount of energy without causing gastrointestinal discomfort.
For much of the 20th century, it was considered that the body had a relatively strict limit for absorbing carbohydrates during exercise. More recent studies have shown that this limit can be considerably expanded by using specific mixtures of sugars that use different intestinal transporters. This knowledge has transformed disciplines such as cycling, triathlon and the marathon.
Today it is known that maintaining a constant supply of carbohydrates helps preserve energy reserves, stabilize glucose levels and delay the onset of central fatigue, which directly affects the brain and the perception of effort. In other words: performance does not depend solely on muscles. Also It depends on the ability to fuel those muscles while they are working. And to recover them when they stop doing so.
“In the sporting field this looks very good: a good nutritional strategy not only improves how a person performs at a specific moment, but also how they recover and how they sustain that level of performance over time – confirms Ródenas -. And those same mechanisms (control of inflammation, quality of recovery, maintenance of muscle mass or energy metabolism) are the ones that, outside of sport, are related to longevity. That is why there is beginning to be more and more talk about this idea of ”health of tomorrow”: What we do with food today not only influences how we feel now, but also what our health will be like in the future.with an impact on both life expectancy and quality.”
That is why high-performance teams today monitor variables that were barely taken into account a few years ago: sleep quality, stress levels, muscle recovery or intestinal health. The romantic image of the athlete who simply trains harder is giving way to a much more sophisticated view of the human body.
The most interesting thing is that many of these lessons transcend professional sport and, as in other sports where innovations are later used in everyday lifesupplementation can tip the balance in the health of the general population.
“Sports nutrition has taught us a lot about how the body manages energy, fatigue and recovery, and many of these ideas are perfectly applicable beyond high performance – points out Ródenas -. One of the most relevant is that it is not only important what we eat, but also how and when we do it. The distribution of intake throughout the day, the type of carbohydrates or an adequate protein intake influence energy stability, the perception of fatigue and the ability to concentrate, something especially important in people subjected to stress or stress. demanding days. Another key aspect is the relationship between nutrition and recovery. In the general population, although the context is not the same, the physiological mechanisms involved are similar. If, for example, sleep is insufficient or of poor quality, the next day it will be noticeable in your energy and general condition.”
In short, many of the tools of sports nutrition help the body function more efficiently in situations applicable to everyday life. Ródenas considers that We are moving towards a more global vision of the organism, in which nutrition, immune system, digestive health and performance are part of the same biological network..