![\"Kenyan](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Kenyan-marathon-record-breaker-Sabastian-Sawe--lef_1780031016826.jpg\" "\\"Kenyan")
Kenyan marathon record-breaker Sabastian Sawe\u2009(left) delivers a speech in Nairobi. (AP)<\/p>\nWhen Sabastian Kimaru Sawe, running in only his fourth marathon, stopped the clock at 1:59:30 in London last month, all of us, runners and non-runners, were transfixed, floating somewhere between comprehension and wonder.<\/p>\n
Kenyan marathon record-breaker Sabastian Sawe\u2009(left) delivers a speech in Nairobi. (AP)<\/p>\n
Sawe\u2019s timing appeared to defy reality, science, facts, gravity\u2007\u2013\u2013 the numbers speaking a vibrant language of human possibility. Sawe had offered himself for out-of-competition dope tests before his big races, testing 25 times before the Berlin (September 2025) marathon, his third of four, and a \u201csimilar number\u201d before London.<\/p>\n
The focus around Sawe\u2019s history-busting performance quickly moved to his shoes, the latest \u201csuper shoe\u201d, Adidas\u2019 new Adizero Adios Pro Evo3, which weighs 97gm on average. A sub-100gm shoe for a sub-two-hour marathon is the dream sell.<\/p>\n
Except, it was not about the shoe. Or rather not just about the shoe, but the man wearing it and what was going on inside him over a run during which he covered 100m every 17 seconds on average, 422 times over the hour fifty-nine thirty.<\/p>\n
When Sawe was asked what he\u2019d had for breakfast that morning, he said, \u201cTwo slices of bread with honey and tea.\u201d But, there was more going on inside a body pushed to its screaming limit, his heart beating at 154 bpm for 1:59:30. The science of \u201cfuelling\u201d runners over long distances, an elite staple, suddenly came into sharper notice. And how a Swedish company called Maurten, inventor of the \u201chydrogel\u201d, is at the forefront of performance nutrition in endurance sports like running, cycling, ultra-whatevers. So the shoes now go out the window?<\/p>\n
Joshua Rowe, head of sports tech at Maurten laughs, \u201cIt\u2019s a combination of both \u2013\u2013 we can\u2019t disregard that shoe technology has played a major role, but then also the revolution within nutrition has also been a major element not just on the race day itself, but also within the training.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nutrition science and the Maurten hydrogel has found its way into elite distance-running over the last decade, right from the first multi-disciplinary project called the Vodafone Sub-2, set up in 2017 by University of Brighton scientist Yannis Pitsiladis.<\/p>\n
Since 2016, Rowe said, Maurten has \u201cfuelled every major marathon winner, both men and female, every marathon Olympic winner and world championship winner.\u201d Until London, it had remained drowned out by shoe-company publicity. Then, it became Sawe\u2019s \u201csuper fuel\u201d. Or his super drink. Rowe said, \u201cI always say the Kenyans put it in a better way. They call it the disappearing drink.\u201d<\/p>\n
The science around the hydrogel, Rowe said, has been around for many decades \u2013\u2013 as an efficient drug delivery system. \u201cMaurten has been the first to harness that technology within a carbohydrate context and a sporting context.\u201d The hydrogel delivers carbohydrates into the gastro-intestinal (GI) tract with a timely and easy release.<\/p>\n
It may look like a traditional sports drink, but it acts, \u201cfunctions and operates\u201d in a very different way. When the drink is ingested, it binds with gastric acid, \u201ccreating a three dimensional structure almost like a gel\u201d which becomes a \u201cprotective shield\u201d, bypassing the stomach and going into the small intestine at a quicker rate. \u201cThis ensures that the carbohydrates are \u201ccontrolled and delivered through the body more effectively.\u201d<\/p>\n
The reasons Kenyans call it the disappearing drink is that once in, it\u2019s not a liquid sloshing about in the stomach. It takes another form and does its business.<\/p>\n
Sawe\u2019s fuel plan during the race, released by Maurten after London, featured downing 160ml of their Drink Mix 320 every 5km, plus a Gel100Caf100 at the 20km mark. Packed into his specially-marked bottles that had been prepared down to the last millilitre the afternoon before the race. Correctly labelled and handed over to race authorities and placed at fuelling stations along the course.<\/p>\n
This is now a ritual, but earlier, it \u201cwas never much of a thing\u201d, said Rowe because nutrition was \u201calmost a bit of an afterthought. Some athletes would do it strategically, but not to say a high standard\u201d. Today, no athlete heading into a marathon \u201cwill not have a nutritional plan completely dialled in\u201d.<\/p>\n
Sawe\u2019s was dialled in to a far greater degree, nutrition and \u201dfuelling\u201d as much a part of his training leading up to his marathons. Coaches trained his cardiovascular system and muscles; Maruten scientists trained his gut to absorb a specific amount of carbs every 5km.<\/p>\n
This is because running prioritises the blood flow towards the muscles and the skin, sending the stomach into low-capacity\/functioning mode. When ingested with carbohydrates, the stomach struggles to process, metabolise and utilise them. The hydrogel makes it easier, but due to blood flow diversion at marathon intensity, it still remains a challenge to ingest a large amount of carbs. The GI system, while not a muscle, has muscle properties. If you train it, it has the elasticity to be able to improve \u201cprocessing carbohydrates under stress\u201d.<\/p>\n
In the months leading to Berlin and London, as Sawe underwent training workouts over 30km that \u201calmost simulate the marathon at high speed\u201d, the biotech gurus in Maurten came up with a working fuel plan over every training session, conducting tests before and after. In Berlin, he aimed to consume 105gm of carbs per hour; by London, it had increased to 115 with a total race goal of 220gm.<\/p>\n
Maurten has been working with Italian coach Claudio Beradelli\u2019s group of elite runners for the last five years in order to study athletic performance and improve their products to benefit the athletes. It meant collecting \u201creally high, analytical and almost lab grade data in the field\u201d.<\/p>\n
This was research conducted not on what the sports science journals describe as \u201chighly-trained individuals\u201d, but in fact, on a very specific demographic, the narrowest fragment of a sliver. In Rowe\u2019s words, \u201cfrom the population standpoint\u201d their subjects were \u201cthe 0.001%\u201d.<\/p>\n
Even in this uber-exclusive group, Sawe came through as the outlier, with extraordinary physiological and psychological capabilities. From his marathon debut in December 2024 in Valencia, where he set the year\u2019s fastest time of 2:02:05, he has won every marathon he raced in. \u201cFrom Claudio\u2019s perspective, not just does he (Sawe) have the natural ability, he has the kind of personal psychological capabilities to attack something like the sub-two,\u201d added Rowe.<\/p>\n
The simulation models Maurten ran post the training sessions threw up times of 1:59:40 and 1:59:29, but Rowe said there were no celebrations. \u201cPerformance is unbelievably hard to model\u2026 it\u2019s all about finding the right athlete in the right environment.\u201d This includes the nature of the course and the weather on the day \u2013\u2013 the optimum temperature range is between 10-12\u00b0C. They\u2019d expected something in Berlin 2025 due to its flat record-breaker course, but it was a 24-degree day; the upside was that Sawe had handled everything and won.<\/p>\n
They didn\u2019t expect the sub-two in London, but Rowe said, \u201cI think Sebastian, he almost knew more than what we knew. It\u2019s not very much in the Kenyan culture to really kind of boast, he\u2019s not that kind of an athlete. But, from the stuff he\u2019s capable of doing in training, just his whole approach, there was very much a sense of like he\u2019s capable of doing something very special.\u201d<\/p>\n
When we spoke, Rowe and the Maurten team were in Kapsabet, Kenya with Beradelli and his athletes, everyone buzzed post London and what the autumn marathons of Berlin, Chicago, and Valencia will hold. Rowe called this a \u201cvery exciting time\u2026 like a marathon revolution almost\u201d and listed Sawe\u2019s contemporaries as part of a special pack capable of running impressive times: the two London podium finishers Yomif Kejelcha (who also ran a sub-two) and Jacob Kiplimo (with a world-record-busting third place) and two-time Boston marathon winner John Korir.<\/p>\n
Maurten knows that their runners \u201cneed to run quicker because there\u2019s a very high chance that someone will run quicker later in the year anyway\u201d.<\/p>\n
Rowe said the threshold time for a marathon, offered by mathematical models simulating \u201cthe right athlete, with the right kind of genetics and physiology,\u201d has a \u201cpotential performance limit\u201d of the marathon as anything between an hour 58 or 57 minutes.<\/p>\n
Sawe\u2019s time in London has unlocked these conversations and these numbers. Rowe said, \u201cI would not be surprised if we kind of hit the 1:58 number in the next couple of years\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
It could be Sawe himself doing so. \u201cI find it hard to see him not running quicker \u2013\u2013 it\u2019s not like we\u2019ve hit a threshold yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not Sawe, not humankind.<\/p>\n
(Views expressed are personal)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Sabastian Kimaru Sawe, running in only his fourth marathon, stopped the clock at 1:59:30 in London last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[277],"tags":[220509,18,135,19,17,156213,95054,508,220507,220508,220510],"class_list":["post-508338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nutrition","tag-sebastian-sawe","tag-eire","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-london-marathon","tag-marathons","tag-nutrition","tag-sabastian-kimaru-sawe","tag-sabastian-sawe","tag-sub-two-hour-marathon"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116656882095093675","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}