@maurten_official
Instagram · Carousel
@maurten_official 01:59:30 took months to run. “The marathon is not something to fear. It’s something that — if you train well — will be ok.” — Sabastian Sawe. Between early 2025 and April 2026, Maurten made 6 dedicated trips to Kenya — spending 32 days in total, supporting and testing Sabastian to achieve a sub-2 marathon. The full testing protocol was at the leading edge of performance science. To fully translate Sabastian’s potential into real-world results required going to new depths. This included: Stable isotope ¹³C labeling to measure exogenous carbohydrate uptake. Doubly labeled water to assess energy expenditure. Running economy and VO2 max testing. Lactate testing and blood sampling. Body-composition assessments, including Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA), to monitor training adaptations. Ongoing training-load monitoring. Thermoregulation data collection. Analysis of detailed food-intake logs to ensure sufficient energy availability. Sabastian has always had a high tolerance to fueling — it has never been a performance limitation. And yet, several months of testing, analyzing, and refining his fueling protocol still meant being able to increase his race day carbohydrate target. A personalized gut-training plan mimicked his exact race schedule. This was aimed at progressively conditioning his gut and instilling good training habits. It was a plan tailored to his body and his goal. In the race, Sabastian had 230 grams of carbohydrates (115g/hr) available to him — a combination of Maurten Drink Mix and Gels. The reality of racing means carefully considering the competitive mindset against the need to fuel. Deciding to miss a feed table can be a gamble — in a marathon you’re never far from the edge. It requires calculated, in-the-moment decisions based on instinct and a sense for how the race might unfold. Trust the gut. Sabastian ran through the 25km feed zone without taking a bottle. Perhaps it was mind games — a message to the competition that he didn’t need it — or perhaps it gave him the springboard to push on. Either way, the result speaks for itself. Learn more about fueling the fastest marathon in history. Link in bio.
