2 weeks ago
Inside an unremarkable Gothenburg agency building rented from nan section assemblage are a bid of convention spaces named aft nan modern greats of region running. There is nan Eliud Kipchoge room, nan Keely Hodgkinson room and, nan latest addition, nan Sabastian Sawe room, successful homage to nan man who precocious redefined nan limits of quality endurance.
When Sawe past period successful London became nan first personification to tally an charismatic marathon in nether 2 hours, overmuch of nan sum focused connected nan Kenyan’s carbon-plated shoes. But here, connected nan westbound seashore of Sweden, a squad of scientists, nutritionists and technicians judge different facet was conscionable arsenic significant, if not much so.
“We don’t person nan megaphone that nan footwear manufacture has,” says Olof Sköld, co-founder and main executive of nan sports nutrition marque Maurten. “We are not that visible. But if you talk to nan athletes and coaches, nan elite world knows who we are.”
A glimpse astatine nan feet connected awesome marathon podiums reveals an array of brands from Adidas and Nike to Asics and On. Where footwear brands differ, location is only 1 changeless among nan very champion runners: since 2018, each men’s and women’s marathon world grounds has been tally by an jock utilizing Maurten nutrition products. Sawe’s bonzer London Marathon clip of 1hr 59min 30sec was nan latest.
In London alone, 7 of nan apical 8 men had an charismatic narration pinch nan Swedish company, alongside 5 of nan apical six women. There is simply a chopped anticipation nan fewer exceptions did connected an unofficial ground arsenic well. At nan very apical of nan sport, Maurten has go inescapable.
In nan weeks earlier Christmas, nan company’s caput of nutrition, Tobias Christensson, welcomed Sawe’s coach, Claudio Berardelli, to its Gothenburg headquarters. Maurten had worked pinch Sawe’s squad for immoderate time, but it was a chance to explicate nan item down its products – astir of which Berardelli was acquainted pinch – and coming immoderate of its latest findings.
Founded successful 2015, Maurten’s first differentiator was nan creation of a sports portion that employed a caller hydrogel arsenic a “vehicle” to carrier carbohydrates. It was primitively intended to amended dental wellness by reducing nan sweetener and acidity contented of power drinks, but early experiments suggested nan conception had acold greater performance‑enhancing benefits. By encapsulating carbohydrates successful nan hydrogel, it would successful effect bypass nan tummy and beryllium absorbed successful nan intestine. That allowed considerably greater quantities of carbohydrates to beryllium taken onboard during workout without nan gastrointestinal problems expected pinch astir sports drinks. It was, says Christensson, an “absolute gamechanger”.
Sköld says: “When we first started testing it pinch elite runners successful Kenya and Ethiopia, they said it was magical because it disappears. If you are a 50kg runner, you consciousness each spot of h2o inside. They believed it was magical because they were drinking thing and it felt for illustration it was disappearing wrong them.”
Although definitive impervious of Maurten’s concepts remains constricted – Christensson admits location is “a batch of critique and chat astir nan value of nan hydrogel technology” – Berardelli was shown a number of caller studies. One recovered that an jock attempting a marathon astatine two-hour gait would beryllium wholly depleted of glycogen power stores wrong 85 minutes if they took connected nary further carbohydrates. Maurten’s method of accelerated replenishment, Christensson argued, was captious to anyone seeking to push specified boundaries.
So, too, was its adjacent innovation. The performance-enhancing benefits of sodium bicarbonate – amended known arsenic baking soda – were first identified almost a period ago. The mentation is that by neutralising excess hydrogen ions associated pinch muscular fatigue, bicarb acts arsenic a “blood buffer” to counteract nan summation successful acidity during aggravated exercise. While considered to beryllium forbidden doping successful astir equine sports, it is perfectly ineligible for sportspeople to consume. But nan reality of perchance severe, and highly common, gastro issues meant fewer had historically tried.
Bicarb had been apical of Maurten’s ambitions from nan company’s formation, but it took until 2023 to merchandise a merchandise that is now ubiquitous astatine international-level middle- and long-distance moving competitions. Costing £15 per serving, its bicarb strategy employs nan aforesaid conception arsenic nan earlier portion mix, utilizing a cookware of gloopy hydrogel to carrier galore twelve bicarbonate mini-tablets past nan tummy into nan intestine.
With definitive instructions not to chew nan tablets, nan substance – pinch a consistency that sits location betwixt half-set jelly and over-thickened custard – is consumed pinch a spoon astir 2 hours earlier exercise. After taking it upon my presence successful Gothenburg, finger-prick humor testing complete nan people of nan day showed elevated pH levels that its proponents judge mightiness beryllium favourable for high-intensity performance.
There is, opportunity those astatine nan helm, a increasing assemblage of anecdotal grounds crossed a scope of distances. For example, 36 men ran a mile successful little than 3min 49sec from 2023 – erstwhile Maurten launched its bicarb merchandise – to 2025. Despite nan earlier advent of ace spikes and way aboveground upgrades, only 9 men collapsed nan aforesaid people complete nan erstwhile 12 years.
When he woke connected nan greeting of nan London Marathon, Maurten’s caput of sports tech, Josh Rowe, punched nan latest upwind forecast into a prediction exemplary he had devised and looked astatine nan machine screen. According to his calculations, Sawe would complete nan 26.2-mile people successful 1:59.29 – precisely 1 2nd disconnected nan Kenyan’s eventual world grounds time.
“The intelligence successful maine says it was much luck than thing else,” Rowe deflects. Such modesty belies nan wealthiness of information he had collected to pass nan prediction.
In nan 14 months earlier nan London Marathon, Rowe’s investigation squad embedded itself successful Sawe’s Kenyan campy for 32 days crossed six trips. Tests conducted encompassed everything from power expenditure to lactate response, and moving system to carbohydrate oxidation.
With a metabolic disguise strapped to my look while moving connected a treadmill successful Maurten’s training laboratory, I was granted a peek into nan number-gathering process, albeit a mid-life amateur type alternatively than a superhuman successful their prime. Among different things, nan results revealed precisely really galore carbohydrates I, and Sawe, should devour during an attempted two-hour marathon and erstwhile precisely to return them – a alternatively circumstantial interest that applies to only 1 of us.
For Sawe, race-day fuelling protocol was practised and fine-tuned complete months of gut training. “The mentation is that nan intestine is for illustration a muscle,” says Rowe. “So, pinch exposure, it gets better.”
The consequence was a London Marathon schedule designed and executed pinch subject precision. Having consumed ample quantities of Maurten’s high-carb portion operation successful nan 2 days earlier nan race, Sawe started nan greeting pinch a vessel of nan bicarb sludge, past had a gel connected nan commencement line. He gulped precisely 160ml of portion operation each 5km passim nan race, positive a caffeine gel astatine halfway. It each amounted to an mean carbohydrate intake of 115g per hr – importantly higher than nan wide understood carbohydrate fuelling limit earlier Maurten’s inception.
Sköld describes nan London Marathon aftermath arsenic “kind of insane”. The institution estimates it already has an charismatic narration pinch astir 70% of awesome marathon elite runners, yet it has nevertheless been inundated successful caller weeks by athletes and coaches seeking nan “Sawe treatment”.
About 1,000 athletes are supported by nan institution – predominantly runners, but besides participants successful nan endurance sports of cycling and triathlon. The Manchester-based M11 Track Club, containing nan Olympic 800m champion, Hodgkinson, and nan world indoor 1500m champion, Georgia Hunter-Bell, moreover has a Maurten worker permanently embedded wrong nan group.
It is nary wonderment moves are afoot to relocate nan institution from its rented premises to a custom-built hangar elsewhere successful Gothenburg. “It will beryllium for illustration Willy Wonka wherever we tin build our ain world inside,” says Sköld.
There are, he confirms, different nutrition creations successful nan pipeline, but he declines to divulge them: “I’m not allowed. But nan thought pinch nan institution is we don’t merchandise products that don’t alteration nan market.”
Those wrong Maurten judge Sawe’s London tally is simply a glimpse of what whitethorn travel arsenic much runners afloat recognise their fuelling capabilities. “I deliberation you will spot immoderate insanely accelerated marathons going forward,” says Sköld.
Yet for each nan algorithms and hydrogels, Sawe still began nan top time of his moving life pinch a breakfast of breadstuff and honey. Some essentials do not request improving.
