Endurance sports nutrition advice on fueling your long workouts and races

During long marathon training runs or triathlon training rides you need to make like the Energizer Bunny and just keep going and going and going. And the best way to do that is to continually fuel yourself with specially formulated sports nutrition products such as sports drinks and energy bars, gels, and chews that contain carbs in rapidly metabolized forms to provide quick energy to the muscles during exercise.

But if you bolt down an energy bar just before your workout to top off your muscle glycogen stores, then guzzle sports drink and gobble energy gels and chews the whole time you are out on the road, you risk taking in too many carbs, which can cause gastrointestinal distress. So to keep your energy levels high without developing a stomachache, stick to an overall fueling schedule that has you consuming carbohydrate at a rate of 60 to 80 grams per hour from all sources—whether you decide, for example, to use energy chews alone or energy chews in combination with gels and/or a sports drink.