Fuel the day you have. Recover for the day you need.

For long endurance exercise, published guidance supports around 60–70 g of carbohydrate per hour, with intakes up to 90 g per hour for athletes who have trained their gut and tolerate multiple carbohydrate sources. Ultra-endurance guidance also recognizes that many runners will use a more conservative 30–50 g per hour alongside calorie-dense food. The useful number is the one you can take consistently, not the biggest number on a packet. [1] [2]

Build one hour of fuel first. Then place that hour of fuel into the sections of the course where you will need it. If a checkpoint section takes 90 minutes, that section needs 90 minutes of food. A good plan converts an hourly target into something you can carry and eat, rather than a number you hope to hit.

Published endurance guidance uses a broad 1–4 g/kg carbohydrate framework in the 1–4 hours before a long event. The more time you have, the more food you may tolerate. The closer you are to the start, the smaller and simpler the meal should be. [2]

Start with familiar, carbohydrate-led food. The planner uses conservative baseline targets because most early starts and nervous stomachs do not call for a heroic breakfast. If you have 3–4 hours before the start and have repeatedly practised it, a larger 2–4 g/kg option can be appropriate. That is an advanced, tested option—not a reason to force food on race morning.

A generic fluid range is only a starting point. Sweat rate changes with heat, terrain, pace, clothing, and the stage itself. A simple field test gives you a better starting point: weigh before and after a representative session, account for what you drank, then divide the net change by the session duration.

That estimate is not a command to replace every millilitre. Thirst remains useful in real time, and the exercise-associated hyponatremia literature is clear that drinking beyond thirst can be dangerous. Sodium matters in a personal plan, especially in hot conditions, but it does not make overdrinking safe. [3] [4]

When the next stage is less than a day away, recovery is not optional admin. Start with carbohydrate, some protein, and fluid you tolerate, then keep eating through the afternoon and evening. If a large meal feels impossible, use smaller feeds more often and pack a backup for the moment when camp food is late or unappealing.

In a short-recovery study of masters endurance athletes, either 1.2 g/kg carbohydrate or 0.8 g/kg carbohydrate plus 0.4 g/kg protein improved subsequent endurance capacity compared with water and electrolytes alone. That does not make a laboratory drink a stage-race meal plan, but it does reinforce the point: water and electrolytes alone do not rebuild the work you just did. [5]