Marathon Science

Marathon Science Ex-NFL Sport Scientist. I help runners and hybrid athletes shatter PRs & prevent injury using proven science.
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New Research: runners with the same 10 km times, same weekly training hours, but The runners doing regular long runs sti...
08/22/2026

New Research: runners with the same 10 km times, same weekly training hours, but The runners doing regular long runs still had about half the running-economy drop at lactate threshold after 90 minutes of running.

Zanini and two co-authors compared 26 well-trained male runners, matched on best 10 km time. One group ran long runs of 90 minutes or more, at least three times a month. The other had not run past 70 minutes in six months. Everyone ran the same 90 minutes at lactate threshold, hard but steady, at one fixed speed.

Running economy is the oxygen it takes to cover a kilometre. By 90 minutes that cost had risen 3.1% in the long-run group and 6.0% in the short-run group. The short-run group was already slipping at 45 minutes. The long-run group held flat until 75.

The practical application is that 51 km a week against 30, longest run 19 km against 12, on the same 5.8 hours a week. Across all 26, the size of the weekly long run and the total weekly distance both went with less economy drift. The authors say it is still unclear which one is doing the work.

The strength losses did not track who held their economy. The short-run group was the stronger one fresh, and lost more force over the run, 19.4% against 12.2%.

Why this happened is not settled. At 15 minutes the short-run group was already spending about 7% more oxygen per kilometre, which may have pulled in less efficient muscle fibres sooner. A proposed explanation, not a result.

Thanks to Michele Zanini, Jonathan Folland and Richard Blagrove for the work.

Zanini et al., Med Sci Sports Exerc, 2026;58(1):162-173. DOI 10.1249/MSS.0000000000003840.

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New Research: Same session, same total carbs across the day, and only the timing on one drink moved. In the carb delayed...
08/21/2026

New Research: Same session, same total carbs across the day, and only the timing on one drink moved.

In the carb delayed group, Next-day interval capacity fell about 30%.

Díaz-Lara and six co-authors ran the same recreationally active men through two trials, double blind, changing only when the carbohydrate arrived.

The full carb protocol: 2.4 g/kg of carbohydrate after a hard session, in small servings every 20 minutes from the moment you stop. About 7 g/kg across the full 24 h.

My takeaway is I would try to start refueling with carbs immediately if you train hard again the next day or soon that day again.

That 30% is a decrease in time to task failure in a lab cycling test 24 h later, in eight recreationally active men. It is not a race result and it is not a count of intervals.

Muscle glycogen ran similar between the trials and was back near where it started by 24 h. The genes and proteins that drive adaptation showed no significant difference, though they flag that individual variability may have hidden a real result. They could not name the cause from what they measured. It matters most if you spend chunks of a training day low on carbohydrate and then train hard again on short recovery.

Thanks to Díaz-Lara and the team for the work.

Díaz-Lara et al., Acta Physiologica, 2024. DOI 10.1111/apha.14215.

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08/20/2026

Should you stop lifting before your marathon?

New Research: lifting twice a week halved the running-efficiency drop late in a 90 min run at marathon effort, in 28 wel...
08/19/2026

New Research: lifting twice a week halved the running-efficiency drop late in a 90 min run at marathon effort, in 28 well-trained male runners.

Zanini and three co-authors ran the trial over 10 weeks: 14 runners lifting on top of their running, 14 running only.

The practical version: back squat, single-leg press, seated isometric calf raises, plus vertical and horizontal jump drills. For the squat and leg press, 65% to 80% of a one-rep max early and 85% to 90% by the last block, three sets of 6 to 8 early and three of 4 to 5 late. About 45 min a session, twice a week, every session supervised. That is what this trial did, on top of the running, not instead of it.

The easy misread is that lifting makes you more efficient. On fresh legs it did not. Nothing changed at 10 km/h, at 12 km/h, or 15 min in. The authors call that surprising. Most strength studies in runners report economy gains of 3% to 8% in a fresh test.

The difference came after 75 minutes. Measured from the 15 minute mark, efficiency drifted 4.7% before training and 2.1% after, in the 14 well-trained male runners who lifted. Still a drop, just a smaller one. The running-only group drifted the same as before. It is also why a lifting block can look like it is not working on fresh legs.

Straight after the 90 min the treadmill jumped to a hard fixed speed and they ran until they had to stop. The runners who lifted lasted 35% longer at that speed. The running-only group did not improve.

Why it happened is not settled. They did measure the oxygen these runners reached at the end of that hard effort, and it did not change in either group. That suggests the extra time was not about using oxygen better when tired. For the efficiency result they point at the muscle fibres. Late in a long run the slower ones tire and the faster ones take over, and lifting may shift that work toward the kind that costs less oxygen. That idea comes from earlier cycling studies. It was not measured here, and they say so.

Thanks to Zanini, Folland, Wu and Blagrove for the work.

Zanini et al., Med Sci Sports Exerc, 2025. DOI 10.1249/MSS.0000000000003685.

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Caffeine Research Review:HOW MUCH: 3-6 mg/kg of your body mass. The panel leaves the floor open: it may be as low as 2 m...
08/18/2026

Caffeine Research Review:

HOW MUCH: 3-6 mg/kg of your body mass. The panel leaves the floor open: it may be as low as 2 mg/kg.

WHEN: about an hour before. Timing likely depends on the form you use.

HOW: most sport dietitians use caffeine capsules, because coffee content varies 8 to 9 times over between shops.

The endurance evidence here is mostly cyclists, not runners.

Huge thanks to Guest, VanDusseldorp, Nelson, Grgic, Schoenfeld, Jenkins, Arent, Antonio, Stout, Trexler, Smith-Ryan, Goldstein, Kalman and Campbell for this work.

Guest et al. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 2021;18(1):1. DOI: 10.1186/s12970-020-00383-4

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Across 119,452 recreational marathon runners, the time spent at harder intensities stayed relatively stable at every fin...
08/17/2026

Across 119,452 recreational marathon runners, the time spent at harder intensities stayed relatively stable at every finish-time group. What climbed was the easy volume.

Sixteen weeks of real training, logged on Strava before a race. The fastest group, a 2:00 to 2:30 marathon, averaged about 107 km a week. The 4:30 to 5:00 group averaged about 35 km a week. Three times the volume, and almost all of the extra sat below the lactate threshold, the easy zone.

Pyramidal was the most common approach, and it got more common in progressively faster groups. Most easy, less in the middle, least at the hardest end. The authors call a pyramidal approach with high volume a hallmark of successful marathon performance. The two together, neither alone. They also say to keep some work in the middle and hardest zones.

My take easy running is the how you accumulate volume, volume is the driver.

The real driver is overall training volume, not easy running specifically. Easy running is simply how you accumulate more total load. The more you can run, and the more of that volume you can absorb, the better you tend to perform. Building up to it is the slow part, measured in months, not weeks. The authors put the shape and the volume together and rank neither. The ranking is mine. This is my practitioner read, not a finding of the study.

Nobody was assigned anything here. This is a map of what faster runners did, a link and not a lever you can pull. These are recreational runners. Even the fastest of them are fast for that field, not elite athletes.

Add up your last 16 weeks. How much was truly easy?

Huge thanks to Daniel Muniz-Pumares, Ben Hunter, Samuel Meyler, Ed Maunder and Barry Smyth for this work.

Muniz-Pumares et al. Sports Medicine, 2025;55(4):1023-1035. DOI: 10.1007/s40279-024-02137-7

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08/17/2026

New Research is cold plunging actually hurting your recovery?

Classic research: delaying carbs 2 hours made muscle refuel three times slower.1988. Twelve trained cyclists, a 70-minut...
08/16/2026

Classic research: delaying carbs 2 hours made muscle refuel three times slower.

1988. Twelve trained cyclists, a 70-minute ride to drain their glycogen after a 14-hour fast, then 2 g/kg of carbohydrate. Half the time they drank it the moment they stopped. Half the time they waited two hours. Randomized, matched placebo at the other time point, and every rider did both.

First two hours: 7.7 against 2.5 micromoles of glucose units per gram of muscle each hour. At four hours, 59.7 against 44.3, about 25% less with the wait.

Here is the part I find interesting. The delayed group was not short of fuel. Blood sugar still running 28% above where it started, four hours in. Insulin elevated through their whole refilling window. The storage enzyme active the entire time. Ivy and colleagues ruled all three out by name and proposed reduced glucose uptake by the muscle instead. They said the results suggest it, so it stays a proposal.

They did speed up once the drink finally landed. They still finished behind.

What I do with it: when the next hard session is close, the carbs go in when you stop, not when you get home. 2 g/kg is what was tested, in one drink. When is the variable, not just how much.

Scope: 12 male cyclists, one ride, one feeding, four hours. Short-turnaround case only. With a full day before the next hard session I care far more about hitting the day’s carb total than about the clock.

Thanks to Ivy, Katz, Cutler, Sherman and Coyle for the work.

Ivy et al., Journal of Applied Physiology, 1988;64(4):1480-1485. DOI 10.1152/jappl.1988.64.4.1480.

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Same 2 g/kg of carbs, same rice base, same two-hour gap. The only change was making about a third of it fructose, and th...
08/15/2026

Same 2 g/kg of carbs, same rice base, same two-hour gap. The only change was making about a third of it fructose, and that ride lasted longer.

Podlogar et al. had eight trained male cyclists eat both breakfasts on separate mornings, randomized and double-blind, then ride at a steady moderate pace until they could not hold it. The fructose morning lasted 137 minutes, the glucose-powder morning 130. Burn rates, blood sugar, heart rate and effort did not differ; the ride just lasted longer. The authors tentatively proposed a topped-up liver as the reason, and the paper measured no glycogen, so that stays a proposal.

The practical version, straight from the paper: 2 g/kg of carbohydrate about 2 hours before the start, mostly your usual glucose-based carbs with roughly a third from a fructose source. Not a fructose-only breakfast, and not extra carbs stacked on top of your usual total.

One scope note: this was cycling to task failure in eight trained men, one trial, and the best dose and ratio are open questions in the paper.

Thanks to Podlogar, Cirnski, Bokal, Verdel and Gonzalez for the work.

Podlogar et al., International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, 2022. DOI 10.1123/ijsnem.2022-0067.

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The review’s own ordering rule: optimise sleep, nutrition and training structure first, then consider adding a recovery ...
08/14/2026

The review’s own ordering rule: optimise sleep, nutrition and training structure first, then consider adding a recovery tool on top.

A narrative review in Sports, 2023. Driller et al. sort the research that exists by how strong it is, and run no test of their own: every dose and effect in it is relayed from cited work.

Six tools carry a high level of positive evidence for improved recovery outcomes: foam rolling, compression garments, cryotherapy, photobiomodulation, hydrotherapy and active recovery. Sauna, recovery boots and sleeves, occlusion cuffs and massage guns currently carry a lower level of evidence and mixed results. What they consistently show is a tendency to improve perceptual recovery, how sore and how tired you feel, while what can be measured in your body and your performance may change little. All of them are still the icing.

The practical version: get the base right first. Sleep the recommended 7-9 h a night. Refuel with carbs after exercise, rebuild with protein, rehydrate, and cover overall energy needs. Plan recovery into the week, the block and the season. Only then add a tool. The doses it prints: 90-120 seconds per muscle group for foam rolling; 11-15 °C (50-59 °F) for 11-15 min for post-exercise cold water immersion. A meta-analysis of eight studies reported that regular cold water immersion after resistance training may reduce strength gains, though not endurance performance, so in pre-season the authors say that may mean withholding it.

One scope note: the review reports no result specific to distance runners, and findings from lesser-trained participants may not carry over to highly trained athletes.

Huge thanks to Matthew Driller and Alana Leabeater for this work.

Driller et al. Sports, 2023;11(11):213. DOI 10.3390/sports11110213

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