Inside Maurten: The Science Behind Sawe’s Sub-Two-Hour Marathon

Inside an unremarkable Gothenburg office building rented from the local university are conference rooms named after distance running greats: Eliud Kipchoge, Keely Hodgkinson and the newest addition, Sebastian Sawe, honoring the man who redefined human endurance.

When Sawe became the first person to run an official marathon under two hours in London last month, much of the coverage focused on his carbon-plated shoes. But a team of scientists, nutritionists and technicians on Sweden’s west coast believes another factor was equally significant.

“We don’t have the megaphone that the shoe industry has,” said Olof Sköld, co-founder and chief executive of sports nutrition brand Maurten. “We are not that visible. But if you talk to the athletes and coaches, the elite world knows who we are.”

A glance at marathon podiums reveals a variety of shoe brands, from Adidas and Nike to Asics and On. However, since 2018, every men’s and women’s marathon world record has been set by an athlete using Maurten nutrition products. Sawe’s London Marathon time of 1 hour 59 minutes 30 seconds was the latest example.

In London alone, seven of the top eight men and five of the top six women had an official relationship with the Swedish company. The few exceptions may have used the products unofficially. At the elite level, Maurten has become inescapable.

Weeks before Christmas, Maurten’s head of nutrition, Tobias Christensson, hosted Sawe’s coach, Claudio Berardelli, at the Gothenburg headquarters. Maurten had worked with Sawe’s team for some time, but the visit allowed them to explain product details and present recent findings.

Founded in 2015, Maurten initially differentiated itself by creating a sports drink using a novel hydrogel to transport carbohydrates. Originally intended to improve dental health by reducing sugar and acidity, early experiments showed greater performance benefits. By encapsulating carbohydrates in the hydrogel, the drink bypassed the stomach and was absorbed in the intestine, allowing higher carbohydrate intake without gastrointestinal problems. Christensson called it an “absolute gamechanger.”

Sköld said: “When we first started testing it with elite runners in Kenya and Ethiopia, they said it was magical because it disappears. If you are a 50kg runner, you feel every bit of water inside. They believed it was magical because they were drinking something and it felt like it was disappearing inside them.”

Although definitive proof of Maurten’s concepts remains limited — Christensson acknowledged “a lot of critique and discussion around the importance of the hydrogel technology” — Berardelli was shown studies indicating that an athlete attempting a marathon at two-hour pace would be depleted of glycogen within 85 minutes without additional carbohydrates. Maurten’s rapid replenishment method, Christensson argued, was vital for pushing boundaries.

Maurten’s next innovation targeted sodium bicarbonate, or baking soda, whose performance benefits were identified nearly a century ago. By neutralizing excess hydrogen ions linked to muscular fatigue, bicarb acts as a blood buffer against acidity during intense exercise. While considered illegal doping in most horse sports, it is legal for human athletes. However, severe gastrointestinal issues historically limited its use.

Bicarb had been a top priority since Maurten’s founding, but the company only released a product in 2023 that is now ubiquitous in international middle- and long-distance running. Priced at £15 per serving, the bicarb system uses the same hydrogel concept to transport dozens of bicarbonate mini-tablets past the stomach into the intestine.

With explicit instructions not to chew the tablets, the mixture — with a consistency between half-set jelly and over-thickened custard — is consumed with a spoon about two hours before exercise. After testing the product, finger-prick blood tests showed elevated pH levels, which proponents believe may favor high-intensity performance.

Those at the helm cite mounting anecdotal evidence across distances. For instance, 36 men ran a mile under 3 minutes 49 seconds from 2023 — when Maurten launched its bicarb product — to 2025. Over the previous 12 years, only nine men achieved that mark despite earlier advances in super spikes and track surfaces.

On the morning of the London Marathon, Maurten’s head of sports tech, Josh Rowe, entered the latest weather forecast into a prediction model he devised. The computer screen showed Sawe would complete the 26.2-mile course in 1:59.29 — one second off his eventual world record time.

“The scientist in me says it was more luck than anything else,” Rowe deflected, though the prediction was based on extensive data collected over 14 months, including 32 days across six trips embedded in Sawe’s Kenyan camp. Tests covered energy expenditure, lactate response, running economy and carbohydrate oxidation.

With a metabolic mask strapped to my face while running on a treadmill in Maurten’s lab, I glimpsed the data-gathering process — an amateur version rather than a superhuman in prime condition. The results showed precisely how many carbohydrates Sawe and I should consume during an attempted two-hour marathon and when — a specific concern applicable only to one of us.

For Sawe, race-day fueling was practiced and refined over months of gut training. “The theory is that the intestine is like a muscle,” Rowe said. “So, with exposure, it gets better.”

The result was a London Marathon schedule executed with military precision. After consuming large quantities of Maurten’s high-carb drink mix for two days before the race, Sawe started with a bowl of bicarb sludge, then a gel at the start line. He drank exactly 160 milliliters of drink mix every 5 kilometers during the race, plus a caffeine gel at halfway. This averaged 115 grams of carbohydrates per hour — significantly above the previously understood fueling limit.

Sköld described the aftermath of the London Marathon as “kind of insane.” The company estimates it already has official relationships with about 70% of elite marathon runners, yet it has been inundated by athletes and coaches seeking the “Sawe treatment.”

About 1,000 athletes are supported by the company, primarily runners but also participants in cycling and triathlon. The Manchester-based M11 Track Club, which includes Olympic 800-meter champion Hodgkinson and world indoor 1500-meter champion Georgia Hunter-Bell, has a Maurten employee permanently embedded within the group.

Plans are underway to relocate from rented premises to a custom-built hangar elsewhere in Gothenburg. “It will be like Willy Wonka where we can build our own world inside,” Sköld said.

He confirmed other nutrition creations are in development but declined to divulge details. “I’m not allowed. But the idea with the company is we don’t release products that don’t change the market.”

Those inside Maurten believe Sawe’s London run is just a glimpse of what may come as more runners fully recognize their fueling capabilities. “I think you will see some insanely fast marathons going forward,” Sköld said.

Yet for all the algorithms and hydrogels, Sawe began the greatest day of his running life with a breakfast of bread and honey. Some essentials do not need improving.