Published June 9, 2026 03:18AM<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Sabastian Sawe, the first person to run an official marathon in less than two hours, took baking soda before his race. What\u2019s most remarkable about this fact is not that he did it, but that most people didn\u2019t think it was a big deal. Of course<\/i> he did. Everyone is doing now, right?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m exaggerating, but not by much. When I first wrote about the Swedish company Maurten\u2019s new easy-on-the-stomach formulation of baking soda back in 2023, it was mostly seen as a performance boost for short events lasting between about one and ten minutes. Baking soda\u2014sodium bicarbonate, as scientists refer to it, or simply bicarb\u2014is a base, so it counteracts the acidity associated with intense exercise and high lactate levels. But there was little evidence that it would be helpful in longer endurance and ultraendurance contests.<\/p>\n
These days, though, things have changed. \u201cBicarb in the marathon is certainly something that is getting more and more traction recently,\u201d says Michael Arishita, the founder of Flagstaff-based Blank\u2019s Sports Nutrition, which makes its own stomach-friendly version of baking soda. \u201cA lot of athletes are using bicarb in the marathon and staying quiet about it.\u201d Among the marathoners using Arishita\u2019s product is Rory Linkletter, who ran 2:06:04 at this year\u2019s Boston Marathon. (For the record, Olympic 5,000-meter runner Graham Blanks is another customer\u2026 but the name is just a coincidence.)<\/p>\n
The original rationale for long-distance athletes using baking soda was that it might help during short, intense bursts during the race: surges, hills, finishing sprints. But a 2024 study using Maurten\u2019s baking soda found performance benefits even during an evenly paced 40K cycling time trial, suggesting that there\u2019s something else going on. Endurance athletes\u2014not just Sawe, but even ultra-endurance stars like Kilian Jornet\u2014have latched onto the idea.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of the top marathoners are using it,\u201d says Mark Coogan, a marathoner on the 1996 Olympic team and now coach of Team New Balance Boston. \u201cAt meets now, you see so many people using bicarb, it looks like it\u2019s a mandatory part of your pre-game meal.\u201d<\/p>\n
So what\u2019s the actual benefit for marathoners? Nobody\u2019s entirely sure, but the scientists I asked suggested a few different possibilities:<\/p>\n
Longer Lasting<\/h2>\n
The reason scientists have long dismissed the idea that baking soda would help in longer events was that they tested it numerous times, and it didn\u2019t work. But old-school baking soda from your kitchen doesn\u2019t stay in your system for very long, peaking 60 to 90 minutes<\/a> after ingestion. The new hydrogel-based formulations, in contrast, seem to keep internal bicarbonate levels elevated for many hours. Maybe it\u2019s as simple as that.<\/p>\n The magic of baking soda in shorter events is complex and multifactorial, but the key point is that it helps you tolerate spikes of super-high lactate levels\u2014to keep pushing when your legs feel like cement in the final straightaway of an 800-meter race, say. In a well-paced marathon, you\u2019ll never have spikes of super-high lactate, because you\u2019ll keep your effort slightly below threshold. This allows you to stay in a sustainable \u201csteady state\u201d where the amount of lactate you\u2019re producing is balanced by the amount you\u2019re reusing as fuel.<\/p>\n Still, your lactate levels will be a little higher than they would be at rest. Typically<\/a>, you\u2019d expect to sustain levels of between 2 and 3 mmol\/L during a marathon. With baking soda buffering the associated fatigue, you should be able to sustain a slightly higher level without sending your lactate levels into a death spiral. \u201cIf an athlete would normally steady-state around 2 mmol\/L,\u201d Arishita says, \u201cthey might have the same perceptions at 2.5 to 3 mmol\/L.\u201d That should translate into a slightly faster marathon pace.<\/p>\n Leaving all the biochemistry aside, there\u2019s a simpler reason that marathoners might go faster on baking soda: it hurts less. \u201cThere is likely to be an interaction between bicarb and the stimulation of pain receptors,\u201d says Andy Sparks, a researcher who has published numerous studies on the effects of baking soda in athletes and now works in Maurten\u2019s R&D department.<\/p>\n The burning sensation in exhausted muscles is triggered (at least in part) by hydrogen ions; baking soda buffers those ions. \u201cThis is likely the mechanism by which bicarb reduces pain perception and therefore reduces RPE [rating of perceived exertion],\u201d Sparks explains, \u201cso in self-paced exercise that will lead to higher power outputs and faster speeds.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s a minor mystery in some of Maurten\u2019s long-distance bicarb studies. Cyclists on bicarb tend to have the same cadence, the same heart rate, the same VO2 (a proxy for energy consumption), and the same perceived effort as they do on the placebo\u2026but they go faster. That suggests the cyclists are managing to get more out of each calorie they burn.<\/p>\n One possible explanation for this improved efficiency, Sparks says, is that levels of acidity within<\/i> the muscle are also reduced by the presence of bicarb in the bloodstream. The enzymes that control the metabolic reactions fueling muscle contractions work better in this lower-acidity environment, which translates to more power.<\/p>\n The two elephants in the sports nutrition room these days are super-high carbohydrate intakes and baking soda. Could they be connected? There\u2019s a long history of research suggesting that baking soda speeds the transfer of food from the stomach to the intestines for absorption. A 1940 study<\/a> found that a teaspoon of baking soda decreased stomach emptying time by 16.3 percent; a 2014 study in rats<\/a> found that baking soda reversed the delay in stomach emptying caused by hard exercise.<\/p>\n The problem with this theory is that it depends on baking soda acting in the stomach itself. The whole point of new baking soda formulations like Maurten\u2019s, Sparks points out, is to avoid<\/i> releasing it in the stomach, keeping it encapsulated until it reaches the intestine.<\/p>\n Still, there may be other interactions. Maurten has tried some in-house studies using carbon-13 isotope tracers to test whether top athletes are able to burn more supplemental carbs when they\u2019re taking baking soda. So far they haven\u2019t seen any signs that this is happening, Sparks says, but the data is very preliminary for now. Arishita suggests another possibility: that high carb intake slows down bicarb absorption, enabling it to last longer in the body. One way or another, he says, \u201cthere is certainly some interaction between bicarb and high carb intake.\u201d<\/p>\n The overall conclusion, then, is that no one is really sure why, or even if, baking soda is useful over long distances like the marathon. It\u2019s risky to leap to conclusions based only on the fact that some very fast runners, like Sabastian Sawe, use it. And it\u2019s really difficult to run good randomized trials of super long efforts like a marathon (who\u2019s volunteering to run all-out marathons on three back-to-back weekends?), so it may be a while before we get definitive answers. But in the meantime, if I were running a marathon\u2026<\/p>\n For more Sweat Science, sign up for the <\/i>email newsletter<\/i><\/a> and check out my new book <\/i>The Explorer\u2019s Gene: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\nHigher \u201cSteady-State\u201d Lactate<\/h2>\n
Less Pain Perception<\/h2>\n
Greater Efficiency<\/h2>\n
Carb-Bicarb Interactions<\/h2>\n