Ultra-Trail Running Nutrition: Carbohydrates, Bicarbonate, and Hydrogel Technology

Welcome back, or welcome to, singletrack Podcast. I'm your host, finn Malanson, and, in this episode, brett Hornigan. I sit down with Josh Rowe, a performance nutritionist from Morton, to talk about all things ultra-running nutrition. One thing to note before we get started we do have a financial interest in this episode. Specifically, morton is a sponsor of the Singletrack Podcast. They helped make our coverage of the Western States 100 possible And part of our sponsorship agreement included an episode with someone inside their organization. That said, and I'm sure you'll be able to tell from the content of this conversation, our stoke levels were pretty darn high to talk with Josh And we learned a ton about how they're working in concert with athletes, people like Killian Jorane and Tom Evans, to establish the cutting edge of ultra-running endurance nutrition strategies. So with that let's get started. Josh Rowe, it's a pleasure to have you here. live with us in the Singletrack Studio at Olympic Valley, california. We're not publishing this the week of Western States. It'll be out, i believe, the Wednesday or Thursday after States. but I think, before we get into the nuts and bolts of all of Breton eyes nutrition-based questions, tell the audience your role at Morton, what that means in lay terms and what you're doing here at Western States today.

Yeah. So yeah, thanks for having me on. It's a bit daunting actually from the guests you've had the last couple of days than to kind of have me as a. Yeah, it feels like a big act to follow. But yeah, my role at Morton is I'm a performed scientist. So I do a lot of product development, working the chemistry and formulation team within the nutrition team And it's a bit of a kind of dual role where we do product development but then also a lot of kind of sports science support with our athletes And that's kind of how we kind of work in terms of our R&D is we do a lot of kind of investigative work on kind of sports such as, i say, like ultra endurance, running, ironman, marathraming, and really trying to understand the sport in its whole entirety, so not only just from a nutritional perspective but also from a psychological, physiological perspective as well. So yeah, and really the last couple of days it's very much for us is understanding ultra endurance. If you look at the if I'm a scientific perspective, there's not really a great deal of research that really supports like ultra endurance in terms from a nutritional perspective and the nutritional strategies. So we've got a big project over the last year kind of working with like Killian and Tom, to really understand ultra endurance and how we can really not only improve at the nutritional strategies but also just see what is going on there from a physiological standpoint.

You said there that there are still a lot of unknowns in our sport when it comes to nutrition. Morton, of course, is working to address those. Is that the reason why you're so fascinated in this space, that there's so many unknowns out there and you have the opportunity this year and in the ensuing years to crack some codes out there? or what brings you into this space so excited?

Yeah, it's the most way exactly that. If we look at the spaces where we've pretty very dominant in like marathram, running, cycling, there's a whole body of research that really supports like the athletes nutritional strategy. So there's a lot of research that says like athletes can, what carbohydrates they need, the types, the dose, the frequency and also how it's kind of trained the gut. Then if you look at the literature there for ultra endurance, it's almost a bit of like a black hole. There's nothing there. There's like general kind of advice and recommendations but there's nothing really what's got fully understanding what's going on with the athlete. And the beauty really of like ultra running is no distance is the same. So almost like the data we're collecting, say, during UTMB is completely different to what's going to be at Western States. And that's another kind of exciting bit is because not only is the race completely different but also how the athletes need to kind of train and adapt to. That is almost it's completely two different events. So for us it's just understanding the sport, because not many people do, and I think the last couple of years like ultra endurance has got more maybe like professionalized And for us is just to kind of like help that and give more scientific recommendations, not only just for the elite athletes, but also just for the everyday athletes as well.

Since you've come into the, you know the research and development side of the sport. Are there any unknowns that have now become known since you've been working?

with.

Morton or like any. I don't know if I want to say like major breakthroughs, but things that you know. We're maybe once believed that Claire already changed quite a bit since you've been in with them.

That's a good question. I'll say it's definitely most probably the abundance of carbohydrates required, most probably a couple of years before that it was very much just as an event where everyone knows you need to almost completely eat. It's kind of like the Ironman, it's like the fourth discipline And that's kind of like with ultra endurance. It's very much just like a I think Kylian calls it like a just a moving buffet. It's just you've got constantly trying to eat And what we've seen is most probably in the last couple of years. Previously it was very much how much calories you can get in And no one's really not too bothered about the macronutrient distribution or the micronutrient. It was very much just let's just get as many calories in as possible, whereas now that kind of is really shifting to carbohydrates is how much carbohydrates you can get in And if you can maximize your carbohydrate intake, there's effects there where it can not only improve your performance, may help kind of stabilize or preserve, so maybe some of your glycogen stores. But there's also now research showing that the bigger carbohydrate intake you can have, it can help with maybe, say like your muscle recovery or help maybe delay the muscle fatigue. So this is what's getting interesting in the sense of because the races are getting quicker, like this week, this weekend. They're saying that maybe the second half is going to be pretty quick, or maybe the last kind of 10 miles to 10K, and what we're seeing is like the more carbohydrates you can have during kind of the male stages, because you'll be able to kind of regulate and kind of help, maybe it well, yeah, preserve maybe the muscle glycogen but your liver glycogen, but then also the soreness as well, the fatigue. It means that the athletes must probably going to be able to go quicker in that kind of second half. And that's if we look at what we've seen from cycling to marathon running. Before, when Morton came onto the, onto the kind of the stage, the marathon was very much a you hold the pace and then whoever could kind of like it was just the second half was who could last the longest who would almost be able to delay the onset fatigue, whereas and that's and that's complete change now, like you look at the marathon times, people are running negative splits. They're running a lot quicker in the second half And this is almost what we're starting to see now with with an ultra running, because the nutrition is starting to get more refined. It means that the athletes, the less people are kind of bonking or blowing up. It's always going to be the case, but it's less is going to happen.

Yeah, definitely seems like in the last few years there's been a huge narrative shift in terms of I consume this many calories per hour, too, i consume this many grams of carbohydrates per hour, and it seems like, yeah, there's still. I would say the ultra world is still lacking in regards to like what the current cutting edges, and it seems like, from an endurance sport kind of standpoint, running has always been a handful of years behind cycling, like is there anything in the cycling world That's being done right now that you still see like being like Glaringly omitted in the running an ultra world?

I think again it comes down to the quantities and maybe how cyclists are using their carbohydrates, and But then also there's things like bicarb. That's been very much in Cycling. It's been very phenomenal, it's been used and quite a lot. But what?

are the benefits there?

and we buy. Carb is very much a product which kind of helps regulate your acid base balance. So when you work in a really high intensity you'll produce lactic acid. People always really associate that lactic acid which kind of starts to Stop the athlete from almost exercising, starts to the onset of fatigue. But actually it's not the lactic acid or not the lactate, the build-up of that day Which is causing and the impairment performance. It's the, the book, the abundance of hydra ions that are going to be in. However, the muscle from the bloodstream and Your body naturally produces bicarbonate. But by ingesting sodium bicarbonate What it means is you can elevate your abundance of bicarbonate in the bloodstream. So when you start to exercise at high intensity The body has more capacity to kind of buffer them, hydra ions, which means it can kind of, yeah, delay Maybe the onset fatigue, allow athletes to run, have a bigger power output, run further for longer. So that's really interesting and I think, as we said it, like when cycling, it's been very much like it's been Well trusted like sodium bicarb, but psychers really haven't really used it just because of the, the GI issues, what's normally kind of been pretty much plagued of sodium bicarbon gestion, but with more and kind of resolving a lot of that. It's kind of opened up the door for bicarbon. What we've seen is we always knew it's going to be very kind of popular and within cycling, but then now there's, it's starting to kind of transpire into running and What we're seeing as well is the use of it within ultra endurance, which again for us is very much in this early kind of development phase of Understanding the true effects of sodium bicarbonate during the under endurance.

Yeah, there's definitely was a lot of I don't know, a lot of I don't know who's even speculation, a lot of chatter around Killian coming through Cormier and sitting down. What was that bowl? It was this translucent bowl with the Morton logo on it and he was just going to town eating this weird goopy stuff and It gets his finger pricked and Everyone I mean there's thousands of people watching the live stream and not a single person had any idea What it was that he was eating. You know, after, now that the product has come out, you know he was eating sodium bicarbon. So there's still benefits to even consuming the, the bicarb, in a 20-hour race when even someone like Killian might not touch those. You know high. You know higher zones that are going to build up that lactate in the blood.

Yeah. So this is again is really still like in the early explorative phases and we're quite fortunate We have like the lights of like Tom Killian, as like our guinea pigs, yeah, over athletes, but it was very much a We did a series of before, as the build-up say to UTMB Killian was. He did a series of races and we did a lot of kind of support and testing and One of the the times we kind of tested the bicarbon. If you must probably looked at the literature, it would very much you'd say There's no reason to use bike up. It's very much within that power domain, that anything from 90 seconds to 10 minute kind of range. But what we see, especially with like ultra endurance runners, is, if you look at the whole entirety of the race, yes, the most probably the intensity is relatively quite low, but there's almost them kind of micro periods where, if they're kind of going up a hill, or does kind of get to a technical And component of the course, chances are the body's going to be mostly working at high capacity and they'll start to produce a significant amount of lactate. And Also what we've seen is from like the research is that when you measure in lactate is very much from the blood is almost occur. It's like a whole body measurement. You'll measure the concentration of lactate in the body and What we find is that actually most probably when an athlete say like you also endurance athlete, they met them, components where they are, where is technical, and say going up a shark kind of like hill and They are mostly gonna produce a significant amount of lactate because the intensity again is maybe relatively low, that concentration. So some of the muscle groups will be working really hard Whereas some will make it work won't be working as hard. So then the to try and identify in the concentration of blood. It doesn't really not going to say, see the similar responses of, say, a track athlete where they're producing massive lactate responses. But what we're getting informed is like the feedback from when we're evaluating some of the data, is that again It just it helps kind of like regulate the acid base balance. So it means that when they're doing the kind of them, either it gets technical or the Getting having them kind of micro periods where they're working at really high intensity, their acid base balance is more regulated. So it means that they can almost the perception of effort, maybe feel a little bit less, but then also the recovery and it all almost comes down to if you can kind of regulate the acid base Bounds a more and more controlled manner for the entire of the race. So if it's a 20 our race or a 15 our race or maybe 14 hours and 30 minutes this weekend hopefully 28, yeah, it means that if you can regulate for as long as possible when it gets to kind of that serious part of the race or Don't know when, the serious part, but if it gets that final bit where it's going to be quick, most probably the last final miles There with the bicarbonate meant that you've. It's just helped regulate the muscles in the acid base, so the good. It must probably be in a better place and better position to pick up the place.

I Kind of wanted to talk about the differences between a liquid based calorie strategy, carbohydrate strategy at Western States and more of like What do you call it? like a fit, like a physical carb strategy at Western States, like we've heard Tom Evans talk about how in 2019, he was completely liquid based carbs. We just had our link. Look on the show. He has a chance to win Western States. On Saturday I believe he's doing The Morton 320 mix and then he'll throw some coca-cola in there at times, but a lot of these top performers are going liquid calories the whole way. Can you talk about some of the theory behind that strategy for a race like Western, where it's like 15 16 hours to win it And then when you would switch away from that, like as the race gets longer, like at a UTMB?

Yeah, i think it all just comes down to the intensity of the race. If you look at Western State, it is a quicker race and Like, yes, 14 hours is a long time. But if you look at it from the whole entire, like if it's gonna be a quick race, so having things where it's maybe in like more solid form and having, say, your carbohydrates in that way, it just means that the the GI track is gonna have to metabolize and break that down and work a little bit harder. And if there are athletes are already going to be working at most probably a relatively high intensity, then they might do a UTMB. Then it just means that when they can consume in carbohydrates in that form, it's just it's just put it maybe more strain on the GI track, whereas having it more liquid form one Western states is going to be. It's relatively warm Maybe I might not be as warm this year, but it's still a warm ultra. So it helps with kind of that hydration and replenishment of water, of liquid, but then also it's just more of the ease of getting the carbohydrates in. As you say, as an athlete. As they're working at high intensity, the blood flow starts to deviate from the GI track. So when an athlete is working at high intensity, the GI track is almost relatively quite impaired. So when you're trying to have a significant amount of carbohydrates in there, it means that the body can't really metabolize or kind of break that down because it's it's been impaired in terms of its function and and now with the kind of the idea of having more, more carbohydrates, it means that You've got to kind of have a few fueling strategy That's going to be kind of quite easy on the GI track and take them pressures away. So I think that's kind of why a lot of athletes They're kind of maybe swaying towards a more liquid form is one to put the ease of pressure from the GI track But then also kind of help with the fluid retention.

I Just read an article that I think actually might have come out yesterday on the Poc website That I don't know if you help write the article or the interview, but they talked a lot about the importance of also proper hydration and How dehydration, you know, everyone knows you should say hydrate, but the article did a great job of breaking down, like the increase in the blood plasma volume and how that can lead to, you know, was a cardiovascular drift. I would love to Know a little bit more about that, because you know two of the biggest reasons why people's races at Western States, you know, fall apart are you know They overheat, oftentimes leads to dehydration, and then that exertion of effort stays the same or goes up and their power goes down, or you know the new the nutrition plan goes sideways, oftentimes relating to the heat too, and Seems like I'm learning more and more about how much of that can start from not being properly hydrated. So what You know, what can someone you know who's competing at Western States? What can they do to not run into those problems? It's a full question I know, i think I might have a lot like five questions in there, because I just read the article and there's so many questions in my head. But we could start with just, you know, the dehydration element in relation to the blood plasma volume.

Yeah, so You say hydration station as status is is pretty much essential. You kind of want to make sure, especially when it's hot. But even if it is cool to have a kind of a constant stream of fluids to kind of help kind of replenish that, and a big factor of that is to kind of help really just with the regulation and Of kind of the the boy to kind of in that metabolize the carbohydrates. Balls are just for the muscle function and A big component is when an athlete is exercising, especially something in Western state, it's gonna be hot. They'll need to kind of optimize kind of the femur regulatory response And a way to do that is to kind of be efficient in sweating, to kind of help kind of control up the kind of the heat temperature. And If you, as soon as you kind of start to kind of Have a low kind of like fluid fluid intake, then that kind of the sweat where it would go down, which then means you fair, my regulatory system would most probably start to kind of drift. You know will get then the things like cardiac drift and because it means that the body has to kind of work harder, you've got high temp or core body temperature and the whole kind of purposes to kind of control up body temperature, because body is relatively some, in some cases quite inefficient, in the sense of fritter kind of produced man, mechanical work, work needs to produce heat and that's kind of one of the biggest kind of outputs of exercise is the heat generation and During a long, prolonged period of a race They say like an ultra endurance face that kind of heat production is going to be relatively quite high. And then if you're going to put some athletes in some almost like a sauna environment, then it just means that it's going to create greater strain on the body. So by control in the core boy temperature means that they can relatively yeah, maximize performance.

I'd love to have some conversations around Protein and caffeine as well. Like we, i think Tom Evans published this on Social media a few weeks ago, saying something to the effect of high caffeine works. Like this high caffeine nutritional strategy works, and I would love to know your thoughts on that. Like, based on what you've seen Tom do in training and maybe other athletes, is there like a surprisingly new threshold that you can get away with in terms of hourly caffeine intake that might surprise listeners and viewers.

Yeah, caffeine is really relative to the individual. You get some people where they are responders. He gets some that aren't responders and it's not as kind of clean foot for. But with caffeine is tricky, especially with like in a hot environment there is like yes, it can improve your performance, but also caffeine is a femoregulator, so it means that it can increase your core boy temperature when you ingest caffeine. So I think a lot of the work with Tom is kind of understanding that the Maximizing the caffeine intake without kind of compromising that kind of femoral agoratory control. So yeah, it's. It's almost like a bit of a trade-off in the sense of you've got to make sure that you, if you are a responder And you enjoy kind of the components of the benefits of caffeine, that you kind of use it in that almost that the appropriate kind of time points. So if it's going to be same as probably in a really kind of hot environment, then you must pray. Caffeine intake would want to kind of be relatively reduced. But then that doesn't mean once you kind of maybe come out of that ridiculously hot environment and And you kind of need that pickup, then you can almost resort to the caffeine. So it's a. Again, it's really hard to say you could have everyone can have it say, 120 milligrams of caffeine per hour, because that's it's not the case. Everyone's kind of individual. Some people get benefits of caffeine, maybe having 50 milligrams per hour. Some people might have it where they need a bigger intake.

And I guess what? what are some of these benefits From caffeine during, you know, ultra endurance events? I think?

a big aspect is more like the perception you kind of get feel more alert, like if you're running for like anything from 8 to 14 to 20 hours, the kind of that perception that that fatigue, that kind of a neuromuscular fatigue but also just a Psychological tea, takes its toll and like caffeine it can kind of that is more just a former pick me up It just gives the athletes something. When it gets maybe to a technical component of the course, they know they need to be a bit more wary. That's kind of where the caffeine can be used to just Kind of make kind of yeah, increase the alertness a little bit more now I'm starting to think about, like Morton's entire product range, i guess.

Are we talking hydro gels now?

I did have a hydrochloric, so we'll correct me if I'm wrong, but the hydro gels are Glucose and fructose, right and then mostly glue, and then the drink mixes fructose and maltodextrin.

Yeah, so we are hydro gel products. So there's like you've got the carbohydrates and hydro gels are almost like a separate component, but that's what creates. So we have drink mixes which I use multi-diction and fructose, and then the gels use glucose and fructose.

Why is that, in terms of the ingredient differences?

very much for for the drink mixes is just for the the osmolarity. So if you it's just to reduce the Osmolarity of the, the Carbohydrates, if it had, say, glucose in. If it's so, yeah, it's just a way, but in terms of how your body metabolizes a multi-diction to glucose, it's relatively there's not really much difference.

It's pretty similar. Yeah, okay, but then Fructose is added in because that is absorbed through a different pathway.

Yeah, okay so your body kind of as a like a Limit where from the research it's kind of said that anything from say like one to one point, one grams pair and Pempt grams per minute of cut of glucose can be kind of be can be transported through because and transporters and By using multiple transporters it means that once so the glucose transporter is and saturated, then you can get kind of carbohydrates, of fructose which uses a different transporter through a different avenue. So it's just kind of like thinking is almost like a road or a traffic. It's like you've got one road which kind of direct all the glucose and then you got another road of directs all of like Fructose. So if you've got a big traffic on, say, the the glucose, then it's kind of gonna get kind of a backlog and What you don't want is a pattern a bypass exactly. Yeah, it's just kind of like, yeah, bypassing the, the glucose transporters.

Do you know, are there any third lanes that exist like? is there a third way to You?

talking about ketones. I didn't say ketones.

I was just asking if there is any any research on any third lanes for carbohydrate or other various energy Intake Lanes. I'm just wondering if there's. Is it, martin, been looking into ways to expand the freeway?

There we were This. There's ketones, but that's an almost like in a different form. But I think when we're looking at purely from a carbohydrate perspective, no, the, they're almost you have get them lanes, but there is a capacity to almost increase, kind of the that are not not only the tolerance but the transport ability. So what we're starting to see now, especially from the elite athletes, is they're able to tolerate not only high carbohydrate intake But the body's able to do a lot more with that carbohydrates. And if you look at some of the research that's done been previously, it's very much a sense of like. Sometimes maybe someone who's like the everyday athlete, the, that maybe that 90 grams of carbohydrates could be relatively often optimum for them And that's kind of based off what the researchers said, like 90 grams of carbohydrates. But now when we're looking at, say, from an elite perspective, from what we're seeing is they're able to tolerate and also metabolize and utilize more than 90 grams, getting close to that 100, 120.

Okay, i want to ask you a philosophical question because Brett has talked about this a lot, as it relates to heat training. Like Brett made This prediction that with all the resources we have available today you can in the technology you can kind of Solve for the heat at Western states, like with all of the topical cooling strategies, etc. You can kind of solve for that and make yourself stay cool throughout the day. As it relates to nutrition, because you talked about Tom Being a very personal thing with caffeine In what in how short a window can an athlete figure out exactly what they need from a nutritional standpoint to not run into as many GI issues on race day?

Or is it sort?

of like a lifelong thing where you're always gonna be tinkering and you're always gonna be fine tuning. You know what I mean. In how short a window could someone nail this if they looked at all the research out there? they ran the tests on themselves, they ran Morton Labs and stuff like that. Can you train the gut? Can you train the gut and can you figure out your gut in like, for example, a two month window and then be solved for the rest of your career?

I don't think he'd be completely sold. The problem is you must probably be able to achieve more. But there's always like more you can do. But I think in like the short period of time say that two month window you could achieve quite a lot. What you tend to find is athletes there kind of the carbohydrate or GI tolerance maybe start off relatively low. But with an appropriate kind of gut trainability protocol it'll you can significantly increase your carbohydrate tolerance. And the one of the benefits of kind of the Morton products is it gives you almost that greater starting point because the Morton products with the hydrogel technology helps with the delivery of carbohydrates and relieves a lot of the pressure of the GI track. It means that you could most probably start with a greater increase of carbohydrates with the hydrogel technology than carbohydrates that don't have the hydrogel technology. But you could always most probably maximize and get a little bit more.

What does a gut training protocol look like, like? what are the elements of it?

It's very much quite similar to like a normal kind of training protocol. Well, you have like your intensity and your load. What you already want to start of a gut training protocol is identify what your tolerance is. So it might say, start off of maybe I can tolerate quite comfortably 60 grams of carbohydrates per hour, but maybe for Western states you want to get close to 90 to 100 grams of carbohydrates And it's very much just kind of following a typical kind of training program. You want to slowly increase your carbohydrate intake during the sessions And what you want to do is kind of play around of when you want to have them keep almost like carbohydrate sessions. So you might have like overcompensation sessions where it would be very just quite a low intensity, but during that session you might have maybe 20 to 25% more carbohydrates than what you would be aiming for. And that's kind of just to kind of train the gut, put greater stress on the gut And then help kind of be utilized. What you sometimes don't want to do is start off almost like you've got to say your key kind of specific kind of sessions, really trying to maximize the carbohydrate intake in them sessions, because what you don't want to do is have a massive impact on the session. So if you do get GI issues then it will. So it's just playing around with using you have, say, your ultra marathon specific sessions And then you might have like a medium long run in the week where it's very much just like a time in your feet there. The sessions where you kind of want to overcompensate and kind of maximize the intake Is there a?

is there a max amount of fluid that, like my gut, could absorb per hour? Or is that something that could also be trained, cause I was here, especially at Western states, like there was just no amount that I could drink to keep up with how much I was sweating. How much of that is just humans being humans versus something that you could potentially increase over the course of your training?

Yeah, you could always increase your tolerance and your uptake, but the most probably is going to be a limit, not limit might be individual for everybody, but if you're looking at, say, the ultra, the chance style, you're never going to be able to completely replenish all of the say, the carbohydrates and the fluid during the race. It's just because you say, with the increase in sweat rate and the utilization of glycogen it's probably going to be very difficult to do that, but you could get relatively close.

So like if Brett's my coach, hypothetically, if on a given Saturday he gives me a two hour run, he might also prescribe like I want you to fuel 70 carbohydrates grams of carbohydrate per hour And then the next week, as he ramps up the long run to three hours, he might say oh, in addition, i want you to test 80 grams of carbohydrate per hour on that run. Is that kind of how you would see the ramp up? Like over the course of seven days you would increase it by 10 grams per hour.

Yeah, depending, as you say, you want to make sure that you're reviewing after that session to say see how you get responses. Say, if you that session you had the 60, and you felt like it just felt like a little bit more pressure on the GI track and you felt a little bit more uncomfortable, then that week would be very much more. If you did have maybe shorter sessions or just a shorter run. again, sometimes you might think that you need to fuel for that specific session. But what you're doing is say, if you're just going for an hour run, like a midweek, you could have a really kind of aggressive carbohydrate intake just to kind of maximize the intake. What you want to do is really stress the GI track when it's almost during that low intensity kind of sessions And then once you've kind of overstressed the GI track in the low intensity and you've got the adaptation, then you can start to kind of embed that in within the actual kind of like ultramarathon specific workouts.

This has been so great How about protein.

Can we talk protein? We're starting to see a lot of gels out on the market that are marketing the benefits of having somewhere between one and call it three or four grams of protein. Maybe it could be per hour on the run And that will help, not necessarily mid run, but in facilitating recovery post run. What are your thoughts on that? And talk maybe about Morton's decision to either include protein in some of their mixes or to leave it out explicitly?

Yeah. So there's a bit of research showing that having anything from like five to 10 grams of protein per hour kind of help with kind of like supporting like the muscle recovery. So by having almost like micro dosages during a lute and all the endurance event it almost will kind of stimulate protein synthesis. So of that stimulation it means it kind of help maybe with the regeneration and also the recovery. So there is research that stands to support that but it's really still in its inventory. So for us at Morton we do like we have development products that are targeting that and the most probably some will be used. But it's very much for us is because the research is in its inventory. We don't want to kind of release a product where we don't truly know it's gonna either improve the efforts performed in health, and that's maybe sometimes there's some frustration for some people where say, oh, we have a very limited product range but a lot of R&D and time goes into the products and we want to make sure that they truly do work.

Yeah, what's the typical timeframe look like for a Morton product, going from maybe an idea to R&D to actually?

hitting the shelves.

What's the testing window usually like, or has it varied from product to product?

Yeah, it varies in terms of its complexity. So if we look at the bike arm, that was almost a two and a half year project. But we had athletes once we kind of we did a lot of chemistry, formulation, internal work, did a lot of laboratory testing internally. Once we kind of got happy with the formulation and kind of its performance. We then would kind of go out to our athletes and look at Morton, we have some of the best guinea pigs in the world, so we tested with them. But it was almost in the testing phase for about 18 months before it went live commercially And we had athletes that kind of still won Olympic gold medals, world championships, broke world records. So but the main kind of the importance for us is to make sure that when we do develop the products we're kind of very happy for it before we then release it to the elite athletes and kind of then get feedback on them, see how they use it, get a good understanding of the product, and then, once we really really understand the product, then we'll release it to the mass market. So yeah, like for the bike arm, it's maybe a two and a half year project. For some of our products that could be maybe a year, but we would never most probably turn something grounded, maybe like two to three months, because what we wanna do with our products is to have a good understanding of, like how it'd be using a full training cycle and then also within a race. And Some of our products that might be used in different situations, so, say, for cycling, we want to understand how it's used in a cycling season, say for the ultra marathons. We want to understand how it's both used, say, within Western States, but then UTMB, both completely different events, and that takes time. But we can't just replicate and say, get an athlete to go on the treadmill and simulate that in the lab. We really need to be out there in the field. And that's kind of like what we're doing now is some of our products, that they are in development and we really want to kind of stress test them as much as possible.

Has the research and development side of Morton grown in the last few years as the, i guess as the product line has as well?

Yeah, we still have quite a small team in our like the R&D team, but yeah, like the team has is growing, like as Morton as a company as a whole has grown exponentially, which has been really exciting. But again, in terms of from an R&D perspective, we're still quite controlled in kind of how we approach our product development And yeah, we don't want to just kind of create things for the sake of creating things, and that's kind of why we want to have quite a tight knit R&D development team just to make sure that we, yeah, we're doing the right things, the right way. Like, we have a really good head of researcher, martin Orffin. He comes from the medical background and his kind of approach to kind of answering, answering problems and solving problems is really unique. So it's kind of making sure we kind of protect kind of that thought process and make sure we do things properly.

I think one question I have, and it's probably just acknowledging some viewers, some listeners out there who are naturally skeptical Are there any interesting or compelling cases in the literature that you've seen against hydro gel technology or the bicarb product that you think are worth stating and then maybe offering a counter argument to? Yeah?

so I think in the early days of like the hydro gel technology and kind of when it was researched, a lot of the research kind of really showed that it wasn't shown to have a performance benefit or it wasn't shown to reduce the athlete's GI symptoms. But then when we looked at kind of a lot of the research, it was very much specifically on that. it all came down to the excise intensity And a big part of my PhD was very much looking at how carbohydrate intake is affected by excise intensity and what the opsoam dose is And what you find is that as excise what tradition was for is that as excise increases, gi response increases like linearly. But that's not really the case. What happens is as excise intensity increases, gi response increases like more autonomically. it's almost like there's a step. So I think it was like LT1, lt2. And what you see is most probably from anything from 50% to 60%. The athletes can tolerate a large amount of carbohydrates. They're not going to. It doesn't really matter how much carbohydrates they consume. Their GI they're able to kind of metabolise that and the GI tolerance is relatively quite high. They won't get that much GI issues. But once the excise intensity kind of goes to maybe above 65%, that's when it kind of increases quite drastically And that's where you get a significant increase in GI responses. And when we looked at the research, if you looked at the methodologies, it was very much on that lower intensity. So it was really hard to almost like stress test the hydrogel technology because the intensity was so low. And that's really why we I mean they never really saw a performance benefit, not only between the hydrogel technology but also with the GI tolerance of the athletes. But there's research now out there and I think compartment PhD was very much driven on understanding the hydrogel technology and kind of how it works. And yeah, and there is evidence now that's shown in a big factor is yes, we have scientific evidence that shows that the technology works. We have done like MRI studies to really understand how the hydrogel forms in the stomach. So really we're still in that kind of like development phase. But I think it just comes down to the athletes, like the athlete response, like we've fueled the every world marathon major winner, an Olympic and world champion.

Elliott Kupchogi right.

Exactly yeah, From 2017, that's male and female. We're very dominant within cycling. We're very dominant now within ultra running And a big factor of that is just because how the hydrogel delivers the carbohydrates. And for us at morn it's really difficult because when you look at, say, a gel or a drink mix of sachets they look relatively similar to kind of a traditional carbohydrate gel or a drink mix. But, how the hydrogel delivers the carbohydrates through the GI track is completely different And the function there is different. So for us we get the validation from the elite athletes like we know it works. But we have now the scientific data. but at the same time it would be good to have more.

Isn't there like a? I think it's the hydrogel. This is like the origin story of the hydrogel, like a accidental invention. I thought there was something regarding like dentists or something like that. Are we able to tell that story?

Yeah, good knowledge. Yeah, Very much started from the co-founder, one of the co-founders and the CEO. Yeah, He went to the dentist and the dentist kind of said you must be like you knew he was kind of taking part in endurance sport, just because of his dental hygiene has been significantly impaired And he thought of a way of yeah, thought of a way of how to kind of still consume large kinds of carbohydrates without having a massive impact on the dental hygiene. And the one of the co-founders has a background in kind of in a kind of drug technology as a cancer researcher and he thought if they could take the hydro gel technology, what's been used in the medical industry since like the 1980s, and Utilize that within a sporting context, would that be able to kind of mitigate a lot of the dental impact? and what they found there is that, yeah, they was able to kind of mitigate a lot of the dental impact, helped to improve a dental hygiene Which, again, if we come back to all to endurance event, one of the biggest stressors that goes On the body. Yes, like you get massive muscular strength, you GI system goes through a massive stress because processing. But the mouth goes through a significant stress as well. You must probably know, like athletes they tend to have pretty poor dent, especially endurance athletes, pretty poor dental hygiene, and that's just because really, when you ingest in large quantities of carp high which you just ingest in sugar. So it is naturally going to have an impact. And, yeah, one of the benefits of like the, the hydro technology, is it alleviates that. And so, yeah, what would? it all happened relatively quite quick. They They created the first kind of initial prototypes, realize it would work for it when within dental hygiene, and then they started to kind of figure out quite early on that because the hydro gel delivers the carbohydrates and differently and is able to kind of help with the transport, transportability through the GI track, they thought actually it could maybe be beneficial for, say, endurance athletes And actually one of the kind of the first group of athletes to ever test the product and Was kind of a super Piccalee during the sub two attempt. So there was a sub two attempt before the night did the break in two attempts and the sub two attempt was led by research called the anus bestalis and he Wanted, like the first group of athletes, to break the sub two hour marathon in kind of normal conditions. And there's a big project. So more than caught in contact of them and just said we have this kind of this technology, can you test it? so it's crazy to think, like one of the first athletes was most probably the best in the world and Really from that moment once they kind of tested it, kind of visa be Calee really struggled to ingest carbohydrates And then it was almost immediately he went from it able to ingest nothing to a large quantity, wow, and then it just kind of spread almost bit like like crazy, like wildfire all through the elite athletes. So that's kind of where we are to now, like where we are today, we have almost like a large predominant of the, the endurance field and the from running, cycling to Ironman to ultra running. It's we have a big dawn and it all comes down to just the technology and how it delivers the carbohydrates.

I think we've probably got time for One more question from each of us before some final thoughts. I think did you have a follow-up to that?

No, though, i just wanted to hear the story. That's fantastic Yeah.

I think maybe my final question to you Has to do with the taste of these products, and it's really about the taste of any products in general. You, when you ask athletes Why they use a particular product, one of the first things for them is, like you know, i enjoy the taste of it, i look forward to eating it or drinking it. But, you know, a part of me wonders, like, how important is that factor in the fueling process? and maybe are there some ingredients in certain products that actually, like, make it taste better But over time can actually undermine, like the, the benefits of that jail or that liquid. And Did Morton come up with a specific taste because they realized that, like the combination of that taste and all the other Ingredients in our products, like that makes for, like, the most efficient and sustainable fueling strategy and I think that the taste really just comes from speaking with the athletes.

And a Big premise. Really. For the Hydro Gel technology to work, it needs a pure ingredients, good quality of ingredients, but then also a really reduced ingredient list. And if you look at the Morton products, they really have a very small ingredient ingredient list and and the big factor is that we don't include anything That is not there or not needed or doesn't have a function. And When it comes to like taste and and flavor, when we spoke to a lot of athletes, they they didn't want anything. They didn't want flavor, because that kind of almost like takes away from the performance and Especially from an endurance event what you tend to find this year. You taste buds fluctuate quite drastically, so something you might really enjoy a low intensity or the first couple of hours of a race. By the time You've got three or four hours in, it's the last, almost the last thing you'd want to have. And And the idea really of having a neutral taste is that we want to make sure that athletes Consistently fuel Throughout the throughout the duration of the event and have consistent periods of fueling, not have a right. I had a really good the first two hours and then I didn't like the taste and then I kind of slipped for like two hour Middle period and then I picked it back up. It's more about having that consistent fueling and when we spoke to athletes, the easiest way to really manage that is to have a neutral flavor and because it means that, yeah, you might not love it at the beginning, you might love at the end, but the how you kind of perceive it because it's neutral will be pretty much consistent And that's the whole purpose is to have a consistent intake.

I've always been a fan of eliminating the emotional aspect of fueling and just you know, my car doesn't complain or not when I fill the gas tank with fuel.

It's like what if I?

what if I could just like Fuel and not it'd be like, oh this sucks, or this is great, and it just Be fuel.

I think that's where we're getting now, especially like ultra endurance and it is It's getting quicker, like it's getting that the science is. It's starting to kind of grow and it's coming down to is like for some, like for the top end it's Event where they're not there to almost. They're not there for fun Yeah, they love the sport, but they're there to kind of get performance out. And When it comes to kind of fueling, it's just the more you can have, the better, and the way to have more is to kind of have it in natural, neutral form, and that's kind of Premise of it.

Well, josh it it has been such a pleasure to have you here. I know I learned a ton. I'm sure Brett did too. We're really grateful for for what you do in the sport, and the testing and the results are providing and just giving more clarity to the community on on how to have an enjoyable and Breakthrough type experience out there on the course, and I'm sure there are already people raising this Saturday at Western that are Deploying. Bits and pieces are all of what you've talked about, which is exciting. We'll make sure to link to all of you know Morton's Channels in the show notes of this episode. But Are there any final thoughts you have or calls to action for Listeners and viewers as it relates to either Morton or just their nutrition in endurance sport in general?

I Would say a big component is definitely just looking at your kind of your electrolytes and your sodium intake. There's a big kind of argument, especially in the scientific Literature, in the sense of it's time to show that having a significant sodium intake can also have a negative impact on your performance. Because what, especially when you, especially in like hot environments, the more kind of sodium you have, it can increase your sweat rate and make you a lot more solid, you sweater, and that can almost be quite detrimental over, say, i've, really prolonged period and so and I think, especially with an ultra endurance running, there's a very much kind of it and There's always been the case of I need to kind of replenish my salts and my electrolytes, i need to have a high intake, but that's not relative to the case. You don't need a significant amount of sodium. The body is really well regulated and calibrated to kind of retain that and And just by having more sodium it means it just it starts to accelerate the use of sodium in the body, which means you kind of will, yeah, we'll lose more. So I think that's Something like for us, like over these, like the next couple of days. We're doing a lot of testing with with Tom to kind of evaluate one is and his fluid intake and We're doing a series of tests. But also we're looking at his carbohydrate intake. His glucose response is lactate. We're also going to be evaluating his asses base balance and then also his electrolyte profile throughout the race. So yeah like. For us it's like again Is there's there's not much research there, but the research now is very much swaying away to that. So we want to kind of help as much as possible.

Are there going to be any viral moments on the Western States live stream of Tom eating any mystery fluids that? People are going to be questioning, just like killing it.

Um, maybe. Yes, there'll be definitely some blood testing, hopefully, and it really much depends on kind of how the race is pining out the All ideas. We've done a series of testing now in the first initial days. So we'll get some data, even if we don't do much testing of Tom during the race, because, again, the performance has always comes first. So if it comes to the point where he can't afford to have two minutes with me to kind of take some blood and have a bit Of a discussion then with that, then the things will most will definitely They're not needed. The performance always comes first. So but, you may see some interesting things.

I'm excited. I'm excited to see what, what gets. You know what we learn from Tom's experience at Western States this year, and you know I love that there's no nutrition companies like Morton that are really pushing the boundaries of of performance nutrition from the emphasis of science and, looking to, you know, push the sports boundaries in that way. So yeah, thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, going into the weeds a little bit with us on all things endurance nutrition.

Oh, thank you.

Thanks for listening. Before we sign off, if you are a fan of the show, please consider supporting us with a rating and a review in your podcast player, a donation on patreon Or the use of our sponsor discount codes in the show notes. We really appreciate your support. Thank you so much for listening and until next time. I'm your host, finn Milansen, and you have been listening to the single track podcast.