How Much Does it Cost for an Elite Performance at an Ultramarathon: 2024 Edition
An attempt at quantifying high carb fueling
Ultrarunning is a cheap sport, all you need is a pair of shoes and some running shorts. And a hat. And a watch. And a hydration pack. And more shoes. And a Strava membership. You’ll probably want to run a race, meaning you’ll have to pay Ultrasignup registration dues. You probably don’t live near trails, so you’ll have to drive or fly to get to the good trails. And you’ll likely need a travel budget for your race (travel, lodging, etc). And, you’ll probably want to do some sort of training camp to prepare for your upcoming event. And did I mention you’ll need more shoes?
Ok, so the cost of trail running can quickly add up, and I haven’t even gotten to nutrition yet. If you want to run far, you will likely need to buy a lot of food/drink mix to get the calories you need to fuel your races. While elite ultrarunners have been consuming large amounts of carbohydrates for years (and cyclists and triathletes before that), the phrase “high carb fueling” has certainly come in vogue this year. In a recent Freetrail post, Dylan Bowman suggests that 2024 is the year of the 3 C’s — carbon shoes, carbohydrates, and cooling (“the equipment is faster, the nutrition products are better, and cooling strategies are surgical.”)
While there is not exact definition for “high carb fueling”, a common benchmark is 60-90+ grams of carbohydrates per hour.1 Suppose you want to run a 100 mile race with Gu gels (which have 22g per gel) and you’re targeting a 20-hour finish. For high carb fueling, you’d need 60 / 22 * 20 = 55 to 90 / 22 * 20 = 82 gels, and at $1.60 retail (roughly $0.07 per gram of carbohydrate), you’d need to spend approximately $88.00 - 131.00 to fuel a 20 hour race.
And yes, if you’re buying a bulk, you could probably get a better deal than $1.60 per gel / $0.07 per carb. Fuel costs are variable, based on the product and volume, so to keep things consistent, I’ll keep with the Gu baseline in this article. That being said, the Feed recently published an article “Behind the Wrapper: Our Best Value Products” with “value products” anywhere from $0.03 to $0.13 per gram. (A single serving of Carbs fuel costs $2.00 per 50g, $0.04 per gram — the cheapest gel option, compared to Maurten gel, $3.90 per 25g, $0.16 per gram — on the highest end.)
Using two articles from Freetrail, and the baseline cost of Gu gels ($0.07 per gram), let’s summarize how many carbs, and quantify the fueling cost, of the finishers of 2024’s Western States Endurance Run.2
For full details, please see https://freetrail.com/what-the-pros-are-eating-men-of-wser, https://freetrail.com/what-the-pros-are-eating-women-of-wser, and https://www.rodfarvardultra.com/blog.
So, on average it takes about $100 (US Dollars) or about $6.35 per hour to fuel a 100 mile ultramarathon at the elite level.
Now, these maths are just an estimate and not very precise (I’m assuming all carbs costs the same — they don’t — and I’m ignoring other products, such as electrolytes). Fortunately, Precision Fuel & Hydration publishes fantastic case studies on the total fuels consumed by their athletes. Let’s dig a big deeper into races run by Hayden Hawks, Dan Jones, Caleb Olsen, and Lauren Puretz (3rd place at this year’s Javelina Jundred) this year.
Hayden Hawks
Not assigning a cost for toast, energy drinks, cola, etc. For full details, see Precision Fuel & Hydration’s write-ups for Hayden’s performances at Black Canyon (1st), Western States (3rd), Kat100 (1st), and CCC by UTMB (1st)
Dan Jones
Not assigning a cost for toast, energy drinks, cola, etc. For full details, see Precision Fuel & Hydration’s write-ups for Dan’s performances at Tarawera Ultra (1st), Bryce Canyon (1st), Western States (4th), and CCC by UTMB (4th)
Caleb Olson
Not assigning a cost for toast, energy drinks, cola, etc. For full details, see Precision Fuel & Hydration’s write-ups for Caleb’s performances at Arches Ultra (2nd), Madeira Island (2nd), Western States (5th), and CCC by UTMB (12th)
Lauren Puretz
Not assigning a cost for toast, energy drinks, cola, etc. For full details, see Precision Fuel & Hydration’s write-ups for Lauren’s performance at Western States (13th). Lauren also had case studies for Gorge Waterfalls (3rd), Mammoth Trail Fest (2nd), and Javelina Jundred (3rd), however these used fuels in addition to Precision, so I excluded those.
Summary
The following table consolidates results across the four athletes:
This is a very small sample size, and only relates to a handful of runners sponsored by Precision Fuel & Hydration, but it does suggest these athletes performing at a very high level can expect to use approximately $7.15 of fuel per hour, or $1.12 of fuel per mile (slightly higher than the $6.35 per hour estimated above). It would have been nice to have more females in my sample, though I kept my analysis to athletes on the Precision roster who raced Western States in 2024, so my sample size was limited.
A few more caveats — not all carbs are created equal. Without training, your body can consume up to 60 grams of glucose and 30 grams of fructose per hour. (That is why most energy foods generally come in a 2:1 glucose to fructose ratio.) But with training, you can push these a bit further. However one should still be intentional in their choice of carbohydrates (and their ratios) to prevent gastric distress during events. Finn Melanson and Vic Johnson recently discussed this on the Singletrack podcast — links to their discussion are provided, below.
Additionally, you need to train your gut in order to pursue high carb fueling. That probably means starting with 60g per hour, then slowly increasing up to 90-100g per hour. Assuming you have a 5-hour long run each weekend, leading up to your race, in which to practicing training your stomach. That means it would take at least 7 weeks to prepare your body to acclimate your gut. Some quick math means you’d need approximately 2,625 carbs at approximately $185.00 just to train your gut, in addition to the $100 or so needed to perform well at a 100-mile event (plus the race entry, travel, and all your shoes).
Maybe ultrarunning isn’t a cheap sport, after all.
In a recent Singletrack podcast episode called “The State of Ultrarunning Nutrition with Vic Johnson” host Finn Melanson and guest Vic Johnson propose anyone can fuel at 0-60g per hour without training, 60-90g per hour with training, and 90+ g per hour with training and high performance.
I extrapolated Rod’s numbers, 100g per hour for the first 10 hours, then he dropped down to 60g for the finish.
Fuzhao said she ate one gel, rice ball, and potato per hour, then ate two bowls of ramen. Using Google, I estimated her consumption as 22g/gel, 40g/rice ball, and 30g/potato, then 40g/bowl of ramen, but I acknowledge these figures could be way off.
I also excluded Eszter Csillag as her notes were not very precise and and Yngvild Kaspersen who, as a busy doctor, did not respond to Freetrail’s inquery.