Caffeine has a ton of benefits for runners, including reduced perception of pain and effort, increased focus and concentration, and delayed time to exhaustion. In short, caffeine lets you run harder, longer, and faster before experiencing fatigue - boosting endurance by up to 6%.
It’s hard to get it wrong in shorter races - a single dose of caffeine can carry you through, but in a marathon, timing is everything.
Take it too early, and you risk going out too hard, so you crash and burn; too late, and you'll run out of steam before the caffeine kicks in. But get it just right, and you'll sail on through - faster running, that feels easier.
The Fundamentals of Caffeine for Athletes
Before figuring out a plan that works for you, it’s important to get to grips with the basics of how caffeine works for performance.
First of all, it’s important to note that, whilst caffeine is beneficial for 90% of us when it comes to performance, for around 10% of people it can actually have detrimental effects. It’s therefore important to try caffeine before using it in a race to see if it works for you.
Assuming you’re someone who benefits from caffeine, it’s useful to understand how caffeine builds up in your system. There are two key principles to understand:
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Chewing is Optimal: Caffeine kicks a lot faster when chewed due to being absorbed via your gums, kicking in around 5 minutes versus 15-20 minutes when swallowed, and peaking in your bloodstream in about 20-25 minutes versus 45-55 minutes when swallowed.
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Peaking Lasts an Hour, Max: Once it’s reached peak concentration in your bloodstream, you’ve got about 45 minutes to an hour until it starts to dip. That’s when you’ll start to feel the effects wearing off.
Taking these into account, here’s how to build a tailored caffeine plan that works for you in the marathon.
(Heads up: the next few paragraphs are pretty maths-dense, but that’s because we want you to have all the information to make an informed decision. If you want to outsource the number crunching, we’ve built a Caffeine Calculator that factors in everything we’ve outlined in this blog post and builds a personalised plan for you in seconds. Take a look here.)
Calculate Your Optimal Dosage
Caffeine’s impact is proportional to body weight - the lighter you are, the more it affects you.
The optimal caffeine dose for performance starts at 3mg per kilogram of bodyweight. So, for example, an 80kg runner could aim to hit 240mg of caffeine in their system during the marathon. That’s about the same as two to three decent cups of coffee.
Needless to say, that’s a lot. But don’t worry - you don’t need to take it all at once! Taking into account the time it takes to peak, you should instead aim to hit the magical 3mg-per-kg figure at a point in the race where it’s strategically advantageous.
More on timings in a moment - first, let’s talk about tolerance.
Factor in Your Tolerance
If you’re a habitual coffee drinker, your tolerance for caffeine is going to be higher than someone who never drinks caffeine.
More habituated caffeine consumers can consider upping their race day target dosage to 4.5 or even 6 times their bodyweight in kilograms, so long as they keep their overall consumption below 400mg, the limit recommended by most government guidelines.
This means that an 80kg runner who regularly consumes a few cups of coffee a day could consider experimenting with taking in as much as 360mg (4.5 times body weight) or 400mg (5 times body weight) during the marathon. But they should be very cautious about going over that limit.
Tolerance is also affected by external factors including smoking, the contraceptive pill, anti-depressants and other medication. Again, it’s important to experiment before race day to figure out what works for you.
Figure Out Your Timings
Timing is the most important aspect of any caffeine plan when it comes to the marathon. Whether you’re aiming for sub-2 or sub-7, take caffeine too early and you could jeopardise your performance.
This is because caffeine reduces perceived exertion, making it easier for you to push harder than you normally would. Needless to say, ‘pushing harder than normal’ should be strictly avoided in the first half of a marathon, else you’ll burn through your glycogen stores too quickly and hit the wall.
Even just 1mg of caffeine per kg of body weight has a positive impact on performance. So your best strategy is to slowly work your way up through the ‘caffeine gears’, gradually increasing the dose in your system until you reach your optimal dose around 45 minutes to an hour before you finish.
That way, you’ll maximise the amount of time you’re benefiting from caffeine during the race, without your caffeine levels - and therefore your performance - ever dipping.
Remember: we've built a Caffeine Calculator to take out the guesswork and build a personalised plan for your next marathon.
How Should I Take My Caffeine?
The science shows that chewing is the best possible way to ingest caffeine in a marathon. That’s because of something called buccal absorption - a fancy way of saying ‘through the gums’.
When you chew, caffeine is absorbed through membranes in the mouth directly into your bloodstream, bypassing your stomach, giving you a caffeine kick in as little as 5 minutes. For comparison, a caffeinated running gel can take up to 45 minutes to hit. When you’re tiring in a race, that time could be the difference between setting a personal best or throwing in the towel.
Most runners aren’t making use of caffeine effectively, because the vast majority of caffeine products are packed with sugar and slow to act, relying on gut absorption which can take up to 25 minutes to kick.
Caffeine Bullets are formulated specifically for athletic performance. Tasty, lightweight, and easy on the stomach, they’re available in two delicious flavours.
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MINTense (100mg) |
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ChocoLIT Orange (85mg) A perfect blend of dark chocolate and orange zest. |
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