Marine Corps Marathon Fueling Plan & Pace Chart

Marine Corps Fueling Strategy

Marine Corps has an unusual shape for a big-city marathon. All of the meaningful climbing happens before mile 5, then you get twenty miles of almost nothing, then the course puts a 40-foot wall in the last 350 meters. The 699 feet of total gain is misleading. Roughly 240 of it lands in the first three miles and another 40 in the final tenth, and the middle of the race is flatter than Chicago. Plan your fueling around that distribution, not around the total.

Start with the on-course product, because MCM's is different from every other major American marathon and most runners get it wrong. The sports drink at all twelve water points is Nuun Endurance, which carries about 16 grams of carbohydrate and 380 milligrams of sodium per full 16-ounce serving. A race cup holds four to six ounces. That means each cup you take is worth about five grams of carbohydrate, not the ten you would get from a cup of Gatorade Endurance at Boston or Chicago. If your plan quietly assumes the drink is doing 20 or 30 grams an hour of work, you will finish the day 100 grams short and not know why. Treat the Nuun as hydration and sodium, treat it as roughly zero carbohydrate, and carry everything you intend to eat.

The gels are UnTapped, pure maple syrup, and there are only three food stations: on Hains Point approaching mile 14, after the Capitol between miles 18 and 19, and at Long Bridge Park approaching mile 24. Each packet is 26 grams of carbohydrate with essentially no sodium, 5 milligrams in the plain Maple and Coffee and about 60 in the salted flavor. Maple syrup is mostly sucrose, so the glucose-to-fructose ratio is fine for absorption, but it is thick and it demands water. If you have not trained on it, mile 24 of a marathon is not the place to find out how your gut handles a syrup gel. Carry your own and treat the food stations as backup.

The first five miles are the hilliest and the thinnest on support. Water point 1 sits around mile 2 on Langston Boulevard and water point 2 is not until Georgetown around mile 5, which is a three-mile gap across the steepest terrain of the day. Take your first gel inside the first mile, on flat Route 110 before the road tips up in Rosslyn. It feels absurdly early at eight or nine minutes in, but the alternative is worse: at goal pace, a normal 25-minute first gel lands you somewhere between mile 2.4 and mile 3.5, which is either the top of a 190-foot climb or the fastest downhill running you will do all day. If you would rather not eat at mile 1, hold it until you are off Spout Run and back on the flat Parkway just before mile 4, and accept that you are starting behind.

Do not chase the Spout Run descent. Mile 4 drops about 150 feet and the full fall from the high point near mile 2.6 is around 215 feet in a mile and a half. It is free speed and it will tempt you into 20 seconds a mile faster than goal. The cost shows up as quad damage at mile 22 and as a stomach that will not accept anything on Hains Point. Run it controlled, then fuel on the flat between Key Bridge and Georgetown around mile 5 or 6 while there is a water point to wash it down.

Miles 11 through 15 on Hains Point are the engine room of this race. Elevation stays between 0 and 10 feet the entire way, there is a water point near the tip and a gel station approaching mile 14, and there is nothing else happening. This is where you bank carbohydrate for the second half. The complication is the wear blue Mile at mile 12, which is genuinely moving and which reliably makes people forget to eat for fifteen minutes. Set a watch alarm before the gun. If you are running 75 to 90 grams an hour, you should have four to five gels down by the time you leave East Potomac Park around mile 15.5.

The Mall miles, 16 through 19, are crowded, tangent-heavy, and faster than they feel. They are also the last easy place to eat. Take a gel around mile 18.5 at the second food station, which is placed so you clear the 14th Street Bridge with carbohydrate already absorbed. Beat the Bridge sits at mile 20 at 14th and D, and the bridge itself runs from there to about mile 21.5 with a 16-foot rise, full wind exposure and no spectators. Nothing about that stretch is a good place to open a packet. The only water on it is a self-serve cupless station, so drink at Jefferson Drive before you get on.

The last six miles are flat and quiet through Crystal City and past the Pentagon, and they are where under-fueled runners come apart, because there is no terrain to blame. Take your final gel at the Long Bridge Park station approaching mile 24, or earlier from your own supply if you would rather not gamble on maple at that point. You need it in you by mile 24 at the latest, because Route 110 starts tilting up around mile 25.5 and the last tenth up Marshall Drive to the Iwo Jima Memorial climbs about 40 feet, the steepest grade on the course outside the first three miles. It arrives at the worst possible moment and it is a genuine test of whether you ate enough on Hains Point.

Weather is the wild card. The 16-year race-day average is 55 degrees with a typical 46 to 64 range and a 7:20 start around 51 degrees, which is close to ideal and argues for running at the top of the 75 to 90 gram range. But late October in DC has produced 70-plus degree years with real humidity, and MCM is a slow-moving, crowded course where a mid-pack runner is out there past noon. On a warm year, raise fluid intake 15 to 20 percent and pay attention to sodium, because the two things on offer are a nearly sodium-free maple gel and a four-ounce cup of Nuun. That combination gets you roughly 120 milligrams of sodium per stop. If you are a salty sweater or the forecast is above 65, carry your own salt capsules. Nobody is going to hand you enough.