Valencia Marathon Fueling Plan & Pace Chart

Valencia Fueling Strategy

Valencia is the flattest big marathon most runners will ever start, and that is exactly what makes the fueling harder than it looks. There is no hill to force a recovery, no descent that buys you a free minute, no terrain feature that tells you it is time to eat. From the gun at 8:15 to the blue walkway at the end you run one effort, at one pace, with your gut under continuous and unvarying load. Courses like this are where the top of the 75 to 90 gram per hour range belongs, because the conditions are cool and dry and your absorption will never be better. They are also where under-fueling hides until mile 22, when there is nothing to blame it on.

Understand the on-course product before you build anything around it. The gels are Enervit, in 25 millilitre sachets carrying somewhere between 18 and 20 grams of carbohydrate and essentially no sodium, about 10 milligrams a packet. That is roughly two thirds of a Maurten 100 and there are only three tables all day, at kilometre 16.2, 25.8 and 34, which lands at mile 10.1, mile 16.0 and mile 21.1. If your entire plan is on-course gels you will finish the race on about 55 grams of carbohydrate from gels. That is not a fueling plan, it is a rounding error. Carry your own and treat the Enervit tables as a bonus, particularly if you have never taken a DP4 glucose gel before.

The drink stations are excellent and there are nine of them, at kilometres 5.4, 10, 14.5, 18.7, 23, 28.3, 33.1, 37.1 and 40.4. Each one gives you a sealed 33 centilitre water bottle and a 15 centilitre cup of isotonic. A sealed bottle is a genuine advantage over a cup because you can carry it, sip it over the next kilometre, and use it to wash down a gel on your own schedule rather than the station's. Take the bottle even when you do not want it yet. The isotonic cup is worth roughly five to seven grams of carbohydrate at running speed and about fifty milligrams of sodium, so drink it for the fluid and the salt, and count the carbohydrate as zero when you do your math.

The first 3.4 miles have nothing on them. That is the longest unsupported stretch of the race and it sits at the exact point where a cool 8:15 start and a wide downhill bridge make everyone feel invincible. Take your first gel between mile 2 and mile 3, off your own supply, before the first station at kilometre 5.4. Then settle in. Miles 4 through 9 run the long straights of Avinguda dels Tarongers and the Ronda Nord, the flattest and quietest part of the course, with stations at kilometre 10 and 14.5. This is not interesting running and that is the point. Fuel on the clock here, because there is no landmark to remind you.

Halfway falls at kilometre 21.1, just past mile 13, on the return through Blasco Ibáñez. Use it as an audit rather than a celebration. At 75 to 90 grams an hour you should have four gels in by then and the first Enervit table at mile 10.1 behind you. If you are short, the next four miles are flat and easy and they are your last comfortable chance to catch up, because the course changes character at mile 15.

Kilometre 23 to 28.3 is the longest gap between drinks on the course, 5.3 kilometres, and it starts at mile 14.3. It also happens to be where the road begins to tilt up for the first time, a very slight sustained rise along the Passeig de l'Albereda beside the Turia riverbed. Nothing about that gradient will show up on your watch, but combined with a three and a half mile carry it is the first place Valencia asks a real question. Take the sealed bottle at kilometre 23 and carry it. Take a gel around mile 15 on your own schedule, then use the Enervit table at kilometre 25.8, mile 16.0, if you want a second one. The crowds through here are the loudest of the day and they will make you forget to eat.

The only genuine climb is kilometres 31 to 34, mile 19.3 to 21.1, up Gran Via and out toward Bioparc. It is about 1 percent for two kilometres and on any other course it would not merit a sentence, but it arrives at mile 20 of a marathon run at PR effort and it will feel like more than it is. The mistake is obvious once you look at the map: the third and last Enervit table sits at kilometre 34, which is the top of the rise. Do not save your gel for it. Fuel at the kilometre 33.1 station, mile 20.6, on the way up, or better, take one from your own supply at mile 19 before the road turns. Then the course gives it all back between mile 21 and mile 24 on a long, quiet, sparsely supported descent that is the fastest running of your day if you have carbohydrate left to spend on it.

The last three miles are flat, past the bullring at kilometre 39 and along Carrer de Colón into a wall of noise. The final station is kilometre 40.4, mile 25.1, which is late enough that anything you take there is for morale rather than energy. Your last real gel needs to be in you by mile 23, on the descent, while your stomach is still cooperative and there is a station at kilometre 37.1 to wash it down. The finish drops off a short ramp onto a blue walkway over the water at the City of Arts and Sciences, and it is worth arriving there with something left.

Weather is why people fly to Valencia and it is also the part most runners plan wrong. The sixteen-year average is a 51 degree low and a 63 degree high with a dew point around 42 and no measurable rain in any of those years, which is close to the physiological ideal and argues for running at the very top of the 75 to 90 gram range. But 2025 started at 58 degrees and reached 71, and the wave structure matters more here than at most races. Wave nine does not start until 9:35, an hour and twenty minutes after the elites, so a four hour runner in the last wave is finishing near 13:50 with the sun high. If you are in wave seven, eight or nine, plan your fluid as if the race were ten degrees warmer than the forecast start temperature.

Sodium is the one thing Valencia does not hand you. The Enervit gels carry roughly 10 milligrams each and a cup of isotonic gives you about fifty. Take every drink station and you finish a three and a half hour race on something near 450 milligrams of sodium total, which is under 130 milligrams an hour. That is fine on a 50 degree December morning for most people and genuinely thin for a salty sweater or anyone in a late wave running into the seventies. Carry your own salt capsules and take one an hour. Nobody on this course is going to give you enough.