Review: The Maurten Bicarb System

It has been known for years that consuming sodium bicarbonate (aka baking soda) can enhance performance during endurance activities. It works by removing and neutralizing hydrogen ions produced by the muscles during intense exercise, forestalling acidosis. However, there's a catch: Consuming straight baking soda followed by intense exercise causes stomach upset and vomiting in most people who try it. Now Maurten claims to have a product that solves that problem, by encapsulating the bicarb and releasing it slowly in the intestines, allowing you to get the benefits of bicarb without the gastric distress. I've seen a couple of pro athletes trying it out on their YouTube channels, so I thought I'd give it a try myself.

It's not cheap -- they only sell it in four-packs for $70. That's nearly $20 per use! But hey, if it gets you that PR you've been seeking then maybe it's worth it, right? So I ordered some via their website (you must customize your dose based on your weight and experience with the product). Then I tried it out on two separate runs -- a 5k time trial on local roads, and a 5k race in Spokane, WA. Here's what happened.

The Time Trial
Maurten says you should eat a meal 30 minutes to an hour before consuming the Bicarb System, which should in turn be consumed 90 minutes to 2 hours before the race / workout. Since it's starting to get warm here in Davidson, I wanted to do my run in the cool morning hours, starting my warm up at 5:45 am. That meant setting an alarm for 3:45 to consume some food, then 4:15 to consume the Bicarb System. I didn't eat a whole meal, just a 90-calorie granola bar. Then at 4:15 I got up and mixed up the Bicarb System. They give you a plastic bowl to mix up a hydrogel suspension. This seemed to me to be similar to Maurten's energy gels (but without the carbs), but Maurten says it is a different product. Then after a few minutes you mix in the bicarb capsules, which are hundreds of tiny pills. You have to eat them (and the hydrogel suspension) without chewing. If you're traveling, make sure to pack a spoon for this! Here's a photo of me eating them during my second test in Spokane: 

They taste about as good as they look

You don't exactly have to choke them down but it is definitely is a bit of a test of your desire to get a PR! I had a hard time getting back to sleep after consuming the bicarb capsules, so I wasn't sure how well my time trial would go. 

I would find out soon enough -- my final alarm awoke me at my usual 5:15 wakeup time and I hopped out of bed and rode my bike in to town for the workout. At 5:45 I was ready to start my 2-mile warmup. My stomach was definitely a little unsettled, even after sipping some water as I jogged along. I had to burp a couple times to relieve the gas pressure building up in my stomach, and I could definitely taste the bicarbonate making its way partly up my throat.

After my warm up, I lined up and started the time trial. I could tell almost instantly that it wasn't going to be a great run. I'm not sure if it just wasn't my day, if the sleep disruptions had negatively affected me, or if the bicarb simply wasn't agreeing with me. After 2 minutes I backed off the pace and decided to treat this run like a workout rather than a time trial. I ran 2 minutes hard / 1 minute jog until I finished the 3.1-mile course. I have to say that I did start to feel a little bit better toward the end of the workout, but it still wasn't a great workout. So maybe bicarb doesn't work well for me, or maybe it just wasn't a good day for me. On to test 2.

Test 2: The Windermere 5k in Spokane, WA
Two weeks later, I was in Spokane visiting family and decided to sign up for a race and give the Maurten Bicarb System another try. The race started at 8:15 am, so I was able to get up at 6:00 am, eat some food, and try the system again without disrupting my usual morning routine. I prepared the system just as I had before, then just stayed awake reading the day's news and doing the crossword puzzle before it was time to start my warm-up. I headed out at 7:45, jogging 2 miles to the race start for my warm up, with a couple bicarb burps along the way. 

I lined up for the race and zipped out at my planned 6:30 pace, which if I was able to sustain that, would give me an age-group PR. Fortunately there was another guy running that pace, so I could just stay on his heels for the first mile. At about that point I was really starting to suffer. The race was an out and back, so I told myself to just hang on until the turnaround, and then I could maybe rally as I was heading home. Unfortunately shortly after the turnaround, I lost contact with the runner ahead of me. My pace was slowing. My Mile 2 was a 6:46, and it was looking like Mile 3 was going to be worse. I struggled to maintain even a 7:00 pace for this mile, then limped in to the finish, a full minute slower than my goal time.

The Verdict
I don't think the Maurten Bicarb System helped me at all. Perhaps I just was having off days, but I also think the "ickiness" of the product just doesn't put me in a good mindset for racing. It also definitely put my stomach in an uncomfortable, gassy state before each hard effort. Compared to another recent innovation, the carbon-plated super shoe, I'd say it is a real dud. When I put on a shoe like the Hoka Rocket X (my current choice) or a Nike VaporFly, I immediately feel a significant boost compared to a daily trainer. The Maurten Bicarb System never gave me a sensation that even approximated that feeling. But products like these affect each of us in different ways -- the pro runners I saw using them on YouTube both had good performances after using the system. So if you are serious about getting a PR and seem to be stuck just below your goal, it might be worth it to you to spend $70 to test it out for yourself. Good luck!

Chasing a "PR" in the 5k

5k has always been my best race distance. I've put out some decent half marathons and 10ks, and even eked out a Boston-qualifying marathon, but if you check the age-graded scores of my PRs, my 5k best is in another league from all of those.

That said, I like to run a variety of distances, and last year, I ran my longest race ever, the 55-mile Comrades Marathon. When I was done with that, I was ready to go back to my bread-and-butter race, the 5k. At age 57, I don't think I'm ever going to match my 17:49 5k PR I set in 2013. But a sub-20-minute 5k does seem like it might be attainable. The last time I ran sub-20 was in 2016 at age 49. For various reasons, I haven't done it in my 50s.

So back in August I ran the Greek Fest 5k just to see where I was after spending a year training for Ultras. My time was humbling: 22:14. I had a long way to go to get back to sub-20. A couple months later in October I ran the Runway 5k in 21:03. Not bad, but still not quite what I was looking for. I bought a pair of "supershoes" (Hoka Rocket X2) and doubled down on training. I managed a 20:45 at the Little Sugar Creek Parkrun. Maybe I'm too old for sub-20 5ks any more? Looking back at the races I had completed since my last sub-20, I saw that the best I'd done was 20:18 at the Sprint into Spring race in 2019. Maybe sub-20:18 was a better goal?

I ran Spring into Spring again this year but it was brutally windy and I could only manage a 21:21.

So yesterday I gave it another shot at the Little Sugar Creek Parkrun. Going into the race, I was thinking I should maybe just shoot for a 20:30, to beat my best time since Comrades. But as I began to run through my race plan I decided that it would a mistake to start out too slow. If I ran 6:35 miles (20:30 5k pace) it would be tough to do much better than that 20:30 even if I was feeling good for the last mile. Plus I hardly ever pull off a negative split in a 5k. I decided to push it just a bit more, targeting a 6:30 pace. If I felt good, I could pick it up, and even if I slowed a bit at the end, I would still beat my season's best. If I had a really great day I could possibly challenge my 20:18 "Grandmaster PR" -- my best time since I turned 50.

The weather was perfect as we lined up for the race -- high 40s, no wind. The course is dead flat, and the distance has been carefully verified, so I know it's an accurate course as well. Looking at the other runners, I saw there might be one or two of us prepared to go 20-minute or better pace. The race started, and two runners took off ahead of me -- an Irish woman and a 40ish man. The Irish woman looked to be targeting a much faster pace, maybe even a sub-19, so I settled in behind 40ish man. 

After a quarter-mile or so, I looked at my watch and saw I was running about a 6:27 pace. A little faster than planned, but comfortable, so I held steady. 40ish Man was checking his watch too, and he too held steady. Maybe he was shooting for 20 minutes? That would be a 6:26 pace. If that was the case and he was a solid runner, I might be able to ride behind him to that elusive sub-20 as well.

I checked my watch every quarter-mile or so, and I was holding that 6:27ish pace, and still not feeling bad. Keep it up, Munger! I passed through Mile 1 in exactly 6:27. Not bad! But soon after this, 40ish Man started to slow just a bit. My watch was reading 6:30 pace, and I was gaining ground. I slipped by him and tried to get back to that 6:27ish pace that had been comfortable so far.

The course for this race is an out-and-back, with a sharp turn onto a bridge at Mile 1.5. You cross the bridge, turn around, and make the sharp turn again onto the main greenway, then head home. Irish Woman crossed the bridge ahead of me, made the turnaround, and I passed her as she was crossing back over the bridge. I made the turnaround, then headed back home, the other runners shouting encouragement as I passed them. Looking down at my watch I saw I was still holding a 6:29 pace. Not bad, but now it wasn't feeling quite so easy. Somehow I maintained that pace through 2 miles, so my total time was 12:56. Seven minutes and change to go. 

I knew based on how tired I was already, there was no way I was going to speed up at this point, so a sub-20 was not happening. But I could slow quite a bit and still get that sub-20:30. Or maybe, just maybe I could squeak out an over-age-50 PR by running better than a 20:18. I was too exhausted to compute the exact pace I needed to run to hit these marks, but I knew I needed to keep it under 7:00 per mile. I looked down and saw a 6:45 pace. Come on Munger, you can do better than that! I picked it up again. My pace slowly lurched down into the low 6:40s. There were no mile markers for our race, but I knew when I passed the fixed 1 mile marker on the greenway, there was 1/2 mile left in the race. 6:42 pace. DON'T SLOW DOWN. I passed the 1.25-mile marker. 1/4 mile left! There was one more turn on the course, at about the end of Mile 3 of our race. I gasped for breath as I rounded the final corner. My watch clicked, but I didn't look down to get my time. The finish was in sight! I gave it everything I had and crossed the line. I stopped my watch and collected my finish token. My watch read 20:17! I had done it -- not just an age group PR, but a PR for my last two age groups, the best I had run since 2016!

After the race, I dove a bit more into the details. I ran a 6:40 Mile 3. My overall average pace was 6:32. I actually ran slowest for the final 10th of a mile, a 6:50 pace, which means I really had given everything I had. Here's a link to the Strava record of my race. 

All this has made me curious about my lifetime 5k progression (which really only starts in 2010 when I began running seriously). I made a spreadsheet tracking all my 5ks for that period, and removed any that were part of duathlons / triathlons, as well as any where the distance was off or there was a net downhill. This subset of "legit" 5ks is 40 races over 14 years. Here's a graph of my results:

I really only had a few years where I was regularly getting under 20 minutes for the 5k. You can see a couple spots where I got close over the last 7 years, but I still haven't done it since the Runway 5k in 2016. I think I might try one or two more times this year, maybe with a pacer to help me at the end of the race. But we're heading into spring in the South, where the weather tends to be too warm for me to run fast. Yesterday's race could very possibly be the fastest I run for the rest of my life. Or maybe I'll do even better sometime next year, or the year after that. That's one thing I love about running -- it's not 100 percent predictable. I know at some point my age will catch up with me, and a 20-minute 5k will truly be out of reach. But I won't know when that is until I get there.