You can get away with under fuelling for the odd training session or race, however for exercise over two hours, the more vital nutrition becomes. As we burn through our body's fuel reserves, our nutrition not only avoids fatigue but plays a big part in the quality of training or race performance. Sports Nutritionist and PURE Co-founder Marewa Sutherland shares some handy nutrition tips and runs through the "why" behind some of our ultra-endurance products. 

• Carbohydrate load in the 3-4 days before. This ensures the body's fuel stores are topped up to capacity, ready to race. The result? Fatigue prevention and increased endurance capabilities. 
• Load on beet. Beet increases the blood flow to working muscles allowing higher oxygen and nutrient delivery during exercise. It has a cumulative effect so you can load in the 4-5 days before an event. 
• Start fuelling early ~15 minutes in. Conserve the body's fuel stores by topping up early and consistently into your session or race. 
• Hydrate. Dehydration begins the cascade of fatigue, so it's vital to stay hydrated adequately. Fluids and electrolytes replace those lost in sweat, and carbohydrates help the hydration process as well as fuelling muscles. 
• Include protein. As exercise duration increases, so does the nutrition demands to fuel. Protein helps reduce muscle breakdown during exercise and also aids recovery. 

PURE Endurance Formula: 

We developed this product to get further performance gains out of our hydration range, for those exercising for two hours and over. Often it's tricky trying to get real food in, so we formulated our hydration to supply a high quality and fast-absorbing source of protein. It essentially replaces electrolytes lost in sweat, as well as supplies carbohydrates and protein for fuel. Additionally, the protein helps prevent muscle breakdown, so will assist with recovery as well. We recommend using PURE Endurance Formula from the very start of the session/race.

PURE Beet Endurance: 

Beet has become a not-so-secret weapon and we think it's too good not to talk about. Beet is naturally high in nitrate, which our body converts, and the end result dilutes blood vessels. This helps deliver oxygen and nutrients to our muscles, and clear waste products. How does this help? It essentially lowers the stress placed on our body allowing us to compete for longer or harder. It's worth noting that an important part of training is exercise-induced stress load so save the beet for race day. It's also super concentrated to get the dosage required to help and you can load up in the days leading up to an event. 

Check out the rest of our endurance range here

Article Credit: Pure Sports Nutrition. Written by sports nutritionist and PURE Sports Nutrition co-founder Marewa Sutherland (BappSc).