# Fuelling beyond two hours: why portioning decides your energy balance

> Past the two-hour mark, fuelling becomes arithmetic. What sports nutrition science says about amounts, timing and dosing accuracy - and how the WOO® Ultra Endurance Pfirsich box puts it into practice.

Beyond roughly two hours of exercise, form on the day matters less than planning. If you only eat and drink when your head asks for it, you are usually twenty minutes late. A fuelling plan is therefore not a detail for professionals - it is the foundation of every long session.

## Why the two-hour mark is a physiological one

The body stores carbohydrate as **glycogen** in muscle and liver - in a trained adult roughly 400 to 600 grams, or about 1600 to 2400 kilocalories. At a brisk pace the organism burns 600 to 1000 kilocalories per hour. The arithmetic stops working after two to three hours, regardless of how good you feel that day.

Fat metabolism supplies energy in parallel, but more slowly and with a higher oxygen cost per calorie. And the performance decline is not sudden; it builds over an hour. That is precisely why intake has to start long before the deficit becomes noticeable.

## Grams per hour instead of gut feeling

Sports nutrition science works with clear orders of magnitude: 30 to 60 grams of carbohydrate per hour for efforts of one to two and a half hours, 60 to 90 grams per hour for longer sessions - provided several carbohydrate sources are combined and the gut is used to it.

One serving of **[WOO® Ultra Endurance Pfirsich](/en/shop/woo-ultra-endurance-peach-box)** delivers 32 grams of carbohydrate, 7.3 grams of protein and 195 kilocalories in 750 millilitres of water. That is around 4.3 grams of carbohydrate per 100 millilitres - dilute enough not to slow gastric emptying, concentrated enough for the bottle to matter energetically.

## The single-serve sachet as a dosing unit

Fuelling errors rarely come from ignorance; they come from imprecision. A scoop of powder varies by ten to twenty per cent depending on how it is filled, and in a hotel room or at an aid station it gets estimated anyway. A pre-portioned sachet removes that variable: 50 grams is 50 grams, every time.

That makes the session reproducible and the logistics simple - sachet into the jersey pocket, the running vest, the training-camp luggage. It also enables what research keeps identifying as decisive: testing the exact fuelling in training that you intend to use in competition. Gastrointestinal complaints cluster in athletes who take in unusually large amounts on race day.

## How the WOO® Ultra Endurance Pfirsich box is built

The box holds twelve single-serve sachets of 50 grams - twelve long sessions, which is a typical preparation block. The formula relies on several substrates: fructose, galactose and D-ribose as carbohydrate sources, coconut fat powder as the fat component, plus a BCAA complex of L-leucine, L-isoleucine and L-valine, the remaining essential amino acids, L-carnitine and sea salt. For the protein content the approved statement applies: protein contributes to the maintenance and growth of muscle mass. Manufacturer's instructions: dissolve 50 grams in 750 millilitres of water and drink as needed, before, during and after efforts lasting more than two hours.

## Frequently Asked Questions

**How many sachets do I need for a five-hour session?**
Reckon with one 750-millilitre bottle every ninety minutes to two hours. For five hours that is two to three sachets, supplemented with plain water depending on heat and sweat rate.

**Can I split one sachet across two bottles?**
Yes. 25 grams in 375 millilitres gives the same concentration - useful if you ride small bottles.

**Is the box the same product as the tub?**
The formula is identical; the difference is packaging. The tub is for home, the sachet box for the road.

## Sources

Jeukendrup AE (2011), Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolic Care - Nutrition for endurance sports: marathon, triathlon, and road cycling.
Burke LM, Hawley JA, Wong SHS & Jeukendrup AE (2011), Journal of Sports Sciences - Carbohydrates for training and competition.
Pfeiffer B et al. (2012), Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise - Nutritional intake and gastrointestinal problems during competitive endurance events.
Jeukendrup AE (2017), Sports Medicine - Training the Gut for Athletes.

*WOO® Ultra Endurance Pfirsich as a box of twelve single-serve sachets - available in our shop.*