32Gi Sports Nutrition - 22 July 2025
Fuel Smarter, Finish Stronger: The Endurance Athlete’s Guide to Avoiding the Bonk
IYou’ve felt it.
Legs turn to stone. Focus fades. Your pace drops off a cliff and every aid station feels like a rescue boat. You trained for months, hit the volume, tapered right and still, your race unraveled. Again.
This isn’t about lack of fitness. It’s about fuelling.
Hitting the wall isn’t just frustrating. It’s costly. One wrong move and a solid block of training gets wasted. Worse, it starts to chip away at your confidence. You know your body can go the distance. But can your fuel?
Here’s how to stop surviving and start executing.
Fitness Isn’t the Issue. Fuelling Is
The most dialled-in training block in the world can’t make up for a broken nutrition strategy. Most endurance athletes understand this on paper. But in practice? They’re still guessing.
They try to fuel “intuitively.” They wait for energy dips before reacting. They rely on sugary bursts to get through. They experiment with trendy products or worse, grab whatever’s at the aid station. Then they bonk, again.
The reality: your fuel plan needs to be just as intentional as your training plan.
Why You’re Bonking Despite “Doing Everything Right”
You don’t bonk because you’re undertrained. You bonk because your energy supply couldn’t keep up with demand. That might be because:
You delayed your first fuel window.
You used products that spiked and crashed your blood sugar.
You skipped fuelling altogether when your stomach started acting up.
You didn’t hydrate properly, impairing absorption.
You didn’t test your fuel under real conditions.
Any one of these can turn a great day into a grind. Stack a few? That’s your blow-up.
Shift the Strategy: Proactive, Not Reactive
The first rule of fuelling: don’t wait until you feel low.
Start fuelling before your session and then within the first 15–20 minutes of the session even if you feel fresh. That early fuel dose signals your body to spare glycogen and use incoming carbs. Then top up regularly. Fuelling isn’t a once-off action; it’s a rhythm.
IFor events longer than 90 minutes, aim for:
60–90g or higher of carbs per hour depending on intensity and individual tolerance.
Split doses every 25–30 minutes, not a big hit every 45–60.
Pair with electrolytes and fluids to optimise uptake.
With 32Gi’s Race Pro 300 Gel offering 75g of carb equivalent energy in a single pouch, you can easily manage high-carb fuelling without multiple messy gels or sugar overload.
Fuel That Doesn’t Fight You
You’ve been there. Gut revolt mid-run. Nausea after a gel. Bloating on the bike. Many athletes under-fuel not because they forget but because they’re afraid of what the fuel will do to their stomach.
That’s why tolerance is non-negotiable.
Gut-friendly fuelling means:
No artificial sweeteners or sugar alcohols that ferment in the gut.
An energy product that is fit for purpose and provides stable energy.
Natural ingredients and balanced for digestive comfort under stress.
Products that are tested under real conditions, not just in a lab.
All 32Gi products are built on this principle. Fit for purpose, functional, stomach-friendly, and consistent under pressure.
Because if you can’t stomach it, it won’t work. And if it doesn’t work, you bonk.
The Fuelling Mindset: From Panic to Plan
How many times have you approached a race thinking, “I’ll just feel it out”? How many long runs have you bonked on because you gambled on that new gel? How often have you skipped mid-race nutrition because your stomach was already “off”?
That’s not a plan. That’s survival mode.
Replace panic with process:
Nail your training nutrition just like you nail your workouts.
Build a rehearsed routine with familiar products.
Don’t chase energy. Stay ahead of depletion.
Choose fuel that fits your system, not just your macros.
Fuel Isn’t a Fix. It’s a Foundation
Fuelling doesn’t fix poor training. But poor fuelling ruins great training.
If you’re tired of wasting peak fitness on failed races, it’s time to get strategic. Nutrition isn’t optional. It’s not a last-minute tweak. It’s the foundation that holds your effort together from the first stride to the finish chute.
Fuel early. Fuel even. Fuel clean.
With 32Gi, you don’t have to choose between performance and comfort. You get both on your terms.
Because finishing strong shouldn’t feel like luck. It should feel like execution.
