Fuel & Training Tips

Free Running Calorie Intake Calculator: How Many Calories Should Runners Eat While Running?

running nutrition calories per hour

How Many Calories Should You Eat While You Run?

When you run, your body prefers to burn glycogen: a quick fuel source that is stored in the muscles and liver. Your body also burns some fat and, if you're undernourished enough protein.

Glycogen, also known the body's storage form of carbohydrate, is the body’s favorite fuel source⁠

There's a catch: the supply is limited. ⁠

Depending on your muscle mass and body size, you can only store between 1400-2000 calories of glycogen to burn – that’s about 1-2 hours worth of running. 

What happens when you run out of glycogen? You hit THE WALL.

Aka you bonk. But there’s an easy (and delicious) way to avoid hitting the wall: eat while you run. 

You should aim to replenish 25-35% of calories burned per hour, where most – if not, all – calories come from carbohydrates. 

Why Energy Gels?

Energy gels are specially formulated to optimize the amount of carbohydrates you can consume while on the move. Too much fat or protein can slow digestion; this leads to slower energy use at best and race-ending digestive distress at worst.

MUIR Energy Fast Burning Gels like Red Raspberry optimize carbohydrate intake while prioritizing ease of digestion--without tasting like it was made in a lab.

 

running nutrition

Free Running Calorie Calculator

Enter your weight and average running pace to get an estimate of how many calories you should be eating per hour when you run.

NOTE: Make sure to slowly build up over a series of runs to these calorie recommendations to give your GI system time to adjust.  

The best place to start is short, easy effort runs, and increase the amount of calories, intensity, and duration from there.

Example Nutrition Strategy:

A 150 pound runner with an average running pace of 10:00 min/mi would be expending roughly 668 calories/hour. 

To replenish  25%-35% of calories burned, the runner needs to eat between 167-234 calories per hour.

EXAMPLE RUNNER

WEIGHT

150 lbs

PACE

10:00 min/mi

CALORIES, min

167

CALORIES, max

234

 

Hours

Gels

Sports Drink

Water

Total Calories Consumed

1

Red Raspberry

110 calories

16 oz 
80 calories

8-16 oz
0 calories

190 calories

2

Passion Fruit Pineapple Banana
105 calories

Strawberry

100 calories

16 oz
0 calories

205 calories

3

Cacao Almond
150 calories

16 oz
80 calories

16 oz
0 calories

230 calories

 

Want to know more about how to create your own running nutrition plan? Get our training guide here.