The Lactate Gel Behind Yomif Kejelcha’s 1:59 Marathon Debut Is Coming to Market

Santamadre, a Spanish sports nutrition company, will release what it calls the first lactate gel on the market, a product the brand says was part of the strategy used to fuel Yomif Kejelcha during his record 1:59:41 marathon debut at the 2026 London Marathon.

The product is called Lactate 60. Each serving contains 60 millimoles of lactate and 40 grams of carbohydrates in a 1:1 glucose-to-fructose ratio. The brand had originally planned to launch it in 2027 but moved the release forward after seeing the results from Kejelcha’s London performance.

A bet on a misunderstood molecule

For years, runners have heard about lactate in the context of muscle burn and the dreaded lactate threshold. Santamadre wants to flip the script. The brand is leaning on more recent physiology research, citing the work of George Brooks and Íñigo San Millán, which treats lactate as a fuel source and a signalling molecule rather than waste.

“For a long time, lactate has been talked about as if it were the enemy. We believe the real enemy is poorly managed acidity. Lactate, properly understood, can be a very powerful tool for performance,” said Alfonso Beltrá, the CEO of Santamadre and the head of Kejelcha’s performance area.

According to the company, the nutritional plan used with Kejelcha at London introduced close to 200 additional millimoles of lactate per hour on top of carbohydrate intake. Santamadre believes that addition was a meaningful factor in the result.

What happened at London

Kejelcha, the Ethiopian track star known for his world record in the indoor mile, ran the fastest marathon debut in history at the 2026 London Marathon, crossing in 1:59:41. He finished 11 seconds behind Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe, who broke the world record. The race rewrote the sport’s record books.

Santamadre says its protocol was built around pairing carbohydrate intake with external lactate to support energy production at race pace.

“In London, we didn’t just work with carbohydrates. We also worked with lactate. We believe that introducing nearly 200 additional millimoles per hour into the nutritional strategy was one of the keys to sustaining a performance that seemed impossible,” Beltrá said.

Where the idea came from

Santamadre was one of the early backers of the 1:1 carbohydrate ratio, mixing glucose and fructose in equal parts to improve absorption during long efforts. The brand says it noticed that a portion of ingested fructose is converted into lactate in the liver. That led to a simple question. If the body already makes lactate from food, what happens when athletes take in lactate directly?

Lactate 60 is the answer the company has put forward. The gel combines the same 1:1 carbohydrate base with 60 millimoles of lactate per serving. Santamadre presents it as a complement to carbohydrate intake rather than a replacement.

A shift in how endurance athletes fuel

Marathon fueling has changed quickly in the last decade. Top athletes now take in 90 to 120 grams of carbohydrate per hour, up from 60 grams a generation ago. Improvements in digestive tolerance and the use of dual-sugar ratios have made those numbers possible. Santamadre wants to add another variable to the equation.

“For us, this product represents a new way of understanding nutrition. It’s not just about feeding the athlete. It’s about understanding what is happening inside the body and using nutrition to help it respond better,” Beltrá said.

The brand has not yet announced a retail price or a specific release date. Santamadre says the product has been through months of internal testing with athletes before its application at London. If the science holds up under independent scrutiny, the science of what goes inside a gel may have a new chapter ahead of it.