Holmer ranks super shoes first, bicarb a distant fourth
A four-item list of what actually makes a marathon faster, with supplements dropped below an ellipsis.
Brady Holmer posted a short list of the things that will get you to run a faster marathon, and the order is the story. Super shoes are number one. Fueling with 60 or more grams of carbs per hour plus hydration is number two. A negative split is number three.
Then comes an ellipsis, and only after it does number four arrive, which he writes as bicarb (sodium bicarbonate, taken to buffer acid in the muscles), Nomio, and, in his words, name your supplement du jour.
The gap is the point
The ellipsis is doing the work here. Holmer is not saying supplements do nothing. He is saying they sit far enough below shoes, carbs and pacing that lumping them into the same list would flatter them. Three of the four items on his list are things almost every marathoner already has access to. One pair of race shoes, a fueling plan you have practiced, and the discipline not to run the first 10K too fast.
That is a familiar line of argument from him. Holmer was one of the voices who pushed back hard when a viral post called zone 2 training a psyop, and the instinct is the same. Start with the things with the biggest effect, then argue about the rest.
What it actually means
This is one person's ranking on social media, not a study or a meta analysis, and Holmer does not attach numbers or citations to any of the four items. Treat it as a priority check rather than evidence. If you are researching bicarb protocols while still taking one gel over 26.2 miles, the list is aimed at you.
The full post is here.
4. Bicarb, Nomio, [name your supplement du jour]
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