CARB LOADING
Let’s start with what people typically do, around 4-5 days out from their
marathon they start smashing carbs like they never have before!
Bread, chips, chocolate, sweets, pasta, pizza, doughnuts you name it.
As a result, they often feel like absolute crap.
Tired, Bloated, gaining weight, poor sleep, dodgy guts ….
You’re playing havoc with your blood sugars, big highs followed by big lows!
Your blood sugar is probably already affected from the stress of your race
coming up and eating like this on top of that is making things even worse.
So I’m going to share what I’ve learnt.
How to replenish your carbohydrate stores without feeling rubbish
and arrive at that start line ready to have the race of your life!
A well-conditioned athlete can store around 800g of glycogen this equates to
3200kcal of available energy on race day but for most its around 500g.
It is estimated that for every gram of glycogen you have stored you hold
approximately 2.7g of water so someone with 500g of stored glycogen can
expect to be nearly 1.5kg heavier on the start line so don’t be surprised if the
scales go up but remember it’s just water weight so don’t freak out.
Because your body is storing this extra water it’s even more important to ramp
up that water consumption, I aim for 3-4l of water and it’s wise to start adding
electrolytes to one drink daily 5 days out.
The way I’ve learnt is to start your Carb load two days out and here’s why….
Simply you’re running far less so your glycogen stores will already be in a
pretty good place right, we just need to top them up you can avoid the
bloating, energy crashes and extra weight gain from a massive calorie surplus.
Win win right!
Before we go onto the meal plan here are some more tips.
• Try and stick to mostly whole foods.
• I like to eat my main meal at lunch time the day before to give my GI system
more time to process the food.
• Yes, you can have your pizza but again have it at lunch time rather than
dinner time.
• Up those fluids from 5 days out and add some electrolytes once a day.
• Sleep and rest as much as you can start this a week out even 30 mins extra a
day will help. Read in bed and minimise screen time to help with sleep.
• Eat your last meal of the day around 6pm latest so as not to affect sleep too
much.
So we want to aim for around 10g of carbohydrate per kg of body weight and ill
show you what that can look like.
Someone requiring 600g of carbohydate a meal plan could look like this.
Two days before One day before
Breakfast • Porridge (made with 50g • Special K
oats and 1% milk), honey, banana (50g), 1% milk
• White toast (2 slices) with • Hot cross bun
marmalade (2), jam
• Juice (200ml) • Smoothie
(200ml)
Snack Low fat yoghurt Cheese oatcakes (6) and
grapes (15)
Lunch • Tuna mayo baguette • Pasta salad with
• Flapjack (70g) roasted vegetables
• Juice (200ml) (120g dried pasta)
• Chocolate brioche
• Juice (200ml)
Snack • Breadsticks (8) and low fat humous • Jaffa cakes (4)
(60g snack pot) • Juice (200ml)
• Juice (200ml)
Main meal • Spaghetti Bolognese • Stir fry chicken,
• (with 120g raw spaghetti) vegetables and
• Apple crumble and custard noodles (150g raw
• Juice (200ml) weight)
• Low fat yoghurt and
frozen berries (15)
• Juice (200ml)
Snack Rice krispies (45g) with 1% milk Cornflakes (45g)
with 1%
milk
Most of you will have your race day breakfast nailed but here are some examples of
different breakfasts and their carb values. What you go for depends on you and your
appetite.
60g carbohydrate 120g 180g 240g
carbohydrate carbohydrate carbohydrate
Cornflakes/rice 30g cereal with 50g cereal with 50g cereal with 70g with 250ml
krispies with 1% 200ml milk 200ml milk 200ml milk milk
milk
White toast with - 1 medium slice 2 medium slices 3 thick slices
jam/honey
Low fat yoghurt - - 150g 150g
Banana 1 medium 1 medium 1 large 1 large
Fruit juice - 160ml 250ml 250ml
PLAN YOUR NUTRITION
The easiest way to do this is to use an app called MyFitnessPal it’s a free app to track
your nutrition. You don’t need to pay for it and just follow the set up but please ignore
any calorie targets it gives you and just use it to know how many carbs are in different
foods..
Two days out One day out Race day
Breakfast
Snack
Lunch
Snack
Dinner
Snack