carb loading
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theglencoegirl
Posts: 69 Member
have a race this weekend!! what are your favorite carb loading foods/meals!
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Gummy bears for on-the-go carb snacking, and before my marathon Sunday I made a white rice + veggies steamfresh pack and some scrambled eggs, mixed 'em together with some sweet and sour sauce to make a lazy "stir fry". I'm also a big fan of fish the day before a long run or race; seems to grease the joints a bit.
What's your race? Also, good luck!0 -
Adult nutrition shakes, easy to grab n go high carb fruits like apples, and orange juice are the foods I add to my diet for my 3 day pre-marathon carb load. They pretty much give you a good 35-55 g of carbs each.0
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Couscous and PB are a couple of my favorites. Although not together lol0
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I like to have eggs and pancakes for dinner the night before a race. Then I save a pancake for the next morning and eat it with PB and a banana as my pre-race meal.0
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If you are asking now for a race this weekend you missed the boat on "carb loading". Doing it properly takes at least a week, and you will likely feel a bit puffy and almost uncomfortable by the end.
As for simply pre-race meals. The night before I tend to go against conventional wisdom and eat something greasy and spicy. They idea being it all wants to come out earlier than usual so I don't have to worry about having to get rid of stuff mid-race. Morning-of I like to eat a giant muffin. One of those 500 calorie monsters you see at a supermarket bakery. I try to avoid much protein on the morning of the race just because it takes too long to digest and I would prefer to only have stuff I can use as "fuel" in me.0 -
How long is your race? I have never carbo-loaded in the sense of focusing on extra carbs leading up to a race, but I have a lot of body fat, and maybe it fuels me. Day of a race I pretty much always eat 2 egg and cheese sandwiches. My main focus is the post run pig out. Anything over 10 miles I give myself carte blanche on food, whatever I'm craving. It's usually pancakes, eggs, and reese's cups.0
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thanks everyone!! i like the idea of pancakes!!!
my race is a 1/2. its a women's run in Niagara falls.
i do begin to focus on eating more carbs starting at the beginning of the wk--but the last 3 days prior- i tend to try and increase my carbs significantly. this is very hard for me. i'm not a carb fan. it has worked well for my past races.
thanks for the ideas. my friend and i have a tradition of burritos Friday for lunch and large sushi lunch the day before!!
happy running!!!0 -
Personally I wouldn't bother changing what I eat ahead of a half. No real need to carb-load for a race that short0
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I don't bother for a half, but for a full marathon I carb deplete and then do a 3-day carb load. Bagels and malt loaf are good, plus fruit juice to get some of it in as sugar. You do end up feeling a bit puffy and sick of beige food though.0
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Protein is cheating!
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My carb loading meals usually include some rice or quinoa. I tend to steer away from high fiber and high fat foods when carb loading.0
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I have my first 1/2 marathon on Saturday and my running group mentioned "carb loading" and I really have no idea why? Is it suppose to make you run faster.. longer? The thought of over-doing any food and feeling "puffy" etc doesn't seem worth it to me. lol0
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You probably don't have to carb load for a half marathon (just don't go and eat a lot of fatty or spicy foods the night before). It might help somewhat if you increase your carbs somewhat the last three days before. For marathons it is much more important.0
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As for simply pre-race meals. The night before I tend to go against conventional wisdom and eat something greasy and spicy. They idea being it all wants to come out earlier than usual so I don't have to worry about having to get rid of stuff mid-race.
Thank you—finally glad to read someone else enacts the same strategy! That's what I do and a friend recently thought it was crazy for eating a fried chicken dinner the night before a race... It's the best way to ensure that your bathroom trip is in the morning and not during the race.
Anyway, before a half, I mostly focus on drinking lots of water the week before and eating what I want (within reason). Pizza the night before works well for me.0 -
You probably don't have to carb load for a half marathon (just don't go and eat a lot of fatty or spicy foods the night before). It might help somewhat if you increase your carbs somewhat the last three days before. For marathons it is much more important.
It's funny you say that because I actually do that on purpose. Fatty spicy foods are a sure fire way to make sure *everything* gets out of my system in the portopotty right before the race.
I do agree there is no sense in "carb loading" for a half marathon, and in the end any meal you eat the night before a race is not going to affect your "fueling" in any way, so you might as well just eat normally.0 -
Carb loading was all the rage about 40 years ago. The concept rested on the idea that we could fill up our system with carbohydrate which would take a marathoner past "the wall". That's when you hit mile 20 ± and you run out of glycogen so you have to metabolize fats.I have my first 1/2 marathon on Saturday and my running group mentioned "carb loading" and I really have no idea why? Is it suppose to make you run faster.. longer? The thought of over-doing any food and feeling "puffy" etc doesn't seem worth it to me. lol
A study out of Scandinavia showed how valuable carb loading was to runners and "the science was settled"…until someone studied the study and poked holes in it. Pick up a copy of "The Lore of Running" for the background on that.
Energy gels have been around since the early 70's (co-invented by the author of "The Lore…") so we now have a means of providing a steady flow of CHO to the body so that aspect of "hitting the wall" is gone.
The next idea aspect is when to take on fuel. If you're doing a marathon, unless you've converted to a high fat diet, you're going to run out of CHO so you'll need to take in some sort of carbohydrate.
For shorter races, many runners don't take any fuel but I'm not convinced that's a good strategy for best performance.
This is the data from my last Half:
https://goo.gl/9yjVk7
The data indicate that I didn't need to take on any fuel - we have a lot of CHO stored in the liver and muscles - but my preference was to fuel up at the intervals on the spreadsheet.
The best summary of when and why to fuel that I've found is here - http://www.energygelcentral.com. I've bought energy gels mix from those folks and have had the opportunity to trade some emails with the owner who was very helpful.
Enjoy your run.0
