Most races seem to have a big pasta dinner before the race. I was always under the assumption that this was the right thing to do.
But I lost 6 minutes in the SF marathon with a slightly upset stomach, in a line for the bathroom at mile #2.
Jeff Galloway says this:
“Avoid eating a lot of food after about 2pm the day before. If you get hungry, eat a snack which can be digested easily, about every 2-3 hours. Since it takes about 36-48 hours for food to be digested, metabolized, etc., the food you eat the day before will not help you during the race—and too much of it can hurt you.”
Also, does the length of race matter? (e.g. Don’t carbo load for a sprint or olympic distance, but carbo load for an ironman since you’ll need that energy by the end of the day.)
Not to carbo-load. I eat the day before a race just like I would eat if I was taking the day off. If the kids want to go to McDonalds, I eat there. I eat when I am hungry, drink a little water all the time, and always have something to eat before bed. To think you can just cram more useful energy into a muscle and get a measurable performance gain seems a little foolish to me. I’m not saying it does not happen. I am saying that my stomach and intestines would not appreciate it. I just stick to what my body knows. A race day is like a training day, just a little fast or longer depending on the race.
Not to. Not only because the carboloading is best done two days prior, and it takes a couple of days on a 5-6 g carbohydrate/kg bodyweight to fill your stores. But because I don´t think traditional carboloading really is necessary or even very useful in long distance triathlon.
In an ironman race you´re really going on lipids and ingested carbohydrates. If you overeat carbohydrates your body will switch your metabolism from burning fats to burning carbohydrates and your insuline levels will rise, making you more prone to glucose, blood sugar, swings during the race. In the race, you might go off like a fighter jet on afterburner for 60 minutes, then you will experience a glucose dip.
Instead, I like to just reduce the training volume in preparation for the race while eating normally. That way, my glycogen reserves will be full, even if not overfilled.
The body´s glycogen reserves last for about 2 h of work at about anaerobic threshold. If you carboload, you can get some 30 minutes more out of them. Great for an elite runner on a marathon, but not really enough for an ironman.
Also, does the length of race matter? (e.g. Don’t carbo load for a sprint or olympic distance, but carbo load for an ironman since you’ll need that energy by the end of the day.)
I would imagine carbo loading is more applicable to sprints and fat loading for ironman. for olympic eat whatever you want
Depends on the length of the event. For IM, I went with a big lunch and dinner 2 days before and big breakfast the day before (ie extra carbs) and then normal lunch and light dinner.
For 1/2 IM skip normal lunch 2 days before, larger dinner 2 days before and breakfast the day before. For Oly just a large breakfast the day before. Notice for all 3 though I eat a normal lunch and light dinner the day before. I too cannot eat a ton of food the night before and feel normal the next morning.
Bad things happen when I carbo load the day before races or key run workouts…its the stuff that many visits to the portopotty are made of. I carbo load 2-3 days out from the race. No fibre the day before the race either. I read somewhere recently no fibre 2 days before the race. I eat a bigger breakfast the day before but stick with instant oats, then eat lunch with pasta but I don’t stuff myself and a light early dinner of rice/tofu. I sip water/sports drink and call it a day. If I am hungry before bedtime I eat something easy to digest like crackers. This is usually a much, much safer route for me. I think the benefits of carbo loading the day before races has been debunked?!
Hm. I would guess you do what you do in training. I could never go to bed without eating a big meal for dinner, so that’s what I do before races/big workouts and I always seem to come out ok (I’ve only raced HIM distance, but had some 6-7 hour workouts).
The more important thing for me is hitting the port-a-johns no longer than 20 minutes from start…
If you carbo load 2-3 days before the race, then why not eat fiber the day before? You don’t need the calories and it cleans your internals of all that extra weight slowing you down
I will have to say it depends on the person. I’ve tried different things- going light dinner the night before an IM, going super-heavy dinner the night before. I haven’t seen any consistent results for one or the other. This year, for IMCDA, I had a huge steak/potato/appetizer/dessert dinner the night before the race and PR’ed for IM and had my fastest marathon run ever (out of 4 IM marathons), so who knows! I’m still experimenting I guess.
If you carbo load 2-3 days before the race, then why not eat fiber the day before? You don’t need the calories and it cleans your internals of all that extra weight slowing you down
Geez, no! Fibres cause your stomach to go crazy during the race, especially if you eat more fibres than normal! On the other hand, cutting down to no fibre at all, or in any case changing too much can cause your stomach to stop working (just up until the race, unfortunately) which is disastrous. .
I would be very careful listening to any advice like big breakfast day before, skip lunch, etc. It´s soo individual. Best advice I can give is to CHANGE AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE. Just act normal. You can lose much more with failed experimenting than you can ever gain.Fatloading is not necessary. The easily accessible fat storages within the muscles contain 500-600 grams of lipids, which is adequate for an ironman. And they fill up by just eating normally, some 20%E fats.
