Carbo-loading ahead of running races. How much is necessary?

[BamaDave]

I have heard of runners pounding down the starchy carbs for days in advance of long road races. Is this really necessary for building up your glycogen stores? My guess is that glycogen stores can be maxed out fairly quickly, and it doesn't require days of gorging on pasta, potatoes, rice, etc.

I am running my first 20K tomorrow. This is only my second race - the previous was a 10K. Prior to the 10K, I didn't change my diet at all. I did eat about 1,500 calories before the race started, though - but still none of that came from high GI carbs. The 10K was by far my personal best timewise. But I don't know whether for a 20K I should be carbing up more to last through the longer distance and keep my pace. I do long runs at home on Sundays, and I usually make sure I have 1,000 - 1,500 calories in advance of those, but do not make an effort to "carb up" the night before, etc.

I thought I would post this question in this forum, since there are more people around here who eat like I do than over on the Runner's World forums.

[gobbla]

I don't know what the "official" answer is, but I never worried about it too much. As far as I understand it your stores *should* be at 100% through normal every day eating.

You might go for a little more than normal just to be "sure" that you're going to be ready for race day. If I would "load" I'd only do it two days before and then eat fairly normal the day before, something light the day off. More than anything you don't want to eat a whole lot of something different than normal and run...you'll stand a bigger chance of getting the "trots"...and no one wants to see that.

[Tyler_K]

A really good source to ask this kind of question is Lyle at bodyrecomposition.com
He is in to the endurance scene and obviously nutrition and human physiology.

If you are doing a fair bit of endurance training day to day, chances are you will be depleting a fair bit of glycogen so your stores *probably* aren't full unless you are eating quite a few carbs.

After full carb depletion in the UD2.0, at my bodyweight of 195 lbs, I took in the neighborhood of 1000-1200 carbs to fully supercompensate.

[DKing]

A true carbo load takes like 6 or 7 days. It involves depleation and then supercompensation to get the body to store more glycogen. I can try to find the plan if you want, we talked about it in one of my classes earlier this year.

Danny

[gobbla]

here's an article relating to the topic.

http://edition.cnn.com/HEALTH/library/HQ/00385.html

[BamaDave]

Thanks for the info, guys. Sounds like I may need to try this ahead of a marathon. I may even try to do this to some degree ahead of my next 20K or half-marathon. I did well in my 20K yesterday, but I was definitely on a downward trend after mile 10. That could also be due to pace management, though, and not just glycogen depletion.