The final week before the big race weekend. That's right, some people go on vacation to relax, we go on vacation to run. In particular, run long distances. Next weekend, I will be running my 4th marathon and 1st 8K, my wife her second 8K, and my son his 4th kid's fun run. In addition, we will have a friend walking both the 8K and half-marathon, and a friend I met a few years back at the Harrisburg Marathon will be tackling the marathon. We've got someone to cheer for in almost every race!
So, about 2 weeks ago, I started to cut back my weekly mileage, but still included a speed workout and tempo run and a 16 mile run on Saturday. This past week, I cut the mileage back even more eliminating the speed and tempo workouts and running 10 miles on Saturday. This week, I cruise. I ran 5 miles today, will run 4 miles on Tuesday, and 3 miles on Thursday. Monday, Wednesday and Friday will be rest days. We leave on Thursday to go half way for a carb feast with family, then go to the packet pick-up and expo on Friday. Saturday is the 8K and kids marathon (26.2 yards) and Sunday is the half and full marathon. We'll come back home Sunday. That's my idea of a beach vacation :-)
In addition to all this lazy sitting aroundness that I get to do, I also need to eat more carbs. As the week progresses, the percentage of calories from carbohydrates in my diet will be increasing- not that I'll be consuming more calories, but that I'll be consuming more processed carbohydrates. That's right... I'm making bread right now with mostly white flour. I picked up white spaghetti and plain, white bagels. I will be trying to consume less fat and more simple carbohydrates until right after the marathon. Pretty much, I'm going on an all American diet and exercise plan! Do very little working out, but eat a lot of simple carbohydrates!
There's a reason for this. The idea is that the carbohydrates I load on will be stored as glycogen in my muscles- now ordinarily this will translate to making me fat when I don't use my muscles- but for distance running this means that I will have stored glycogen in my muscles to draw from later in the race, say after 23 miles of constant running. Water also attaches itself to the glycogen, so my muscles have hydration built right in- this is why when you start on say, an Atkins diet, it is recommended that you drink lots of water and you lose weight fast (it's mostly water weight as the glycogen is now being used as energy now that you are no longer consuming anything with carbohydrates).
I was talking to someone at church this morning who said he needed to lose weight so he was eliminating carbs from his diet again. This is kind of his yo-yo diet plan that he has done for years. I commented that I'm actually doing the polar opposite. I'm actually going on a high carb diet. In fact, if I carb-load appropriately, I should gain 3-4 pounds by race day. That's right, my goal this week is to gain weight (mostly water weight)!
So, for anyone out there thinking, Why would anyone want to run a marathon? Because a week before you run it, you can eat and act like everyone around you ;-) And that, my friend is the Taper and Carb Load shuffle.
Have a great day- and get outside! The weather is getting nicer!
Thanks for the honorable mention! Should I eat a loaf of Wonder bread during my drive to the marathon? We should discuss carb loading, it's one of my deficiencies. I eat lots of whole wheat pasta usually 36 hours before the start.
ReplyDeleteBased on what I've been reading, the carb load time is when you start to eat simple, less complex carbs. This is when we eat white pasta, etc. Basically all the stuff you ate before you lost all the weight. With the exception of all the fat, so don't carb load with cheesecake, but yes carb load with white pastas, bread, beans, etc. Anything high in carbs and lower in fiber.
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