Eat Pasta, Run Fasta
Carb Loading Before Race Day: What Runners Actually Need to Know
You’ve done the long runs. You’ve survived the workouts. Your race shoes are ready.
Now someone tells you that you need to carb load.
So naturally, you order an enormous bowl of pasta the night before the race and call it a day.
Unfortunately, carb loading is a little more strategic than that.
Done properly, carbohydrate loading can help maximize the amount of glycogen stored in your muscles before a longer endurance event, giving your body more readily available fuel to use on race day.
And no—you don’t need to eat pasta until you can’t move.
Let’s break it down.
Why Do Runners Carb Load?
Carbohydrates are an important fuel source during endurance exercise.
When you eat carbohydrates, some of that carbohydrate is stored in your muscles and liver as glycogen. During running—particularly as intensity increases—your body can use that stored glycogen for energy.
The problem?
Our glycogen stores are limited.
During prolonged endurance exercise, those stores can become depleted. That’s one reason fueling during longer races matters, but we can also start the race with more fuel available by maximizing glycogen stores beforehand.
That’s the purpose of carbohydrate loading.
You’re essentially trying to start race morning with a full fuel tank.
Who Actually Needs to Carb Load?
Not every race requires a full carbohydrate load.
If you’re racing a 5K, you probably don’t need to spend three days dramatically increasing your carbohydrate intake.
Carb loading becomes more relevant for prolonged endurance events—particularly events lasting roughly 90 minutes or longer.
For many runners, that means:
Half marathons
Marathons
Ultramarathons
Longer endurance events
The longer the event, the more important carbohydrate availability becomes.
How Many Carbs Are We Talking About?
This is where runners are often surprised.
Sports nutrition guidelines commonly recommend approximately 10–12 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight per day for the 36–48 hours before prolonged endurance competition when the goal is to maximize glycogen stores.
That can be a lot of carbohydrate.
For example, a 60 kg runner targeting 10 g/kg would be looking at approximately:
600 grams of carbohydrate per day.
A 75 kg runner?
Approximately:
750 grams per day.
Suddenly that one bowl of pasta isn’t looking quite so impressive.
You also don’t necessarily need to hit the absolute top of that range for every race or every athlete. Your race distance, body size, previous experience and gastrointestinal tolerance all matter.
And this is exactly why practicing your nutrition strategy before your goal race can be helpful.
Carb Loading Doesn’t Mean Just Eating More Food
This is an important distinction.
Carb loading isn’t necessarily:
Normal diet + enormous amounts of extra food.
Instead, you’re deliberately increasing the proportion of your intake coming from carbohydrates.
That can mean increasing carbohydrate-rich foods while temporarily reducing some foods that are particularly high in fat, protein or fibre.
You’re trying to fit quite a lot of carbohydrate into your day without making yourself feel painfully full.
What Foods Can You Use?
Carb loading doesn’t have to mean eating pasta for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
There are plenty of options:
Bagels
Bread and jam
Rice
Pasta
Cereal
Pancakes or waffles
Potatoes
Pretzels
Crackers
Granola bars
Fruit
Juice
Sports drinks
Gummies or candy
Low-fibre baked goods
And yes, some foods that runners normally think of as less “healthy” can actually be useful here.
This isn’t the time when every carbohydrate needs to come from quinoa and lentils.
Which brings us to fibre.
You May Actually Want LESS Fibre
Race week isn’t the time to win an award for vegetable consumption.
When you’re dramatically increasing carbohydrate intake, getting all of those carbohydrates from high-fibre foods can create a lot of gastrointestinal bulk.
Not exactly what most runners want on race morning.
As you get closer to the race, choosing more low-fibre, easily digested carbohydrate sources can make it easier to reach your carbohydrate targets while reducing the amount of food sitting in your digestive system.
That might mean temporarily choosing white rice instead of brown rice, white bread or bagels instead of very high-fibre bread, and juice instead of enormous amounts of whole fruit.
This isn’t how you need to eat forever.
It’s a short-term race-preparation strategy.
Drinking Your Carbs Counts Too
One of the easiest ways to increase carbohydrate intake without constantly feeling like you’re eating is to drink some of it.
Sports drinks, juice, lemonade and other carbohydrate-containing beverages can all contribute to your total.
This can be particularly useful for runners who struggle to eat enough carbohydrate through solid food alone.
You don’t need to get all your carbohydrates from drinks, but they can make a high carbohydrate target much more manageable.
What About the Night Before?
Have dinner.
Just don’t try to perform your entire carb load in one sitting.
By the evening before your race, most of the work should already be done.
Your pre-race dinner should ideally be familiar, carbohydrate-rich and relatively easy for you to digest.
Race weekend is not the time to discover an exciting new restaurant and order the spiciest thing on the menu.
Save the culinary adventure for after the finish line.
And Race Morning?
Carb loading doesn’t replace your pre-race breakfast.
You’re still going to wake up having gone several hours without eating, and liver glycogen in particular is affected by that overnight fast.
Your race-morning meal should provide additional carbohydrate before you start.
A commonly recommended range is approximately 1–4 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight in the 1–4 hours before exercise, with the amount depending partly on how much time you have before the start and what you know your stomach tolerates.
The closer you are to race time, the more conservative you’ll generally want to be.
And most importantly:
Race morning is not the time to experiment.
Eat foods you’ve practiced eating before long runs.
Will Carb Loading Make Me Gain Weight?
Possibly—and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Glycogen is stored along with water.
So when you increase your body’s glycogen stores, the number on the scale may temporarily increase as well.
That does not mean you’ve suddenly gained a bunch of body fat two days before your race.
In fact, if the goal is to maximize glycogen stores, some additional water weight is completely expected.
Please don’t respond by restricting food or carbohydrates the day before your race.
Your body is doing exactly what you’re asking it to do.
Common Carb-Loading Mistakes
Waiting until dinner the night before.
Start earlier and spread your carbohydrate intake throughout the day.
Eating dramatically more of everything.
The goal is more carbohydrate, not necessarily an enormous increase in total food volume.
Eating too much fibre.
You can return to your giant salads after the race.
Trying completely new foods.
Your gastrointestinal system doesn’t need a race-week surprise.
Forgetting fluids.
Hydration still matters while you’re increasing carbohydrate intake.
Skipping breakfast because you carb loaded.
Yesterday’s carb load doesn’t make your race-morning nutrition irrelevant.
The Bottom Line
Carb loading isn’t just an excuse to eat an enormous pasta dinner the night before a marathon.
It’s a deliberate strategy to maximize your body’s carbohydrate stores before prolonged endurance exercise.
For longer races, that may mean substantially increasing carbohydrate intake during the final 36–48 hours before race day, choosing foods that are easy to digest, temporarily reducing fibre, and spreading your intake throughout the day.
Then race morning?
Stick with the breakfast you’ve practiced.
Because just like your training, your race-day nutrition shouldn’t be something you figure out at the last minute.
Train your legs.
Train your gut.
Fuel the work.
— Nth° Running
References
Burke LM, Hawley JA, Wong SHS, Jeukendrup AE. Carbohydrates for training and competition. Journal of Sports Sciences. 2011;29(Suppl 1)–S27.
Thomas DT, Erdman KA, Burke LM. Position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Dietitians of Canada, and the American College of Sports Medicine: Nutrition and Athletic Performance. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. 2016;116(3):501–528.
Burke LM, van Loon LJC, Hawley JA. Postexercise muscle glycogen resynthesis in humans. Journal of Applied Physiology. 2017;122(5):1055–1067.
