Ahh, the pre-race pasta dinner.

Heres the theory: Spaghetti is made of carbohydrates, and your muscles love carbohydrates.

Theunfortunate marathonerwho doesnt top up her glycogen stores faces a terrible fate: hitting the wall.

Who Needs to Carb Load?

Forget marathoners for a minute.

What about the rest of us?

So marathoners, triathletes, and anybody doing a multi-hour endurance sport should be thinking about their glycogen stores.

Baseball players, whose games might last a couple hours but involve a lot of sitting and standing around.

Runners lining up for a 5k, where theyll work fantastically hard but only for 20 or 30 minutes.

This doesnt mean you shouldnt have a pasta party, just that the purpose is team bonding.

If you dont have a team, shrug and say This is my race week ritual.

Nobody questions an athletes rituals.

One more caveat:carb loading is only necessary if you cant eat during the race.

Remember that were just sating our muscles craving for carbs.

you might put carbs straight into your bloodstream by eating them.

Ultrarunner Dean Karnazes famouslyordered and ate a whole pizzawhile running a 199-mile race.

Since most of us cant choke down pizzas while working out, carb loading is still valuable.

Wecan only absorb about 60 grams of carbs per hourunder the best circumstances.

Try out different foods while trainingyes, you have to practice eating.

Then, when race day comes, carb load as insurance.

How to Properly Carb Load

You twirl the pasta around the fork and thenwait, no.

Its a little more complicated.

If youre alreadytaperingto prepare for the race, they fit in perfectly.

(The rule of thumb on tapering: one day per mile of your goal race.

A fun fact about those glycogen stores: theyre not a fixed size.

Its possible to actually make them able to hold more.

Theoriginal carb loading protocolwhich nobody does anymorestarted a week before race day.

(This is agonizing if youre not used to it.)

Theres a newer technique that achieves similar results without the pain and suffering: call it theWestern Australia protocol.

This is the easiest way to effectively carb load.

The practical side of carb loading involves knowing your body: can you eat while running?

Can you binge on carbs for a day and not end up with diarrhea?

It makes them feel bloated and stiff.

Theres also some doubt aboutwhether women benefitas much from carb loading as men.

(Most of the research was, sigh, only done on guys).

Again, this is something to test out before race day.

(Youll always use both; theyre just adjusting the proportions.)

As long asonce againyou try it long before your race day.

Illustration by Tara Jacoby.