Carb loading for Japan - here's the plan for the next few days, done properly this time, not just winging it.
Up until now I've been eating normally, just leaning a bit more toward a light carb load and keeping some veggies in - easy-to-digest stuff, salads, tomato sauces, avocados.
Now there's two heavy carb loading days, Friday and Saturday. Over 3,300 calories a day (and these aren't heavy training days), at least 700g of carbs a day - at 69kg that's over 10g of carbs per kg of bodyweight, and more from snacks if I can manage it.
It's all coming from my favourite choco cereal and maple syrup with soy milk, and bagels, bananas and Nutella for breakfast or snacks. Lots of rice, banana and maple syrup for lunches and pre-session fuel - you've got to trust us on this one, it really works. Back to pasta for dinner once I've likely got sick of stuffing rice down my throat, with a bit of tofu for protein (but not too much as I get closer to the race), a light tomato sauce, and olive oil on top for the extra calories and fats. And for snacks, my secret weapon: Snelle Jelle with jam, and at this point I'm even stacking marshmallows.
At this point it genuinely starts to look like a child's diet.
But it's not totally random - it's all spaced properly across breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks through the day, so I'm steadily topping up glycogen stores in my muscles as I get towards race day.
I've got to thank Chiara for putting this plan together for me, right down to the snacks. She's properly into the research side of this stuff, and she adjusted it from her own race plan specifically for my needs and my race. Although I might be sneaking in some extra candies and drinks...
I'll say that sometimes mentally it's a struggle eating this much when you're not used to it, but let's be honest, I also eat a lot when I'm training, and a lot of this is easy to eat and digest. I've done this before and it's worked, and I watched it work exceptionally well for Chiara at her recent race too.
If I do well in this race... you know that the rice and banana dish is what made it happen.
