This week, thousands of runners are focused on one thing: tackling a marathon. Whether you are in training for a late spring marathon or gearing up for this week’s Boston Marathon, the subject of fueling has probably come across your mind. At this point, you’ve likely ironed out your pre-race and mid-race fueling, but you might still be wondering exactly how to carb-load in the days leading up to the big event. Here are some simple tips to keep in mind to get to the starting line properly fueled and confident.

Things to keep in mind when thinking about carb-oading: First off, it was once thought that in order to carb-load properly, you had to severely restrict your carb intake and up your protein-fat intake in the weekdays leading up to race day, then switch to carbs two days before the race while ignoring protein and fat. Luckily, this is no longer the case, and there’s no need to restrict carb intake. Instead, begin reducing your training load while slowly increasing your carb intake. This practice of tapering plus adding fuel to those muscles basically helps you load the body’s fuel tank (muscle glycogen capacity) so that when the starting gun goes off, your muscles are fully loaded and your stomach doesn’t need to be stuffed.

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