Why most cyclists get race week nutrition wrong
Race week is where months of training either pay off or get wasted. And the most common way to waste it isn't a bad warm-up or wrong tyre pressure — it's showing up with half-full glycogen stores because you didn't load properly.
I see three failure patterns every season. Riders who don't carb load at all and wonder why they fade at hour three. Riders who load too late — Thursday night pasta before a Saturday race. And riders who panic-eat the night before, consuming a huge meal that sits in their stomach until the gun goes.
The research, particularly from Prof Sam Impey and colleagues at Liverpool John Moores University, gives us a protocol that's shorter, simpler, and doesn't require the old-school depletion ride that made everyone miserable.
The old method vs the modern protocol
The classic carb loading method from the 1960s involved a glycogen-depletion ride 6-7 days out, followed by 3-4 days of very low carbohydrate eating, then 3-4 days of very high carbohydrate eating. It worked — glycogen supercompensation was real — but the depletion phase left riders fatigued, irritable, and often sick.
The modern protocol skips depletion entirely. Research shows that trained athletes can achieve the same supercompensated glycogen levels with 36-48 hours of high carbohydrate intake paired with training taper. No depletion ride. No low-carb suffering. Just elevated carbs on the final day-and-a-half.
That's the version I use with every rider I coach. It's simpler, it's less risky, and it works.
The 36-hour loading protocol
Let's say your event is Saturday morning. Here's the timeline.
Monday to Wednesday: Normal training, normal eating following your usual FFTWR approach. Training volume should be tapering down — your last hard session was probably Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest.
Thursday: Easy spin or rest day. Nutrition is normal. Nothing special.
Thursday evening (36 hours out): Loading begins. From this meal onward, carbs go up to 8-12g per kilogram of body weight per day.
For a 75kg rider, that's 600-900g of carbs across Friday and Saturday morning. It sounds like a lot — and it is — but spread across all meals and snacks, it's manageable.
Friday (full loading day): Every meal centres on easily digestible carbohydrate. Porridge with banana and honey for breakfast. White rice or pasta with a light sauce at lunch. More rice or pasta at dinner. Snacks between meals: white bread with jam, rice cakes, fruit, sports drink, cereal.
Saturday morning (race day): Pre-race meal 3-4 hours before the start, then top-up as needed.
What to eat (and what to avoid)
Loading is about quantity of carbohydrate, not quality of cuisine. This is not the week to eat wholesome brown rice with lentils and roasted vegetables. Fibre slows digestion and fills you up before you've hit your carb target.
Good loading foods: White rice, white pasta, white bread, bagels, crumpets, pancakes, honey, jam, fruit juice, sports drink, bananas, ripe fruit, rice cakes, cereal (low fibre), jelly sweets, pretzels.
Foods to limit during loading: Wholegrain bread, brown rice, lentils, beans, large salads, high-fat sauces, fried food, cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage). These aren't bad foods — they're just the wrong tools for this specific 36-hour job.
Protein: Don't abandon it. Keep a moderate portion at each meal — chicken breast, white fish, eggs. You're not going low-protein, you're going high-carb. They're different things.
Fat: Naturally low during loading because the plate is dominated by carbs. Don't actively cut fat — just don't add unnecessary sources. Skip the cheese, go easy on the olive oil, choose leaner protein.
Competition day meal timing
This is where precision matters.
3-4 hours before the start: Your pre-race meal. Target 1-3g carbs per kilogram. For a 75kg rider: 75-225g of carbohydrate. That's a big bowl of porridge with banana and honey, plus some white toast with jam, plus a glass of fruit juice. This tops off liver glycogen depleted overnight.
Stick to foods you've eaten before training sessions. Race morning is not the time to try something new. Ever.
2 hours before: If you're still hungry or the meal was on the smaller side, a light top-up — a banana, a gel, a small rice cake. Keep it simple.
30 minutes before: One gel or a few swigs of sports drink. Some riders do this, some don't. If you do, it should be familiar.
During the event: Your normal in-ride fuelling protocol applies. The carbs per hour guide covers this in detail, but the summary: start fuelling within the first 30 minutes and maintain your trained intake throughout.
The five mistakes that ruin race week
Starting too late. Loading on Friday night for a Saturday race gives you about 15 hours — not enough for full supercompensation. Start Thursday evening.
Eating too much fibre. A giant bowl of wholegrain pasta with vegetable ragu fills you up at 400g of carbs when you need 650g. Switch to white, refined carb sources for the loading window.
The panic dinner. Eating an enormous meal the night before because you suddenly remember you should be carb loading. You go to bed bloated, sleep badly, and wake up with a heavy stomach. Spread the load across all meals and snacks — don't dump it into one sitting.
Trying new foods. The race-eve restaurant meal with a rich sauce you've never had. The new gel flavour you picked up at registration. The energy bar from a brand you haven't tested. All of these are GI roulette. Race week is for proven foods only.
Confusing carb loading with eating everything. A full English fry-up, a burger, pizza — these are high-calorie but not high-carb-to-calorie-ratio foods. Fat and protein take up stomach space and slow gastric emptying without contributing much glycogen. Loading is a carbohydrate strategy, not a calorie free-for-all.
How to know it's working
Two reliable signals. First, your body weight goes up 1-2kg during the loading window. That's glycogen plus the water stored with it (each gram of glycogen binds roughly 3g of water). This is good — it means the loading worked. Don't panic about the scale.
Second, you feel fuelled and ready on race morning rather than flat and vaguely hungry. If you've loaded properly, the first 60-90 minutes of the event should feel notably easier than a normal training ride of the same intensity. That's the glycogen buffer doing its job.
A note on shorter events
If your event is a 60-90 minute crit or a short time trial, full carb loading is less critical. Normal glycogen stores cover 90-120 minutes of moderate-to-hard riding. A good pre-race meal and normal in-ride fuelling is sufficient.
Loading makes the biggest difference for events over two hours — sportives, road races, gran fondos, stage races. The longer the event, the bigger the payoff from starting with full stores.
What to do next
Nutrition is one limiter. Training structure, recovery, and strength are the others. If you're not sure which one is actually holding you back, the Plateau Diagnostic identifies your specific limiter in four minutes. Free, no sign-up required.