Race week means one thing in my house: it is time to bring out even more of the top-tier cereal. Krave, Crunchy Nut Cornflakes, Coco Pops, Marshmallow Mateys. Not because I am chasing a trend, but because cereal is a genuinely useful carb-loading tool… and I just bloody love it.
BLUF: Total carbohydrate availability is the main driver of your glycogen stores, and cereal is a simple, easy-to-digest way to hit a big carb target without forcing down mountains of food.
What carb loading is actually for
So, firstly… let me keep this plain. When you train hard, you burn through stored carbohydrate (glycogen) in your muscles and liver. Carb loading is just topping those stores right up in the days before a long event, so you have more fuel in the tank when it matters.
The key message here is that it is the total carbohydrate that does the work. Not one magic food. Not a special powder. Just getting enough carbohydrate in, consistently, across the final few days.
For a long endurance event, current sports nutrition guidance suggests around 10 to 12g of carbohydrate per kg of bodyweight in the 24 to 48 hours before the race. You can read the detail in the Australian Institute of Sport's fact sheet on the topic (AIS Sports Nutrition fact sheets).
What that looks like in real food
Here is where it gets fun. I weigh 85kg. So 10 to 12g/kg works out at roughly 850 to 1,020g of carbohydrate for the day before a big race.
Over 1,000g of carbs. Let that sink in.
To put it another way, that is about 1.2kg of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes. Or, if you still believe the box when it tells you 30g is a portion, that is around 40 bowls of cereal.
(Apparently 30g is an official portion, which just feels like an administrative error to me...)
Now, obviously I am not sitting there working through 40 bowls of cereal. That is the point of showing you the number: it looks enormous, and that is exactly why the types of food you choose start to matter.
Build it up gradually, don't slam it in on day one
Try this: rather than eating normally all week and then panicking with a wall of carbs the night before, build your intake up gradually across the week so that you peak the day before your race.
That way, you avoid the horrible bloated feeling of trying to cram a day's worth of fuel into one sitting, and your gut has time to get comfortable with the volume.
Here is the rough shape of it:
- Early in the week, carbs sit at a normal, sensible level.
- As the week goes on, you nudge the amount up.
- The day before the race, you are at your peak target (for me, that big 10 to 12g/kg number).
Use a mix of foods, not just cereal
Right, important caveat, and honestly I cannot believe I have to say it. Cereal is a tool. It is not the whole plan. Living off Coco Pops for seven days is not carb loading, it is a dare.
A good load uses a mix of familiar carbohydrate sources:
- Rice
- Potatoes
- Pasta
- Bread
- Fruit
- And yes, cereal
The reason I lean on cereal so heavily is simple. When your target is over 1,000g, you need some foods that are carb-dense and easy to eat. A big bowl of cereal with milk does that job without leaving you feeling like you have eaten a Sunday roast every hour.
You still want a balanced nutrient profile across the week. Protein, some fats, plenty of fluid. Carb loading does not cancel the rest of nutrition, it just shifts the emphasis for a few days.
As race day gets closer, go easier to digest
So, what that means is this: as you get nearer to the race, it is generally a good idea to lean towards carbohydrate sources that are easier to digest.
This is where higher-GI (glycaemic index) foods earn their place. Foods like cereal, sweets and full-sugar Coke are quick to absorb and convenient when you are trying to hit a big number. They are not superior to other carbs on any deep level, they are just practical when the target is high.
The key takeaway: convenient, not magic. They help you reach the total, that is all.
Drop the fibre (your race day will thank you)
Now for the less glamorous side of race nutrition.
As you close in on race day, it is a good idea to reduce your fibre intake. High-fibre foods are brilliant most of the time, but sitting on a big fibre load before a long race is asking for trouble. And by trouble, I mean the kind of unexpected delays that involve a portaloo queue at kilometre five.
Lower-fibre, easier-to-digest carbs help keep your gut settled. That is a big part of why refined cereals, white rice and white bread come into their own in the final day or two, rather than the wholegrain versions you might normally pick.
Practise it before it counts
Here is the bit people skip, and it is the most important bit. Do not try any of this for the first time before a race you actually care about.
Your gut is trainable, and everyone tolerates volume and food types differently. So test your carb-loading approach in a training block, ideally before a lower-stakes event, so you learn:
- How much food you can comfortably manage.
- Which sources sit well with you and which do not.
- How your body responds on the days that follow.
Adjust it to your size, your event and your own tolerance. The 10 to 12g/kg figure is a guide for long events, not a law. Shorter events do not need the same aggressive load, and a smaller athlete is working with very different totals to my 1,000g.
The short version
So, to bring it back to a core principle: get the total carbohydrate in, do it gradually, use a mix of foods, and make the final couple of days easier to digest and lower in fibre.
Cereal helps me do all of that. It is dense, it is easy, it goes down without fuss, and it happens to be one of my favourite things on the planet. That is why, in race week, cereal is my absolute bestie.
If you have any questions, queries or concerns about your own race-week fuelling, don't sit on them, let us know.