My Sister, The Dietitian

Apparently I have this untapped resource in my family tree.

She may not be an officially licensed dietitian yet, but my sister Olivia plans to make a career out of counting calories and fighting fat. Currently cramming through a nationally accredited Coordinated Program in Dietetics, she's well on her way to making Thanksgiving the most guilt-filled holiday in the Zamora family calendar. Yes, even more guilt-filled than Mother's Day.

So today I was talking to her about my run this weekend. I expressed my concern about not being ready and how I may not live to see anything past mile 8. After some 'just do your best' and 'as long as you finish' nonsense, the real words of wisdom started flowing.

"Are you tapering your workouts and carb-loading?" she asked. It kind of caught me off guard. You see, I had asked my sister a while back about this whole carb-loading business. Apparently they hadn't gotten to that chapter yet, because she offered little help. Suddenly she was a wealth of information. I may butcher some of the stuff she said, but this is what I gathered from the conversation:

There is the old way of carb-loading, she explained, where you limit carbs during the week, then increasing your consumption to 90 percent of your caloric intake the day before the race. The new way involves balancing carbs at the beginning of the week, then consuming about 70 percent carbs the last three days before the race. By reducing your training at weeks end and resting the day before, you allow your muscles to become loaded with glycogen. Apparently you want to start the race with as much glycogen as possible.

She said to eat a more complex carbohydrate about three hours before the race, which will break down slowly during the run. About 15 minutes before the start, drink a little Gatorade or some other kind of sports drink to start you off at a good blood glucose level.

Now, this is all a little confusing to me. The nutritional aspect of running, unfortunately, has never really been a priority. That clearly needs to change. Fortunately I did follow my half-marathon training schedule for the last week, which had me running much shorter distances. Clearly, though, just hammering out these runs isn't going to get me to where I eventually want to be.

In the future, I may be leaning on my sister a little more for more nutritional insight. As for now, I'm three days out from the race, so let the carb-loading begin.