I've never heard of going low carb for a period before carb loading. Personally, I try not to change anything up before events. What works for training will likely work for competition too. If you want to pile in a few extra carbs there shouldn't be a problem but the last thing you want to do right before competing is completely change your diet. I promise your body will not be happy if you do.

I'm no nutritionist, I just read their books. :)

But my understanding is that the night-before carb pig-out creates too much of an excess of blood surgar and your body starts to store it as fat rather than replenish glycogen. Increasing your blood sugar consistently throughout the day is supposed to be more effective.

So basically graze - eat a lot of small carby snacks all day, or even over several days, accompanied by water (required for glycogen storage). Go carb-heavy on your meals, but don't stuff yourself.

jono

There is a fringe practice of carb depletion which is discussed here: Final workout before carb depleation / taper. And as has been stated, the real carb load is 36-48hrs out (ie, Friday night before a Sunday race), not the night before Pasta Party. Too late at that point for the carbs ingested to be converted to glycogen and stored in the liver, muscle, fupa (???). Rather the night before, have a light dinner, maybe nothing solid within 12 hours of the race, with an emphasis on eating things that are easy to digest and 'pass.' (IMHO, such advise is really only relevant to 'longer' races, maybe 70.3 and up.)