Carb loading the gluten-free way

If you've been reading since December, you know I tried to put some big girl pants on before the Rocket City Marathon and get all serious about carb loading. Remember this post where I pretended to know everything about it. I have this cool way of being super confident about something right before it backfires. Instead of shooting out of the gate like a rocket on marathon day, I crashed and burned, early in the race and hard.

With MS River Marathon, I still attempted to carb load, starting on Wednesday before my Saturday race, but I changed the rules that Runner's World gave me. Plus I attempted the load without gluten this time. 

1. I didn't count anything. Last time, I calculated every gram of carbs that entered my piehole. This time, the main thing I did was blend up fruit smoothies to drink with every meal, plus I added in some extra snacks throughout the day. I didn't end up feeling three months pregnant like last time, but I still felt more full than normal. 

2. I didn't try to avoid fiber. When the pipes quit functioning during my last race (you get what I'm saying, right?), I immediately regretted trying to cut out fiber. Because, hello (!), my body is apparently a huge fan of fiber. More, please. 

3. And that's pretty much it, but points one and two looked lonely. 

Here are some of the things I ate during my most recent gluten-free carb-loading extravaganza. 

My favorite chocolate milkshake taste-alike, made with spinach, dates, bananas, and cocoa. Recipe here. 

The fruit-shake stache tells me that this dude was happy to participate in carb loading. He also votes to never end carb loading. 

We scarfed loads of oatmeal. I make mine the cheater way by boiling water in the tea kettle and pouring it over a bowl of oats and letting it stand until done. Then I never burn it, and I don't have to stand around stirring. And I avoid the whole will-I-get-cancer-from-putting-this-in-the-microwave question.  

This was leftover mash. The rice and meatball-ish type things were leftovers, and I added fresh avocado. Here's the recipe that provided the meatball inspiration. I didn't follow it exactly, but it gave me a starting point. Instead of beef and sausage, I used ground turkey, plus I added some oats for extra carbs.

Grits with beet and sweet potato hash were not a huge family hit. You can tell by the way my son looks super into it. My daughter was the only one who didn't act like she was going to die from disgust while eating the hash, but I personally loved it. Plus, it was carb-y. 

This was my desperate attempt at a pre-race meal from Kroger when I found out that Greenville, MS, has basically nowhere to eat except McDonald's. 

That brown rice bowl turned out to be much tastier than I thought when I first spotted it while standing in the frozen food section at 8 p.m. before my marathon, completely desperate for food. I ended up not eating the avocado and only eating some of the carrots, but I scarfed everything else plus some not-pictured corn chips.

I get to experiment with my new non-rules rules again starting today because I'll be running my hometown Mercedes Marathon this weekend. Really looking forward to having some fun running with my brother and other friends.

What's your favorite carb-loading food? 

Do you try to stay away from fiber before a race? 

What do you typically eat the night before a race if you are traveling? I realized too late that I should have planned better. Greenville was a super small town, and I should have researched eating there before we blazed into town right before the expo closed and the town went to bed.