CARO LOADING

Try the link below. It givessome good basic understanding of Carbo loading.

http://www.brianmac.demon.co.uk/carbload.htm

Congrats on your achievement. That's fantastic. In terms of your question about carb cycling the week of your marathon, I would stay away from it. Here's why:

The idea behind carb depletion followed by carb loading is that theoretically you can increase your glycogen stores by 2-5%. A typical athlete might have about 2000 calories worth of glycogen stores, so this would be only a modest increase of 100 calories, at best. This is hardly worth the psychological and physical side effects that you will experience from carb depletion.

In fact, this practice is probably counter-productive to your performance. The fact that you will run out of glycogen stores in a marathon is nearly imminent, so a mere 100 or even 500 calorie increase in glycogen stores is fairly worthless for an event of this duration. Accordingly, good endurance athletes do not rely on glycogen for energy during their event, anyway, as this is an anaerobic metabolism that is quickly impaired by the demands of the race. The more sensible approach is to increase fat metabolism through quality training, as there is a much less limited energy reservoir in fat oxidation. If you've done your homework prior to the marathon, your body will know what to do.

Carb depletion will be quite detrimental to your training the week of the marathon, and you may still suffer some untoward effects of this at your race. During that last week, I would suggest continuing to consume high-quality carbs without overloading. This is your best chance to feel and perform great--and you don't want a negative experience at your first marathon!

Please look on www.vitargo.com.
Vitargo is the only trainingsupplement which will give you effective carbloading before, during and, most important, after training and racing.
It consists out of the long chain carbohydrate structures of potatoes and barley, so no sugars.
It already exists for over 10 years and is the most effective and most used trainingsupplement in the global tosportscommunity.
Why ? Because it will give you the best glycogen loading whenever you need it. Especially after training and racing to enhance your recovery.
Forget maltodextrine, maltose, dextrose or the other sugars.

One of Dutch best half marathon runners (1.02) used it in his preparation for the Rotterdam Marathon and as a sportsdrinkd during the marathon(this weekend) and bettered his PR with almost 4 minutes (2.17.20 - 2.13.42) due to the fact that his legs were "full" all marathon long.

Vitargo has been clinically tested with awesome results and all it basically is is starch !

It is not a foodsupplement, no need for this, it is a trainingsupplement as it supplements what is needed during and after training and racing.
Within 10 min. 50% is stored in your muscles as glycogen and no stomach problems !

Try it out and get better.