Cycling off creatine and water weight
 

I have an important meet coming up in mid-November. I've been taking creatine in cycles, two weeks on, one week off and it makes me retain like nobody's business. How long should I give myself off the creatine before the meet to ensure I've dropped all the water weight? A week? More?

I would say two weeks would be enough.

http://www.muscle101.com/cycling_creatine.html

the half life is about 6-8 weeks I think and my experience has indicated (when I took it) that being off for about 2-3 weeks will help my water retention issues.