Seeing that George is back from Mexico and long distance swims are once again part of the board's consciousness i thought I'd ask about long swim nutrition.
I've found lots of reports of channel swims that indicate feeding once every 30 minutes is a common way to go.
On the other hand Penny Lee Dean in an article on the cataline channel swim website says that 8 ounces of fluid every 15 minutes is a good way to go, bearing in mind that stops should be less than 10 seconds.
I've tried that method and seem to have fair results with it. 8 ounces per hour was not enough though at 5.5 hours I got really loopy someone asked me a question and it took forever to think the answer through. I upped it to 10 to 12 ounces per 15 minutes or for the scientifically minded ad libitum at each stop. But 10 to 12 ounces is three gulps, rather than one or two. Meaning that my stops in practice have been up around 20 to 30 seconds. When I tried doing them faster I swallowed a lot of air, didn't swallow properly etc.
At any rate, I still have a month before the Tampa Bay Swim and am open to hearing what works for you.
Parents
Former Member
In some of the races we did a one mile coarse and we had a feeding station. I used to drink every time we passed the barge. I drank my prepared stuff glucose powder mixed in a light solution of tang (very weak tang) sometimes a good old cold Coca Cola, which I sometimes dumped over my head when I was too hot.
If the water was cold, Campbell's chicken noodle soup that had been boiled with potatoes to remove some of the salt then the spuds were removed.
In a race in Egypt I tried the coke thing and dumped it on my head but it had been in the sun for hours, was it ever hot. My brother Tom drank 24 cokes during the Atlantic City Marathon however the first drink he wanted after the race was a quart of ice cold milk.
In some of the races we did a one mile coarse and we had a feeding station. I used to drink every time we passed the barge. I drank my prepared stuff glucose powder mixed in a light solution of tang (very weak tang) sometimes a good old cold Coca Cola, which I sometimes dumped over my head when I was too hot.
If the water was cold, Campbell's chicken noodle soup that had been boiled with potatoes to remove some of the salt then the spuds were removed.
In a race in Egypt I tried the coke thing and dumped it on my head but it had been in the sun for hours, was it ever hot. My brother Tom drank 24 cokes during the Atlantic City Marathon however the first drink he wanted after the race was a quart of ice cold milk.
