Channel Swim 6 – Swim Nutrition
Marathon swim, London Aquatic Center, 5:40 11th November 2019
As I started the six length in the 50m Olympic pool I burped loudly underwater. It was a belch with substance and texture, an unpleasant sicky taste as I struggled to keep things in, and was only the latest in a series of what felt like close calls. Heaving out the contents of my stomach across this huge pool packed with literally hundreds of fast swimmers would be a disaster of apocalyptic proportions.
I was quickly understanding in my gut (on several levels) the advice many people had been sharing that taking on nutrition while swimming was going to be a challenge in itself. This 10k swim was an early test of my fitness, a chance to assess the impact the training has been having and couldn’t have started much worse.
I’d only realised mid morning that the cut off time for the 10k marathon was rendered irrelevant by the event finish time and I probably didn’t have enough time from my start to complete the swim at the channel swim pace I’d wanted to test, even if I assumed no feed stops. I’d raced in (missing lunch) and been given the option to start immediately which I took gratefully, even if breakfast was starting to look a long time ago.
I was planning to test my ability to take on fuel while swimming, so starting hungry and a bit dehydrated after a flight halfway around the world the day before would ideally replicate mid channel conditions, surely?
Nutrition while training
I’ve actually signed up with a professional Nutritionist. I’m going to do everything I can to increase my chances of getting across the channel and I actually know an amazing Ironwoman who is a Endurance focused qualified sports nutritionist, so this seemed like a no brainer to me. I was only expecting to get support for race day nutrition, and I did groan when I got the template to complete a food diary but I’ve got an amazing amount of stuff out of it. When Lou told me she wanted to make sure she protected me from illness and injury while training I sat up and started paying attention. I realised Lou’s help could make it more likely that I make it to the start, as well as the finish.
Never before have I been told I need to eat more food, but Lou made it clear as the training demands climb I’m actually going to have to actively manage my weight by increasing my caloric intake and we spent some time discussion how we need to break larger chunks of eating into more frequent if individually smaller meals. We also discussed a couple of ways to significantly increase my daily protein intake (giving me more tools to repair my body) without disrupting my daily routine. An example here was chucking a loose handful of ground nuts and seeds onto the oats I’ve been eating every day for breakfast anyway to add protein almost without noticing.
Lou had taken the time to understand how my daily routine (or not routine) worked, and had a number of suggestions around how we could improve and manage things based on that understanding of what I was doing. She was able to use the information I’d provided to develop a load of personal advice – although we talked it over in detail the written up feedback and suggestions for me to refer to later was 20 odd pages of clear and specific guidance.
I was pleased at how many things I was already getting right (there was one moment when I corrected myself and explained that I was eating zero fat greek yoghurt, not zero fat normal yoghurt and got an approving raised eyebrow based on it’s higher nutritional value. I’m still buzzing much later!), but there were a number of surprises and things I hadn’t thought of.
We then turned our focus to the swim itself…
Nutrition on the swim
So it’s really hard to work out how to fuel a channel swim. Lou and I were perplexed as swimmer after swimmer used Maxim, a carb rich sports powder, on their swims without any clear reason why. I think, and I haven’t been able to confirm this so it’s speculation at this point, that Maxim may have sponsored the Dover Swimmers or the Channel Swimming Association at some point, leading to swimmers using Maxim, then swimmers using Maxim because swimmers use Maxim.
Today, its actually pretty hard to get Maxim in the UK and both Lou and I looked at each other with the same though – surely there’s a more modern fuel that could be better for the swim?
SIS beta fuel caught our eye – a 2:1 maltodextrin:fructose mix (apparently these two different sugars use different digestion transport, so put less strain on the gut) is well know in sports drinks, but the beta fuel is supposed to be optimal to be easy to digest and minimise stomach issues. The thought of having to stop mid channel for a series of evacuations is something I’d want to avoid at all costs.
Speaking of costs, the beta fuel is expensive, but SIS run regular promotions and I was able to snag a bunch of the orange flavour at a price that I was OK with. We were looking to try this out at the Marathon Swim.
Local Pool, 6:45 am, 7th November 2019
‘Hello, I’d like a swim please!’ I asked the receptionist at the pool I use for training.
‘Ah. A swim. I’m afraid there’s a technical issue’ was the reply.
When I asked what sort of technical issue she gestured helplessly at the big window behind me.
As I looked round, brightly clad lifeguards walking around on the (dry) bottom of the pool gesticulating furiously at one another gave me a big clue what the technical issue was.
‘We don’t have any idea where the water has gone – it was all there when we left last night’
For the Marathon swim I’d mixed up 2 700ml bottles of cold drink and 1 500ml bottle of hot, and three gels in case I needed something else.
I started and smashed out the first 2 kilometer laps at about 22 mins per k (I was trying hard to simulate channel swim pace), then had the first ‘feed’. Quickly downing about 350ml without any issue at all – cold the beta fuel has a subtle pleasant taste, not sugary at all. I jumped back in planning to do another 2k stint. After a single k, I changed the plan and decided to grab another feed and finishing off the first bottle.
I continued on with a smaller feed each lap (slowing meant it was about 25mins between each feed and as I passed 6k I actually started feeling stronger, rather than weaker. 5,7 and 8 k I supplemented with a gel, and for the 8 and 9 k feeds I switched to the hot beta fuel. The taste was much stronger, and it was a little bit gritty/sugary, but still easy to consume – a learning is that the beta fuel takes a lot of shaking to mix thoroughly.
Soon I’d finished the swim and felt from an energy point of view that I could have probably done another 10k if I’d been required. This was a good suprise for me, and showed the training is working.
Two downsides were that I’d been cramping badly from 2.5 which is not normal for me, but I’m chalking that up to jetlag/dehydration rather than the food, and I did struggle to keep swimming after feeding – this is where the sicky burps came in, but again, I suspect this is a general issue I need to train around, rather than a reaction to the fuel. As my training sessions get longer, I imagine I can start adding some fuelling to them and build up my ability to eat and swim.
Le Meridien Hotel, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 5:40 AM, 9/11/2019
I’d dragged my exhausted body out of bed while it was still dark, desperate to keep my training on track while away with work; we had packed eighteen hour days with customers so I was using the only slot I could to swim. I was staring at the ‘pool’. A thin and wildly snaking ribbon that gracefully curved between sun loungers and parasols, it was hardly what I’d imagined. My Garmin was struggling to get a GPS fix and I had no idea how long the bit of the pool I could swim in was, which was going to make the drills I was supposed to do challenging.
Counter intuitively, the pool was absolutely freezing. I can’t imagine what it felt like in the heat of the day.
Eventually a small light bulb went off in my head. I swam the length of the pool four times and looked at the elapsed time – based on that I reckoned the length of the pool was 55m. Not ideal, but I could work with it. I started doing sums in my head as I swam the first leg of the warm up.
So earlier, I’d smugly written up that my elbow issue was down to my turning. Hannah the swim coach read this and immediately reached out to me and suggested it could be down to me overextending my stroke.
She’s much smarter than me and unsurprisingly as I concentrated on this any soreness quickly went away, and I’m now firing on all cylinders.
I’ve started to line up my support team – as I’ve been thinking about the challenge the people I need to help me have coalesced naturally into a single glorious group – more on that next.
If you want to talk to a experienced nutritionist, Lou’s details are below:
Louise is an experienced Performance Nutritionist and Dietitian with 18 years of combined experience working in the NHS, with the GB rowing team, British Gymnastics, Royal Ballet School, England Hockey and as part of the Intensive Rehabilitation Unit at Bisham Abbey (for Olympic Athletes).
She holds a Masters degree in Applied Sports Nutrition, a postgraduate diploma in Dietics and a BSc (Hons) Nutrition, Health and Exercise Science.
Previous work as a clinical dietician in the NHS included taking a leading role in the delivery and development of the Paediatric Nutrition Service.
Louise is also a Team GB Age Group Triathlete who competes over a range of distances at national and international championships, this gives her incredible insight into the needs and demands of high performance sport particularly for those involved in endurance sports.
Reach out to Louise on louheppy@hotmail.com
Next: Channel Swim 7: Baby, it’s cold outside
Previous: Channel Swim 5: Swimming in the dark