Junk in equals Junk out, sports drinks, carbo loading and marketing traps

Final in the series on nutritionally sound alternatives to Gu's, energy drinks and junk food for endurance athletes and open water swimmers.

Fuel correctly post-exercise EVERY SINGLE TIME

As an athlete, recovery is an integral part of your program. Make it your goal to eat in the 30-minute window post-exercise, when your body is primed for nutrient uptake and carbohydrates consumed can be used to begin the recovery process. 

The right kind pf Carbohydrates are essential post-exercise to replace muscle glycogen and ensure you begin your next session with maximal stores.

If fat loss is your goal, start with 30g and assess your recovery and subsequent performance.  If you didn’t feel well fueled or found you did not recover as well as usual, simply increase by 10g following your next session. A little trial and error goes a long way.

Otherwise, aim to consume your body weight in grams (i.e. 1g/kg BW) of carbohydrate in your post-exercise meal. A quick example is a banana and a glass of coconut water or a fruit based smoothie.

What can I eat?
Sweet potato is the perfect post-exercise carbohydrate. Full of relatively fast-acting carbohydrates, plus vitamin A, B and C, one cup contains approximately 50 grams of carbohydrate.

If bread is your thing, eat it post-exercise. I prefer to eat gluten-free, but that’s a another topic. Two pieces of bread contains on average, 20-25g of carbohydrate.

Fruit fits in nicely post-exercise too. A medium banana contains 30g of carbohydrate, so pop one in your training bag or car, so you never miss the “window”! It is important to note however, that fructose alone takes longer to resynthesize muscle and liver glycogen than does glucose or sucrose. The solution is to combine carbohydrate sources; so accelerated synthesis can take place. Eat a banana and a muesli bar, both of which are perfect portable snacks. These are ideal if you have an hour or so between races and/or travel time to take into consideration.

If you are finding it hard to quit sugar, choose starchy vegetables that do not provide the sweet craving you are trying so hard to avoid. You can even eat white potato post-exercise! Remember it’s all about nutrient timing.

 
What about sports drinks?The short answer is no. They are full of artificial sugar, preservatives and colours, and there are much better options:

1. Coconut water: the natural sugars and electrolytes are great during, or after, an intense exercise session. One serve contains 15g of carbohydrates, so it is not to be treated like water. A couple of times a week is sufficient.
2. Juice: yes, if you like, you can drink juice. It’s far cheaper than expensive sports drinks and all natural, but please save it for during exercise and in the “window” only. Ideally, make it fresh and keep it to two pieces of fruit, with the rest vegetables.
3. Make your own: 750ml of water, 1 tablespoon of rice malt syrup, the juice of one lemon and a pinch of sea salt. This is perfect for on the bike or recovery from your longer sessions. Lemon is the highest electrolyte containing citrus fruit, so why not also had some to your juice.

What about carbohydrate loading?To put it simply, increasing and maximizing muscle glycogen stores takes weeks of consistent training and focused post-training nutrition. Carbohydrate loading only acts to increase your weight in race week and/or your potential for GI upset on race morning or even during the race. No thank you! It is your post-exercise recovery that is essential for optimal glycogen stores.

In summary, base your carbohydrate intake on exercise duration and personal goals. Make your post-exercise nutrition as important as the training session it follows. Fuel naturally and your performance will speak for itself. You really are what you eat.

 Reprinted from:

THE NATURAL NUTRITIONIST

Don encourages others to join his “One Stroke at a Time” journey with a donation to the District 220 Educational Foundation, 501c3, Social and Emotional Learning Programs

One stroke at a time – that is how Don Macdonald, a Barrington resident and father of a Barrington 220 student, will swim the English Channel in August 2011. 

I encourage anyone reading this blog to consider donating to this very important child developmental set of Programs being offered to the Barrington, IL area K-12 grades, backed by Northwestern clinical research and beginning implementation throughout the district and supported in part by State funding. 

Thank you for helping the children of our community and perhaps for helping yourselves.

 

The English Channel presents swimmers with multiple challenges:

• Distance – 21 miles at its narrowest, closer to 30 miles when factoring tides and current.
• Endurance – the average swim is between 13 and 14 hours.
• Temperature – it is at its “warmest” during the July - September period, between 58 and 63 degrees.  Wetsuits are not allowed in certified swims. 
• Traffic – It is one of the busiest commercial waterways in the world, with ferries, freighters, and fishing boats.
• Salt water and jellyfish – irksome to the eyes and the skin.

All these factors will require resilience – both physical and mental.  Don is training to be ready for the challenge.  Follow his journey by clicking on http://one-stroke-at-a-time.blogspot.com/

Resilience is an important characteristic to possess for both adults and students.  Barrington 220 is committed to helping students develop social and emotional skills that helps them navigate daily life challenges from bullying, social group dynamics and peer pressure to drugs, alcohol and more serious depression and personal violence.  These skills will prepare our students to be resilient and achieve individual success academically, interpersonally and throughout their lives and also helps parents navigate communications with their children about these challenges.  

All funds donated through “One Stroke at a Time” will be devoted to funding social emotional learning programs for Barrington 220.

Don encourages others to join his “One Stroke at a Time” journey with a tax deductible donation to the District 220 Educational Foundation, a 501c3, not for profit organization.

You can make a Donation at this link: Donation Link to 220 Foundation

Mileage & Boston Harbor

Training continues, yard-after-yard, and looking forward to getting out of the pool and into the cold lake water for a change. Mentally looking at the same tile bottom is really a bigger challenge than one might think..teaches patience.

The next two months will see yardage volume increase from an average of 25,000 to 27,000 - 30,000 yards per week as well as the tempo of swims continue to push consistently faster. Despite being tired there is evidence of progress. I can consistently swim a couple thousand yards of 100 and 200's around 1:20 pace now and then continue on with the rest of the workout. I pretty much have stopped taking any rest between sets and just keep on going. For me this good as I can put down 5000 - 6000 in 1 1/2 hours which I try to limit workouts to for work and family reasons. As soon as open water starts, I will also start long, multi-hour weekend swims trying to get up to 6-8 range.

Have decided to add the Boston Harbor 8 miler to the swim race (if your can call it that for me, races? Its really more completion thats the goal). I figured between this, which will be very cold, wavy like San Francisco and the bigger Lake Michigan swims, I will be at least physically prepared for the 8 hour qualifier in October (cold water and mental are the big unknowns yet).

Year to date I have swam a tad over 175 miles.

Kicking, Kicking and more Kicking

Finished the week with just over 25,000 yards (just about 15 miles) and year to date 61 miles under the watchful eye of coach Marcia Cleveland during a nice long 6100 yard workout that included 2000 yards of stressed fin kicking. Needless to say I had my lunch handed to me but kept a good pace throughout.

Marcia tells me that stressing kicking now will have big pay-off later. Now it lets me work through big yardage without over stressing my shoulders (which my left is still tender but getting better with stretch cord work on the interior rotator muscles) but also helping me become more balanced in my freestyle stroke when breathing on both sides.

Continue planning open water swims for 2010 leading up to my 6 hour cold water qualifier in October. In July there is the Golden gate bridge to Oakland Bridge race that is 6 plus miles (but and this is a big but...its with a flood tide of almost 4 knots, which in open water swimming is like flying) so you end up swimming a little over 3 miles. The water is expected to be 55f to 61f and without a wetsuit possibly a good early look at some extended cold water time in rough SF Bay.

May 1st if water is above 50f its time to "take a dunk" a begin the cold water...CRAZY. I figure April no more warm showers should be a good start...

US Masters 1 Hour "Postal" Race

During the month of January the US Masters Swim organization sponsors a 1 hour national race (i.e. swim as far as you can in 1 hour) which I participated.

I enlisted my daughter, Rachel, in a little pay-back effort to keep track of all my splits for each 100. I ended the hour swimming 4350 yards or just a hair shy of 2.5 miles (similar to an ironman tri-athlon distance). This was a good distance for me, so happy. Goal was to swim 100's at a steady pace below 1:30's and ended up clocking them off at a modest 1:24 per 100 in a very comfortable, long and steady swim. Could have easily kept on going.

Focused on breathing ever other side or rotating sides (not easy for me) to learn how extended periods of doing this lesson stress on my shoulders. It worked great, plus it was a nice distraction from going back and forth for an hour. As for the mental "blaa's" of going back and forth this was not what I expected. Once I got going, I was trying to track distance but simply gave this up and just relaxed and swam. I was comfortable enough to not look at the clock all but 3-4 times. This was good practice of "letting go, mentally" but I suspect much more of this will come in the months ahead.

We'll see how I stack up against others nationally when the results come out in March. I'll bet my coach, Marcia Cleveland and some of her fellow swimmers kicked my butt... They are very accomplished and this makes for good training goals although I am learning this is really just about "me".

On the fund raising/charity side, appears I have good interest from one national organization and keep working or organizing others. I would hope formalize these after I complete my successful 6 hour "qualifying" channel swim later this year.

10,000 for Fun

Decided that an early winter endurance test of my training might be fun and something different to see how both physical as well as the mental training (i.e. spending long periods of time going back and forth in a pool) are shaping up. Decided to try the 100 x 100 yards (10,000 yards or 5.6 miles) race at the Latoff Chicago YMCA on December 27th. I figure it should take me a little over three hours at a relaxed pace of 1:30 per. This should be simple for the first 50-60 but later as the mind begins to tire I suspect it will become a little harder, but thats the point, work on the mental toughness since 400 laps.

Training otherwise keeps plugging along at 20k yards this past week.  Adding weights has gotten my shoulders sore but working through it. Last night at practice we did a whole workout in sweat shirts. I brought along my trusty old heavy duty Indiana sweatshirt (what the hell was I thinking??). Needless to say I felt like a drowning rat but managed to keep going through 4000 yards (2+ miles). for awhile I thought i was back in Goshen swimming a "Rathke" practice with Steve Conder in lane 1?

Friday lake swim

Looking forward to my usual Friday lake swim. plan a few miles hopefully its cold and choppy :).

I have a 2.4 mile swim planned in two weeks in Madison, WI called "MOWS" with US Masters so this should be fun. Since I am a loner when it comes to open water swimming, I have never done a mass tri-athlete type start, suppose I should bring my boxing gloves or I am sure my old water polo skills of grabbing swim suits should come in handy??

Thanks to Steve Conder, from Goshen, IN and an old swimming buddy for being the first supporter. Lets find a way to do an open water swim?