Two-a-day prep/recovery
I know it's a bit of apostasy to be swimming now at all, and certainly to be swimming hard at all... but life is what it is and there are political (yeah, I know that sounds funny) reasons I needed to start swimming with a fledgeling masters group...so I am. It's three days a week.
Our workouts are somewhat harder than I am accustomed to doing. They are nothing outrageous, but 4K is a baseline, and there's enough "hard" in them that it's no longer a reasonable approximation to say that they don't affect the rest of my day. It's not so much specific muscular as general fatigue and (I presume) glycogen depletion that hits me for the second workout of the day.
I'm writing to ask for advice on a nutrition strategy to maximize my workouts and recovery
Timeline:
- Not practical to get to bed before 10 pm, given family obligations; usually asleep by 10:30
- Wake up 5:30. Have been doing "toast and peanut butter" type breakfasts first thing.
- Swimming 6:30 sharp to nearly 8:00
- Second workout either approximately noon or approximately 5 pm.
Obviously, recovery is a bigger problem when the bike or run is around noon, but like everyone, I have to fit things in where they fit in.
I have had morning swims that started slow as I shunted down the digestive system and got muscles moving. I am considering making the breakfast smaller, and maybe all liquid. Thoughts?
Focusing on the noon workout scenario, does it make sense to have "lunch" around 10 am? Or try and get "the end of breakfast" in after the morning swim and just a late morning snack (fruit or whatever)? I can't tolerate eating the main lunch right before the mid-day workout.
I am not sure why this has been more draining than a standard brick of 3-4 hours, but I suspect it is the intensity of the swim and the lack of continuous calories like we normally do on a brick.
I'd appreciate any thoughts from people who are more experienced than me with swimming, perhaps especially some of our real swimmers out there who are used to (or at least can remember) two-a-day swimming before school and after. I'd ask my son, who is just finishing his high school swim season now, but he just eats all the time and would laugh at me for feeling tired at noon. :-)
Comments
I agree with the liquid calories method both before swimming and right after finishing and maybe you need to eat more real food too as 4K of hard swimming is tough.
Might I also suggest you back off during the intervals and do them at 90% rather than 100%? Nobody knows how hard you are going except you....might reduce fatigue if you have the humility!
I'm curious to see what kind of liquid calories everyone uses to pre-fuel their morning workouts (if any). Infinit? A few gels? Something else?
@Jeff - Fortunately, the coach "gets it" and it's not just all hammer. It at least feels like he knows what he's doing and knows how hard to push. It's just more work than I'm used to swimming.
On my Master's swim days, I've noticed fueling is a big issue as well. What works for me: I pre-make a banana-egg custard the night before and have that for breakfast on my swim days, minimum of one hour before swimming. Small recovery meal right after swimming: usually a protein bar and a smoothie.
Then I split lunch between two mini-meals at 10:00 and 3:00. Dinner at 7-ish. I do my other workout at either noon or 5:00, but either way it's spaced out enough from the meals.
Remembering 2-a-days in college, I just ate constantly and slept through my classes!