The Day after the 13.1 mile swim was a rest day, post swim I felt banged up, nothing really ached just dead tired like my body was recovering from a high fever…..wiped! I convinced myself that a 30 minute session of Yoga and Foam rolling would help my recovery, it did by Sunday I felt great, my body lapped up the day of recovery and I concentrated on refueling!
I am often quizzed on what I eat, how much food, how many calories I take in each day, well if you are curious lets take a look at Sunday, the day after the 6 hour swim, I did not add up the calories, most days I don’t running on feel, food intake dependent on what my fuel needs are with regard to training, when I have done a tally up the total is between 4500- 5500 calories/day.
Breakfast
Hot Tea ( Love English Breakfast), Banana on toast, apple, cereal with blueberries and milk
Snack
Kashi Peanut Butter Bar
Apple
Lunch
Ham, Hummus and Lettuce Sandwich on 8 grain bread
Kashi Tasty Little Crackers ( lots of them I love these!)
Lara Bar
Special K Protein Meal Bar
Large wholegrain crackers with cottage cheese and nectarine on top
Afternoon snack
Chocolate Milk
Peppermint chocolate
Large Wholegrain crackers with cottage cheese and pumpkin seeds on top
Apple
Baby Carrots
Pretzels
Pre Dinner Snack
Smoked salmon on crackers
Glass of red wine
Dinner
12 oz Grilled Salmon, Salad of Lettuce, Tomato, Pumpkin Seeds, Hummus, Dressing and Sauteed Mushrooms
Dessert
I have 3 of these…..
Ice Cream, Ginger Chocolate and 8-10 Ginger snap cookies, I love these with hot tea.
…….by the time morning comes I am hungry!
Monday I am back to training, after Sunday’s rest day it is time to get back on the horse, off to the Green River Reservoir again this time for a 4 mile swim, I meet Paula a fellow swimmer and training crew team member , she is swimming with me today, I am so excited to have someone to play with in the water, also with us is Deb she is in charge of navigation today and is leading the swim in a kayak. Paula swims in a wetsuit and fins, a perfect pace beside me, we stretch out and soon fall into a good rhythm. An out and back loop, easy on the way down with the wind at our backs helping us down the lake, on the way back we have to earn it swimming into the wind.
We are well led with Deb at the helm, no duck on the Kayak for me to look at today but in its place a life sized cat with huge emerald green eyes, not real of course, but at first I wasn’t sure, Deb is great with animals, it is quite feasible that this was a real cat that she had trained, in fact I would not be surprised if it could pass me food at my feed stops, Deb can do anything!
Swim achieved and onto my complete favourite post swim ritual, during the 25-30 minute drive home I toast myself in the heated seats of my mini club man wagon, these seats are on fire! Love it, combined with the heat on high I begin to defrost.
Tuesday, today I have a 6000m swim on the books, tough swimming but completed, the last 2 sets the hardest, 10 x 200’s SCM on the 3:00 interval and 8 x 250’s of pull. All done, entered my distance log figuring out that last week was my biggest mileage week that I have completed during this last 8 months of training, 48,180m, 30 miles of swimming!
Open Water tomorrow then this weekend off to the coast in search of cold ocean water, jelly fish and swells, I’ll keep you posted !
