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Nutrition
The following notes are in support of the nutrition talks given by Mike Parsons at the first ADVENTURE race training camp held August 21/22 1999.
I have no formal qualifications in Sports Nutrition but have had the privilege of working / conversing / dialoguing with many sports trainers, athletes and performers from many disciplines, amongst whom can be included:
Fiona Hayes, author Cross Training; John Brailsford, professional Mountain guide ex Loughborough and former principle of Bangor Normals Outdoor Ed'n department; John Fazey, sports psychologist Bangor; Bill O'Connor, ex Loughborough and pro mountain guide; Wilf Paish, National Athletics coach; John North, ex fell runner of the year, bike Pennine Way record holder and Vet athlete extraordinaire; Simon Lawson, Sports scientist, SIS.
What all these people did is to provoke me into learning more by experimentation and trial and error. The opinions expressed here are my own.
The presentation is designed to;
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Challenge your existing beliefs. |
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Provoke you into learning more by trail and error, starting NOW. |
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Enable participants to be able to understand the technical information which is available and convert into something which will specifically help your performance in activities taking two days or more. |
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To give you a broader understanding so that the different needs of mountaineering, polar travel, running, Nordic ski-ing, cycling, which you may do at some time or other are not misunderstood. |
ADVENTURE RACING is a relatively new sport, so there is not very much information to use as to what are the best practices. Whilst the KIMM has been in existence since 1969, there is no one who has documented best practices but I can give you plenty of personal experiences and anecdotes from third parties. We must therefore look to a number of other sports, which will help us to understand best practice.
Which are the sports we can learn from then?
Marathon running, certainly, but remember that the Marathon is a short/medium distance event compared with the KIMM or any other two day event.
The longer triathlon is certainly something we can learn from, longer but still a single day event.
Cycle racing is most definitely something we can learn from because top-class amateur and professional events are five-eight hours long per day, and are multi-day: in the case of the Tour de France, actually 21 days.
Nordic Ski racing certainly, it's long, up to 90km, has the highest HR of any sport and it's run over snow which is very dehydrating because our lungs are designed to hydrate the air coming into them.
We also need to answer the very critical questions,
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What is nutrition? |
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What about hydration? |
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How much should we take? |
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When should we take it? |
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How should we take it? |
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What about carbohydrates, fats, protein and vitamins? |
What is Nutrition?
The most important nutrition is WATER.
If you are unclear or uncertain as to whether water is in fact nutrition, ask yourself the question, how long can a person survive on water alone and food alone? The answer is respectively, about 30-35 days and only 3 days in the case of food only. Water then is quite important. If we sit around in the house for 24 hours with average temperatures we'll lose around 2.5 litres. On a warm day, exercising then this same amount per hour is lost.
How do we get dehydrated?
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Sweating |
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Breathing, especially in dry conditions and snow environments can be particularly dry with huge water losses via the lungs. |
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Defecation / diarrhoea, particularly problematic in third world countries for expedition members! |
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Eating, yes eating! Solid foods will take water out of the blood system until it can assimilate those solids. |
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Drinking, yes drinking! Drink alcohol and it dries you out. But, also drinking almost anything will temporarily dehydrate you unless the solution is the right pH and concentration to be quickly absorbed. |
What happens when we lose water? Loss of 2% of our body weight (we are 60% water believe it our not) and we are losing 10% performance and rapidly accelerating after that.
How do we tell we are dehydrated?
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Thirst is a poor indicator. |
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Skin fold test (as the dog handlers use) at the back of the hand. Pinch a fold of skin, then watch it go back. If it doesn't flatten out again immediately, you are very likely dehydrated. |
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Urine, it's very important to 'pee long, pee clear', if you are well, 'yellow' if you are dehydrated. |
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