Saturday was another early start (damn tides) and we travelled a bit further to Mumbles, which is at the end of Swansea bay. It was another beautiful sunny day and being a Saturday and the day before the Swansea Half Marathon it was pretty busy. Another great, accessible swim location for me that was nice and easy to get in and out at and I swam just over 5km which I was chuffed with, it was also the first swim where I tried feeding using Maltodextrin and I was really pleased with the results as for once, I wasn’t hungry after swimming! After the swim we headed to Caswell Bay to the café there, it was lovely but £10.50 for a ham and cheese Panini?! I think not! It was packed at the beach and was great to see they had multiple beach wheelchairs you could hire too. All the swims that day were viable landings for an Ilfracombe – Swansea Bristol Channel Swim.
We got back to hotel around 3, which gave me time to go and have a sleep before dinner and our second guest of the camp – Nutritionist Victoria Jones
This talk was crucial to me as one of the things I wanted to work on whilst in Wales was my nutrition, more specifically how much, what and when! I made notes throughout the presentation on my phone and apart from the maths bit I did understand a lot of it for the first time and it helped me realise that feeding is really personal to each person. Yes, it is important to feed quickly because you move approx 65m backwards at each feed, BUT if the choice you have is between a having a food you like that takes a bit longer to eat/drink or a quick feed of something that’s not really going to help or what you like then those few extra seconds are totally worth it!
That, along with the advice from the other swimmers and the guy running the camp helped me figure out a rough feeding plan for the next day using predominantly Maltodextrin to see if I would be happy having a liquid diet during my swim. It was a 6-hour swim so I planned for 5 feeds and only one of them had any solid food. After sorting and organising stuff for the long swim the next day it was to bed ready for another early(ish) start and busy day!