Let's talk numbers!

Okay…I feel AWESOME today-I surely don’t feel like I swam 11,000 meters yesterday.  That is so great!  To be able to pull in a long, hard practice like that and then feel this well the next day speaks volumes about the effectiveness of my recovery (which I think is due to my recent nutrition changes, including the addition of Muscle Milk).

Today was my “back to reality” day.  After two weeks of Hannah being here and only working half days, today I went back to full days!  And although my house is cleaner and it’s a little bit quieter, I kind of miss my little sidekick.  The last two weeks was the first time since I moved up here that every time I wanted to go do something I had someone to go with me!  But it really is time to get cracking-  I am six weeks and two days out from the swim…so let’s talk numbers.

My training plan last year began 9 weeks earlier than this year’s (but this year I was training for the Nashville marathon-running-so my training started after a week recovery from that race).  So this year I have a 17-week training plan and my comparisons below I took the last 17 weeks of my Flathead Lake training and compared.

So last week I had a total of 28,000 yards, making my 10 week training total up to 193,500 yards, compared to last year’s 153, 450 yards for the same period of training.  That means I am up 40,050 yards from last year!  That’s pretty exciting.

More things to think about, 55 miles is 96,800 yards.  Last year, the longest training swim I did was a four hour 12,600 yard swim and Flathead Lake was 52,800 yards (approximately, I still maintain that I swam more than 30 miles).  So my longest training swim last year was 23% of the total distance I was able to cover.  This sounds ridiculous, and I honestly wasn’t sure it was going to work last year; however you do not have to train the distance you intend to complete when doing ultra-long endurance events.  In fact if I were out getting 30 mile swims in every weekend, my body wouldn’t be able to recover enough in between workouts and completion of the target swim would likely not be possible.

Last year I consumed 4,220 calories during the swim, but by my estimates I believe I under-ate by approximately 5,000 calories.  I ate 5 different kinds of food (goldfish, gummy bears, pretzels, sweedish fish, and PB sandwiches) and alternated between 3 different drinks (water, Cytomax and Gatorade).  By my estimates (and I still have to meet with my nutritionist about this) this year to meet my caloric needs I will need to consume roughly 15,000 calories during the swim.  This is gonna be fun.  : )

Thanks for reading!

~Emily