Episode 116 - Open Water Swimming Nutrition with Greg Shaw

Open Water Swimming Nutrition with Greg Shaw

When it comes to swimming nutrition, there is no one more knowledgeable or qualified than Aussie Sports Dietitian Greg Shaw. He is an ex-swimmer himself, the sports dietitian lead for Swimming Australia, and has worked with swimming for 20 years. He wrote the paper on Nutrition Considerations for Open Water Swimming and kindly shares so many knowledge bombs with us during this episode.

• The physiology of swimming and what this means for your nutrition
• What are the nutritional challenges at longer 10km open water distances?
• At what point does open water swimming become glycogen depleting?
• Do you need to carbohydrate load for long, endurance, open water swims?
• Practical feeding strategies in open water swims including the specific vessels you use.
• Sweat rates when swimming in different water temperatures
• What to start preparing for 6 months out from a 10km open water race.
• Should you swim 10km in training before racing 10km?
• Troubleshooting tips if you swallow lots of salty water in your race.

Tune in for a mindblowing episode with the world's best.

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Episode Transcription

Episode 116: Open Water Swimming Nutrition with Greg Shaw

Taryn Richardson  00:00

When it comes to swimming nutrition, there is no one more knowledgeable or qualified than Greg Shaw. He is a sports dietitian lead for Swimming Australia and has worked with swimming for 20 years. He is an ex-swimmer but graduated as a sports dietitian and ended up working with the British team with marathon swimmers back in 2005 and also with our Australian swimming team, both pool swimmers and open water swimmers. He's done many research studies and has written many research papers. But in particular, he's written a paper on the nutritional considerations for open water swimming. I had the pleasure of working with Shawy at the Australian Institute of Sport during my time there. And he has kindly given up his time to talk to us today on the podcast about open water swimming nutrition.

Taryn Richardson  0:52

Welcome to the Triathlon Nutrition Academy podcast. The show designed to serve you up evidence-based sports nutrition advice from the experts. Hi, I'm your host Taryn, Accredited Practicing Dietitian, Advanced Sports Dietitian and founder of Dietitian Approved. Listen as I break down the latest evidence to give you practical, easy-to-digest strategies to train hard, recover faster and perform at your best. You have so much potential, and I want to help you unlock that with the power of nutrition. Let's get into it.

Taryn Richardson  01:30

Introducing you to the one the only Mr. Greg Shaw.

Greg Shaw  01:35

Hey, Taryn. Thanks for having me on.

Taryn Richardson  01:37

You're welcome, Shawy. I can't call you Greg Shaw, it just sounds too formal. Are you cool if I call you Shawy on the podcast? 

Greg Shaw  01:42

Yeah, no dramas at all.

Taryn Richardson  01:43

So thank you so much for giving up your time to chat to me about open water swimming nutrition, you are the man. Coming from a swimming background and working with swimming for pretty much the entirety of your sports nutrition career, there is no one better to talk to us about open water swimming than you, like, you literally wrote the paper on open water swimming. 

Taryn Richardson  02:03

So what I wanted to get your thoughts on today, were just some of the nutritional considerations that we need to think about when we're swimming open water but a bit longer than triathlon. So people listening are triathletes and the longest they'll ever swim is 3.8k's for an Ironman or 2.4 miles. There's not a lot that you can do in that sort of distance. It's more about what you do before and afterwards to then ride and then run off the back of that. But a lot of athletes are starting to go a bit longer and doing things like Ultra355 which has got a 5k open water swim and things like Ultraman which has got a 10k open water swim. So when we're stepping up to those sort of distances, what do we need to start thinking about differently when it comes to nutrition?

Greg Shaw  02:48

One of the kind of real seminal papers in swimming nutrition and also, you know, now open water swimming came in the late 80s with a guy called Dave Costill at Ball State University. And they did a really cool study where they kind of did high intensity swimming and they did muscle biopsies, and not of the legs, but of  the upper deltoid. So anyone who's had a muscle biopsy of the leg, the deltoid's a whole different experience. It's a smaller muscle group, it's highly glycolytic so you use a lot of carbohydrate to generate propulsive force or contraction force. And so therefore, you know, in swimming, where we're looking at glycogen depletion, we're really talking about the arms because most people are dominant from a stroke perspective. And so therefore, you don't want to use your legs in in a triathlon if you don't have to, so very undominant. 

Greg Shaw  03:36

And they showed that 50% of the muscle glycogen could be depleted in as little as 3000 yards. And that's, yeah, a kind of round about threshold or slightly above threshold work. So they did kind of repeat hundreds, 30 of them. And then they went a bit further and went 60 of them and did the biopsy again, and they showed that you know, you're around about 90% depletion after about 6000 yards. So it is capable of depleting muscle glycogen in less than 5k. But you know, with techniques like muscle glycogen loading and management of effort, you can finish a 5k quite easily without muscle glycogen being performance limiting. 

Greg Shaw  03:37

The challenge of that was when we step up to 10k, particularly at the intensities that most of the guys that I work with, you know, complete a 10k. You know, muscle glycogen becomes really performance limiting. And so, you know, exogenous carbohydrate, or ingesting carbohydrate from gels and fluid, you know, becomes really, really important. And so we put a lot of time and effort into that, and not just about volume, but about the quality of the feed. I'm sure we'll talk about this a little bit later, but it's really easy to kind of bring pie concentrated sports drink and taken out of a cup. But the challenge then is is the what do you get in your actual mouth? What are you swallow? You know, what are you actually absorbed? And so, if we're looking at trying to feed really high carbohydrate rates for highly carbohydrate requiring muscles like the arm muscles, which are highly glycolytic, then you know, we're looking to push the boundary resolve what is possible from a carbohydrate ingestion perspective for those guys at 10k. Coming that down, bring that intensity down from a triathlete perspective, that is probably not as much need to be that aggressive as we are like examples for our bronze medalist at the Tokyo Olympics, Karina Lee, we pushed 120 grams per hour, from her. 

Greg Shaw  05:21

So she consumed about 240 grams over the duration of that race. Some would argue that's kind of really high and probably not used. But they're in an event like the Olympics where we're trying to drive oxidative glycolytic pathways as hot as we can, we're trying to get as much carbohydrate from an exogenous source as possible. So that to a lot of training, that took a lot of science from from a carbohydrate form perspective, took a lot of additional acclimatisation, because the other component with something like Tokyo was it was 30 degrees in the water, so she was swimming in a bar, your kind of intensity goes up again. And so your carbohydrate usage goes up again. So there is the possibility to push that. But then, you know, if you're moving through really cold water, you know, when you're moving well, within your kind of physiological capabilities, the requirement to feed becomes a lot less and being more manageable with the volumes and concentrations is definitely something that should be considered by triathlon, particularly a recreational one is doing something like a 10k as part of an ultraman.

Taryn Richardson  06:25

Yes, solid that is huge amount of carbohydrate oxidation, we're assuming, did you do any testing to know how much she used or what her gut tolerance was for things like that.

Greg Shaw  06:34

So from a gut tolerance perspective, perfectly fine. And took took a long time to do that. So probably about six months worth of of training, you know, the type of volume that Karina was doing as well, prior to the Olympics, she needed to ingest carbohydrate to be able to support her energy availability and her performance requirements. And so, you know, it becomes a really simple decision to put carbohydrate into training sessions rather than in shorter distance to me 100 meter training, the need for carbohydrate in sessions is probably a lot less, turning up well stocked and ready to go is important. But you know, ingesting large amounts of carbohydrate during a training session, you just don't use it, it just becomes excess glucose. And you then have to deal with that from a physiological perspective, post session. So, but yeah, she did a pretty fantastic job.

Taryn Richardson  07:23

That's amazing amount of fueling, and particularly in hot water. One of the questions I do want to ask you and pick your brain on though, is sweat rates during a swim during an open water swim and a pool swim, because it's so different to cycling and running. So do you know roughly what that would be in terms of hydration for somebody doing a 5k, or a 10k, open water swim?

Greg Shaw  07:44

Yeah, it all has to do with water temperature, water is 23 times more thermally conductive than air time. 

Greg Shaw  07:50

And so then for your ability to drop heat to the water is really efficient at lower temperatures. So you know, most open water races that we do in say, Europe, you know, we're at 20 to 22 degrees, water temperature. So when you're racing in that temperature, there is no issue with hydration at all, because the body will conductively lose heat, and doesn't require the conductive loss from sweating. Once we get up around the 26-27 degree, water temperatures, that's when sweating becomes a little bit higher. So, you know, if we look at the pool data around sweat rates, most of the pool data suggests that at kind of moderate intensities in a 27 degree kind of pool, you're losing around about 100 to 300 mils of fluid an hour or so really kind of low compared to other terrestrial sports where it's hard to lose heat to the atmosphere. 

Taryn Richardson  07:50

Boom

Greg Shaw  08:45

And hence why you know, when you talk to swimmers, or people who swim, if they're chasing their hydration, and they drink a lot of water during training, what's the one thing they talk about is that you have to eat or get out of the pool to pee or up in the water? And so are you in the water pee'r? Or are you a person who gets out to go to the toilet, that's the common one. And often that's because you're drinking more than what you need, you're not losing much. And so therefore, we always kind of consider fluid. In training purely indoors tools. South I'll say the northern coast of New South Wales where temperatures are actually don't change too much in the pool fluid during training is probably not too much of a concern, similar to racing. 

Greg Shaw  09:26

But once you get over that 28 degrees and the pool temperature starts to rise. And this goes to training as well. You know, there becomes a bit of a tipping point of that tipping points at around about 28.5 - 29 degrees. And once you go over that tipping point and intensity increases, you get a decoupling of thermal regulatory control. And so the body starts sweating and quite profusely sweating thing trying to lose heat via convective measures. But it can't do that because there's no evaporative cooling that goes on. And so you get a decoupling of the thermal regulation capably. with ease, and so you get sweating, but without their convective heat loss. And so, you know, in water temperatures above 29, you know, you can be seeing quite large fluid losses over that period. So in our open water races, particularly for something like Tokyo, you know, we use slushies, we use hyperhydration, we were sodium loading, we were ingesting that 240 grams of carbohydrate came from around about one and a half litres of fluid that was temperature control. So we ensured that we the temperature was 14 degrees Celsius so that there was a perceptive cooling effect, as well as being not too cold that you could ingest that volume of water in a really short period of time. So some of those types of things. 

Greg Shaw  10:42

You know, when we go to races where it is thought we actually prepare for we train for we identify that well in advance, you know, we've done work with some of the leaders in thermoregulatory. Control Ali J. And Sam Charmers has to come up with heat stress indexes, so that we can identify, you know, races that are going to be challenging for our swimmers and we can prepare for that. And so, you know, we do sauna work, we do heat acclimation work, we actually have protocol where we can heat the pools up to 32 degrees, and we undertake 10k sessions in those types of swimming environments, and summer for our guys, our pool in Noosa. That's outside without a lot of beverage control, and it's really humid, it's really hard to keep it below 30 degrees, which is fine for learn to swim and find for the average retiree who's doing their 1k on a Wednesday morning. But for anyone who's doing some hard training, it really becomes claustrophobic and overwhelming. And so yeah, nutrition becomes a big part of that.

Taryn Richardson  11:42

Do you know what the sweat rates are roughly around those instead of temperatures, obviously, it would be individual, but if it's sort of 100 to 300 mils in cooler environment.

Greg Shaw  11:51

It can get up to the 800 to a leader. So someone could lose up to two litres over over that type of session, particularly as you go above 30 degrees, the water is still pretty conductive at that temperature. And there's still enough of a thermal gradient to dissipate heat. You know, when we do core temperature monitoring and those types of races, we rarely get over 40 degrees. So just recently, in World Championships, we did some core temperature monitoring of our 10k swimmers and Chelsea Qhubeka, our silver medalist in that race she capped out at around about 39.8 I think, so there's definitely evidence in more terrestrial activities of high intensity athletes where you know, you're in the 40s and above. So even though the water temperatures are getting up there, it's not performance limiting if we prepare appropriately for it.

Taryn Richardson  12:41

And do you know, if there's any data in swimmers like triathletes that would swim in a wetsuit?

Greg Shaw  12:47

So again, for us, like, I mean, we don't have that challenge, because we can only use wetsuits below for certain temperatures, and they're 18 and 20 degrees. So, you know, it's now changed where we can't use a wetsuit above 18 degrees. So, you know, when you're in those types of water temperatures, the wetsuits, they're actually for thermo regulatory improvement, and so you're not losing heat to the water to become hypothermatic. And so, there's not a lot of data around recreational activities where you know, you are above 20 - 24 degrees, from a wetsuits perspective, I can appreciate that, you know, a triathlete, you know, might do a couple of K in it, I haven't actually ever come across this, but doing a wetsuit in 10 kilometer race with water temperatures, about 24 degrees, I would assume would lead to a good amount of sweating because you just don't, you don't have the ability to dump it to the water in the same fashion. 

Greg Shaw  13:45

But I would expect that it likely be limiting from arm fatigue perspective, because as you add the wetsuit and you go longer, you know, does add significant fatigue to the shoulders from a neuromuscular perspective. And even our guys who are well practiced at wearing a wetsuit had different fatigue patterns off the back of a 10k versus two to 10k. You know, just by covering the torso, even though there's additional kind of effects off the back of the day after weather, significantly fatigue, so you'd probably be more sore from wearing a wetsuit for 10k in warm water than from dehydration. Yeah, crazy.

Taryn Richardson  14:23

I actually hate wearing a wetsuit for that reason, like I just feel so restricted and your deltoids sting out faster. And I would wear a no sleeved one but interesting that you say that there's still fatigued without it.

Greg Shaw  14:36

Yeah, in open water swimming, we're not allowed to wear a sleeveless because of the temperatures we're dealing with. And obviously with triathlon, it's a bit different. So that would then negate some of the shoulder issues but again, even just covering the torso they're pulling down on traps is is fatiguing in a different way.

Taryn Richardson  14:53

Yeah, I actually find because it makes you so much more buoyant. My whole form is different and I get a sore back because I'm so pulling In the water, whereas other athletes use a wetsuit to make more streamline.

Greg Shaw  15:05

Yeah, and it's the same with the Super Suits like that we saw around 2009 with our wetsuits, you know, it doesn't make the top guys better. They actually hate using the because you actually bring into the poor swimmers out to them. And so the plaques are more congested, it is rougher, and it really suits bigger bodies, more muscular bodies, more dense bodies. So they can then deliver force with higher buoyancy, which means that they don't fatigue as much. And so, you know, it does change the dynamics of the race. And you know, there is a nutrition implication of that if we are using those certain muscles more aggressively in a wetsuit, then we've obviously got to be more aggressive with our kind of nutrition support to make sure that fatigue isn't the limiting factor in performance,

Taryn Richardson  15:49

Cool, love picking your brain charades is always like some really good gold nuggets that I pick up on. I'm like, I didn't know that. 

Greg Shaw  15:55

That's what I'm here for. 

Taryn Richardson  15:57

Okay, so if we're looking at, say, 10k, open water swimming, definitely glycogen depleting, particularly for somebody that might be wearing a wetsuit. So something like carbohydrate loading would be useful and beneficial.

Greg Shaw  16:10

I think so, you know, it gives a better capability from fatigue resistance perspective, and means that the ingestion of carbohydrate during the race is going to be more effective, because you're not chasing losses as much, it does come down to data feeding availability, during the race, like what's the frequency and the opportunity of that, you know, if we come back to the open water, hot water races, we just published a paper off the back of the Olympics, which kind of went through how you might manipulate the environment and the race layout to be able to support performance in higher water temperatures. 

Greg Shaw  16:44

And so traditionally, in open water races, when we first started, they were point to point. So you start one point, and you swim to another, and you have feeders in boats that could go out and kind of feed you as you need it. And there were some regulations around how frequently you could feed them and zones and all those types of things. And then as we evolved into, you know, an Olympic discipline, we definitely looked at, you know, how you deliver that, and it was two and a half K lap. So you really only had potentially three opportunities to feed in that race. And in that instance, it's really hard to consume large volumes of carbohydrate, you know, in short durations of time. So a typical feed for an open water swimmer, maybe five seconds, they'll pick the bottle out, they'll roll on their back, you know, and depending on the intensity and the the aggressiveness of the race, they may try and just quickly, some of them might be calm. 

Greg Shaw  17:32

And because they're at the lead of the race and kind of do a bit of backstroke, you know, while they listen to what the coaches got to say, and they have a bit of a drink, and then they try the bottle back and then they roll over that short period of time, it's not like you can take your hands off the handlebars of the bike and open the gel and socket and make sure you squeeze all that out. And those things just aren't capable and open water. So as you reduce the lap size, the frequency of feeding opportunities increases, which is great if you want to manage heat, because you can get more fluid in you get more carbohydrate in. And so therefore that influences the capability from a carbohydrate perspective and a feeding perspective. 

Greg Shaw  18:07

So I think it comes down to well, what is the feeding opportunities in the race and, you know, if you're doing something like a Rottnest, Island swim, you know, 19 kilometers across the channel there in Perth, cool water, you know, when you can actually pull up again, next to the boat and feed as often as you want? Well, then, you know, you can really be creative with how often and how much you take in during the race and carbohydrate loading beforehand, probably not too relevant. The situation where you start at one point and you go to the next and there's no feeding available at all, the only one we know of opportunity, well, then carbohydrate loading becomes really, really important. So I think that's the one thing for me that, you know, when I was an early career dietician, I thought, yeah, I know all this type of stuff. And, you know, I just tell them what to do. And it'll all be fine. And we'll do the maximum amount and but the one thing that I've learned now, and one of the strengths of our program from assuming perspective in Australia, is the ability to understand what performance takes and be really diligent with our planning and preparation for that. 

Greg Shaw  19:07

And I think that can be done by all levels of athlete, whether they be recreational, or elite, and taking the time to start at the end and work your way back. Start at what you want to achieve and how you want to do it. And then work your nutrition back. Like that's the money if you've got an opportunity to spend $1 spend it on planning and preparation, because that will be where the dividends and the multiples will return in race.

Taryn Richardson  19:33

Love it. So if somebody is six months away from say, a 10k, open water swim, what are the sorts of things you need to start thinking about to prepare for that?

Greg Shaw  19:41

Yeah, I think about you know, what's the environment going to look like? Is it gonna be a saltwater race? Is it going to be a freshwater race so anyone who's done an open water race will know that a fresh water race is harder than a saltwater race because of fresh water. You feel like you're fighting against it. You sink in the water, there's no buoyancy associated with it. We're in a saltwater race. You feel like you're sitting on top of water a bit more, it's actually quite an odd environment, you're often can see the bottom, and there's lots of nice things going on. 

Greg Shaw  20:06

So I think planning ahead is really important like getting an understanding of what implication that's going to have. So even things like the freshwater race, you know, salty feeds are probably going to be something that's going to be enjoyable and possible. Whereas, if you're doing saltwater arrays, salty feeds will not be your friend, because you're probably ingesting salt water over that period as well. And it makes you feel pretty disgusting from that perspective. So sweater, more concentrated feeds might be actually beneficial in that style of water. 

Greg Shaw  20:36

I think you're trying to understand water temperature, as you've said, whether you gonna wear a wetsuit or not, and then go What time do I want to swim, how much of a percentage of my you know, kind of maximum intensity will that be, and then you can do some calculations around how much carbohydrate you're gonna need, whether that be from the feeds that you get from a feeder, or you know, what you need to do from a glycogen loading perspective, to be able to kind of ensure that that's not a problem. Even things like considering what kind of stroke rates are going to be holding in the early parts compared to the last parts, they're all going to influence, you know, the requirement from a carbohydrate and fluid perspective, and then you can practice. 

Greg Shaw  21:11

So to give you an essence, you know, with something like Karina, for example, at the Olympics, we did five swims in a 32 degree pool at 10k. With kind of a really specific pacing strategy prior to even going to a hot water camp in Darwin and doing our heat acclamation work. So the more comfortable you are, with the process you want to deliver, the easier it's going to be on the day.

Taryn Richardson  21:35

So do you recommend doing the distance in a swim because a lot of triathletes will not do like 190k bike ride, or they won't run a marathon in training. But a lot of swimmers swim way beyond what their actual event is, like you think about 100 meter swim as they swim 20k's a week? What do you recommend for a 10k open water swimmer?

Greg Shaw  21:56

Well, our guys have a range of different volumes that they do, they can go anywhere from about 65k a week, up to 100k a week, some even go further than that, depending on the distance that they look at. But I think he comes back to the fact that the mechanical load assuming is less than running and riding, there's no weight bearing component to it. So therefore, you know, it's actually quite easy to do the volume without the mechanical stress and recovery required between those sessions. So the one thing you know, we definitely have seen a change in the way people train is around intensity, like, you know, we have swimmers that will hit close to their pool speeds in the last 100 to 400 meters or have a 10k race. 

Greg Shaw  22:40

And so that comes from just repetition and practice of that. But I think I think more so. And this is the same for all nutrition. And I'm sure this is something you do in your education as well, as you hear in your podcast all the time familiarisation with the nutrition strategy just makes it so much more achievable. And it just means it's autonomic. In regards to you don't have to think about it. You don't have to worry about the consequences. And I think one of the things I find funny at times, and this is even in elite level is your athlete comes to a race and they're like, I'm now going to do this. I'm like, Okay, well, let's see how this goes for you. And, and it goes pear shaped. And, you know, it's like, oh, I didn't think it was going to happen. But this happened. And this happened. And it was because of these reasons. It's like, well, no, it's not because you've you just haven't practiced it. And the race played out differently to what you thought what had been so I think, yes, say planning and preparation is really key in open water as it is with any other nutrition strategy. 

Taryn Richardson  23:36

Practice, practice, practice, always, no point doing anything new on race day, it's a golden rule of racing, right?

Greg Shaw  23:42

Yeah. And that comes down to even the form in which you consume the carbohydrate. So the amount might be similar. But you know, whether it be in a dilute drink, whether it be from a gel versus a gel flask, the type of bottle that you use, you know, I know, our student has put a lot of thought into the type of plastic bottle that they use to feed from, they don't want to mouth that's too big, because the fluid gets delivered too quickly. They don't want to now that's too small, because it comes out too slowly takes them too long. You know, they want something that they can actually squeeze and crushed some of the actual volume out and help force it out. But they don't want something that'll fall apart when they grab it. 

Greg Shaw  24:18

So we're starting to get more regulation around the form of the bottles that we use, rightly so from an environmental perspective. There's an expectation now that all our our feeding bottles and cups are biodegradable. And so they do get left in the ocean environment. It's not a consequence for the environment greater than a couple of days. But with that, like we've had to work with the kind of producers and suppliers of those products to say, well we don't want them out to be we wanted this you know, make sure you put a lid on it. 

Greg Shaw  24:46

That's important because if we're shaking it up before we provide it to the athletes will then without the lead things go everywhere. It's easy to to disregard those as they'll be right on the day but the more you can play and to prepare for that with your nutrition professionals who are working through some of those things, you know, the better you will be and the more comfortable you will you be in that environment and just doesn't become a challenge. Because there'll be a bunch of other challenges going on from an intensity, you know, a tactical perspective, particularly for us, you know, that you need to deal with and respond to

Taryn Richardson  25:18

So many good practical tips there. Do you have any tips for troubleshooting if someone in an open water swim, or even just an Ironman Distance event swallows heaps of salty water? And how do you come back from that?

Greg Shaw  25:29

Yeah, I think it's being calm. And thinking through the problem logically, from an athlete's perspective, oftentimes, you see panic, in that situation where, you know, if I swallow too much salty water will, then I need to counteract it with more fresh water to flush it through. Whereas the body's pretty capable to be able to deal with some of that stuff. And it's, oftentimes, you see the consequences drag on, or be greater, because people overreact to it. So I don't know if any of you kind of listeners have seen this, but when we feed, we feed on the end of a long pole, and we've got a cap on the end of it. And you know, there's arms going everywhere, and quite often, someone will snack on a feed out of the beating cup. 

Greg Shaw  26:11

And so an athlete may rock up, and there's nothing there. Or, as they gotta put it in their mouth, someone knocks it out of their hand. And so they've got to be adaptable enough to realise, okay, this isn't the end of the world or get a feed on the next lap, you've got that capability built into it. And, you know, they've got to be able to roll with those consequences. And, and, you know, like, contact is a big one for us, you know, where we've had broken eye sockets, we've had pieces of goggles lodged in eyelids and stuff, and oftentimes, we'll have an ophthalmologist as a part of our medical emergency medical teams, because it is, you know, like a stray elbow, you know, a hand in the you got glass around it, like it is it is something like that. 

Greg Shaw  26:50

So, you know, it's the same with nutrition, just being able to absorb it, reset, and work with your feet are to have contingencies in place, the other one thinks really important, and they have a way of communicating with your feeder for us, that isn't verbal, because, you know, like with us, when we're moving through the feed zone, lots of yelling, lots of screaming, your head underwater, you might be able to see them, but you really can't hear that. And so how do you communicate tactical information or also requirements to your feeder and vice versa? That that is you know, effective. Again, you know, from a recreational perspective, that may not seem you know, useful, but if you kind of go well I need goggles, I need new goggles I need a new cap you know, I missed the feed, can you go with the second feed rather than the first feed? You've got to have a way of being able to get that across because that's where panic in an overreaction sets in?

Taryn Richardson  27:45

Yeah, and time to like, if you're really going fast, and we're looking to win. That's a big time saver, too. 

Greg Shaw  27:50

Yeah, just that calmness. 

Taryn Richardson  27:51

So good Shawy, honestly, my mind is like spinning already. So what I wanted to do was get you to hang around if I could, we're going to hit pause on the podcast sorry, guys, and dive into some of the real practicalities of feeding somebody in a 10K open water swim because I've got a lot of Academy athletes preparing for ultra man Australia next year, and they've got no idea what they're doing. And you were the best person to help just calm their nerves at this point in the game so they can do some planning and preparation. So thank you very much for joining me, Greg Shaw. 

Greg Shaw  28:24

Thanks Taryn.

Taryn Richardson  28:27

Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Triathlon Nutrition Academy podcast. I would love to hear from you. If you have any questions or want to share with me what you've learned, email me at [email protected]. You can also spread the word by leaving me a review and taking a screenshot of you listening to the show. Don't forget to tag me on social media, @dietitian.approved, so I can give you a shout out, too. If you want to learn more about what we do, head to dietitianapproved.com. And if you want to learn more about the Triathlon Nutrition Academy program, head to dietitianapproved.com/academy. Thanks for joining me and I look forward to helping you smashed in the fourth leg - nutrition!