Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California.

Linda Kaiser, one of the most prolific Pacific Ocean channel swimmers in the world, explains, “I remember popping a few Coca-Colas the night before a swim to diffuse the fizz. That’s what I used, de-fizzed Coke.

We hadn’t figured out that we could tie a string to the water bottles so we wasted lots of time and energy trying to throw the bottles over the gunwales into the boat! my feeding times never changed, it was always every hour unless I was getting tired; then it was every 45 minutes. I liked to get into a rhythm and felt stopping any sooner messed with that.

I remember telling Mike Spalding that we weren’t out here to have a picnic when he started to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and drink a mango smoothie on our Maui-to-Molokai swim.

Then, came Hammer Nutrition and Perpetuum. After training and doing a channel, I couldn’t even stand to smell the product for a very long time.
Now there are so many products out there. I think it was easier when there weren’t so many choices.”

Penny Dean, For Catalina we drank every two hours. We drank ERG by Gookinaid. For the double I had a part of a chicken sandwich at the halfway but I couldn’t chew it. I tried cookies but didn’t like them

In England I had ERG with hot tea. I drank at 2 hours 130, 130, 1, 45 minutes. As I acted as my own coach I believed drinking more often was necessary. The following week at Windermere I was still worn out from the Channel so I drank the tea ERG every thirty minutes. I think this was the only reason I was able to finish this swim. I had protein/carbo loaded for the Channel and I couldn’t get in the water for four days afterwards as it was too cold. I was spent. Changing the feeds made all the difference.
Once I became national coach we began testing in the flume trying to find the best feeding times. At the same time I experimented with my athletes having them feed every 10 to 30 minutes depending on temperature and conditions. All of these factors led us to determine 15 minutes was ideal and to adjust in hot or cold water.

Michael Miller Glad to, also I cant help but wonder what the nutritional aspects (or lack thereof) occurred during the first couple Ironman events!!

The year Ian and I swam Kaiwi (Molokai) Channel was 1979, Memorial Day Weekend. We had trained for 4-5 months. Ian had attempted twice before, he said to me there wont be a 4th attempt. His 3rd attempt, my first, was “it”.

We trained and throughout our training found a true love of cold canned peaches. Obviously, the sugar was a plus, but the cold syrup really helped our puffy tongues, bloated lips, and dry mouth. Our paddler kept a supply in plastic bags, though I cannot recall if they were ziplock, or just sealed with a twist. Cold 🍑 peaches, to me was like I was a rat in a labyrinth looking for next drug hit. We slurped the “goods” right from the bag on our training swims.
The next alternative and occasional add on was 🍯 honey. Honey was more occasional, but a really good ‘sugar’ hit. We used a squeeze bottle once again thrown at us from our paddler/escort. In the last month, for some reason, we added “yoghurt” to our feeding regimen. In hindsight, I’d like to believe we were smart enough to realize honey and canned peaches were nothing but simple sugars, burned off and away minutes after intake and we needed something else. But since this was 1979, endurance athletes didn’t have what we now have, literally making it up as we went along. We drank the yoghurt right from the ☕️ cup. For electrolytes, we drank ordinary Gatorade. There was no regimen on feed choices, honey, yoghurt, Gatorade, peaches.

So during crossing of Kaiwi, peaches, honey and yoghurt was our fuel. It must have worked, though dairy must be questionable, it still worked. The other weird thing I recall was feeding every hour, which by today’s standards is practically criminal abuse of ones body.

With several Ironmans having occurred since 1978, in the mid 80’s I started Channel Swimming again with the Auau Channel. Then, there was this fuel drink out in market called Twin Labs “Ultra Fuel” which I swear was the best ever. I think 8 oz had 400 calories, and besides complexity, was good for electrolytes. It’s all I needed, this drink was everything for endurance.

Today, or since MIMS, its CarboPro and Gatorade. 100% of what I need to swim 16+ hours, this combination delivers. I am not paid🤑 by either, I drink from a bottle that lets liquid flow by turning bottle upside down. Frequency is 20-30 minute intervals, or if things go wrong, (bucking a current), I feed when captain says “you can feed”.

Occasional a protein bar goes down good, but randomly I ask for one. With English Channel I had a chicken sandwich while I treaded water watching a HUGE tanker cross in front of me headed to port. I choose what nutrition I want and need, the captain chooses when I get it.

Ii can shorten this up if TMI, lmk

Mahalo

Mike
Harry Huffaker (Add as Preferred Sender)
Date: Sun, Jun 11, 2017 11:56 am
To: Steve Munatones
Hi Steve
The first sentence in your recent e-mail made it rather obvious that you were behind the curve and needed an update. Linda K has been diagnosed with inoperable stage 4 synovial cancer and is undergoing chemo. Indeed very sad. While traveling solo in my RV through New Mexico while at a State Park to confirm that I coulda still play golf after not having played for about 12 years I had a stroke and began to slur my speech big time. I was not in any pain and spent the next 8 days in an El Paso ICU. CAT scan, MRI etc. revealed that I had had a brain bleed due to being prescribed the wrong blood thinner. Some wonderful people did a relay of my RV up to Alberqueque and dropped it off in long term parking at the Airport. I flew from El Paso up to Albuquerque where I met up with another friend and we drove back to Sun Valley together. I’ve been told that I will probably recover fully as the problem was caused by the using the wrong drug. There is not an EEG machine so I will be driving to Twin Falls for an x-ray machine to see if I am well to see if I am well enough to travel AND have a medical procedure done so I will not need to deal further with blood thinners.

I was rather casual with diet, drinks etc. up to 1989. I enjoyed a nice corresporendence with Otto Thanning about his research and results he experienced in the swim he did. I was planning to do basically the same. I used it in training (1 power bar each hour and a combination of European Yogurt (18% fat content) along with MGM a with complex carbohydrate and coconut cream every 2-3 hours). As you know I never got to do a full dress rearearsal thanks to Hurriccanes lurking in the area but I had no problem using it in training. I would not hesitate doing the same thing.

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