Nutrition during and after exercise question

[purple_mog]

Hey folks,

Exercise type: fast walking (3.5mph plus) on rough and varied ground for 15+miles carrying a light day pack
Duration: 8 hours (including lunch and coffee breaks)

For fun I've started to run gently on some of the downhills and other bits but not more than 1-2 miles in total

So - currently I've been drinking plain water, eating Nakd bars/Trek bars/Clif bars (maybe two bars in total, not two of each!) and have gels as a backup (although not needed often).
Lunch is soup/bagel and tofu sausage at lunch

Questions!

*should I be using a rehydration drink during the walks (I am a sweaty beast at the best of times)?
*If yes can I usefully stick with the low cal ones (I am actively trying to lose weight)

*post-exercise this time after 16.5 miles I used a proper protein recovery drink (normally I just have a 500ml carton of choc soya milk) and feel it did me some good in terms of how I felt afterwards. Any thoughts - soy milk good enough, should I add anything to it? Commercial recovery drinks any better?

Thanking you very kindly

PS the frequent long walks are in training for walking the coast to coast next year

[Fallen_Horse]

An 8 hour trek/run? I would definitely bring some coconut water along for the trip.

[thestoatyone]

Are you cramping? If not don't worry about electrolytes, just stick to water. If you are, coconut water sounds good, but any commercial sports drink will do (Sainsburys do a passable isotonic lucozade facsimile that's labelled vegan)

As for recovery, choc soya milk should do the trick, but if you are feeling better on the others then go with that.

[purple_mog]

thanks all

No cramping (just achey muscles the day afterwards, which seems reasonable!) just checking I'm not missing something vitally important

cheers

[skoptic]

You look all good - On the nakd / trek / cliff bars.. I'm leaning towards Trek as they have more protein in them (or try the trek flapjacks too, protein in them as well).

I'm a sweaty betty too - so while it's right that if you're not cramping you might not need, it can't hurt to make sure you have some (often 'race day' means doing more, and sometimes faster than all your training). It doesn't have to be sports drink if you are calorie conscious - these effervescent tablets are 6 cals and give you all your essential electrolytes http://www.nuun.com/ (can get them loads of places in UK)

On recovery drinks - yeah choc soya will be great. Most commercial ones will be without protein (so avoid) or with animal based protein (so avoid)

Good luck - when are you walking?

[purple_mog]

Hey Skoptic!

I'm liking the Trek bars (using the nakd bars as chocolate replacements mostly) and need to order the flapjacks - too little time to make my own

Will try the nuun tabs - had seen them and wondered if they were worth trying. I do tend to get headaches post run or post long walk which I wondered if that might be lack of water and electrolytes...

Will check the protein level on the commercial one I tried versus my choc soya - might just need to drink more, oh the horror

The big date is May 2013 so plenty of time to train etc, but I'm hoping to get into fell running and especially 30miles+ with a work colleague so it all seems to fot together fairly well.