Question for the hydration Guru’s out there.
My daughter is in competitive swimming. The meets last about 3 hours. During this time she swims maybe 5 races. Generally the races are less than 2 minutes each. I don’t have her drink any of the ‘ade’ drinks. She is 10 years old.
Anyone think she would swim better w/ an ‘ade’ drink? I don’t blood glycogen (sp) is an issue since the races are so short and intense and she seems to not want any food (except for a bagel w/ cream cheese).
Thx.
John
nah just give her water. i was a competitve swimmer myself. 5 races lasting less than 2 mins (100 m races??) arent gonna affect yr blood sugar much…i know im diabetic!
we used to eat gummi bears
other than that, just water (not from the pool)
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She is 10.
Forget about the whole issue.
3 hours for a swim meet, I am jealous. My daughter’s swim meets are 7 hours long. It is an all day event.
3 hours is a walk in the park. My “PR” this season was 2 back to back 10 hour days in the stands. (Just out of pure spite I am most definitely going to make my kids get up at 4:30 am to come watch me do a tri this summer.)
The kids’ races are not going to dehydrate them at all, so the only issue is how much they are sweating between races. Since you’re there sweating along with them you can just go by your own state of hydration. Personnaly, I’ve never seen it get to be an issue except for really hot all day outdoor meets.
During my 10& under swimming days, I remember one of the big things was eating jello mix straight out of the box.
I had a coach who would tell us tales of his old Privincial Championships- at the pool for warm-up at 6:00am, and the meet would run past 10:00pm. Made the six hour meets not seem so bad.
oh, right, I remember that - pink and blue tongues
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Well our meets are shorter because they’ve divided everything up by age. Those under 12 go in the morning those over in the afternoon, even at the Sectionals meet. Works out well if you have children in one or the other.
Thanks for everyone’s input. No gatorade for her. Just high quality bagels with extra creame cheese. 
My 11 yr daughter swims also. Her timed finals meets usually last 5 hours, 1 hour for warm-up and then 4 hour session. The meets are always outside and the sun is intense, we live in South Florida. My daughter usually drinks 2 or 3 32 ounce bottles of Gatorade from the time we leave the house until we arrive at home. At one time I was worried about her Gatorade consumption, I thought she was drinking too much. But then she went to a Cardiologist who told us she needed more hydration and told me to increase her sport drink consumption by at least 25%. Another interesting note, my daughter was at the USAT National Training Center for time trials last weekend. They weighed them before and after the swim, 500 yards, and also before and after the run, 3k. My daughter lost 1lb on the swim and only 3/4 lbs on the run, even though the run was later in the afternoon.