Most pilots spend weeks planning their flying week — checking forecasts, preparing equipment, booking flights. Very few spend five minutes thinking about how to manage their energy across seven consecutive days of physical and cognitive effort in the open air.
Paragliding burns roughly 230 calories per hour, not because you are doing heavy exercise, but because you are holding a sustained cognitive load — reading the air, making continuous decisions, managing the wing actively in thermic conditions — while your body regulates temperature in an Atlantic coastal environment. By day five or six of a hard week, the pilots who have slept poorly and eaten carelessly are making subtly worse decisions in the air. They do not always notice it themselves. I do.
This guide is what I share with guests before every Sesimbra coaching week. It is practical, not prescriptive. Sesimbra has outstanding food and a warm evening culture — the goal is to enjoy it fully while performing well in the air every morning.
Why Energy Management Matters as Much as Weather Management
A pilot who is tired, dehydrated, or running on yesterday's wine makes different decisions than a rested, well-fuelled one. Not dramatically different — but marginally different in exactly the situations where margins matter: the go/no-go call at the launch, the decision to push a glide vs land safely, the response to unexpected turbulence.
In competition flying, this is well understood. Elite pilots treat the week before a competition like an athlete treats a game week — structured sleep, controlled nutrition, limited alcohol. Most recreational pilots treat a coaching holiday like any other holiday: stay up late, drink wine, eat heavily, sleep in. That is a perfectly reasonable approach to a week in Sesimbra if you are not trying to fly. But if you want to get the most out of every day in the air, small adjustments make a real difference.
The Hydration Problem — and Why Atlantic Air Makes It Worse
The most common nutrition mistake I see among visiting pilots is under-hydration. Not dramatically — they drink water. But not enough, and not at the right times.
During a 90-minute paragliding flight, you lose approximately 1.5–2 litres of water through breathing and sweating, even on a cool Atlantic coastal day. By the time you feel thirsty, you are already behind. Mild dehydration — 2% body weight — measurably impairs concentration, reaction time, and judgement. On a training flight where I am asking you to focus on centering thermals and making route decisions, impaired concentration is not abstract; it translates directly to worse flying.
The Atlantic coastal environment adds a specific complication: the sea breeze at Sesimbra is dry. Relative humidity at 15°C coastal air can drop to 50–60% when the northerly is running, which draws moisture from your airways faster than humid inland air. You lose more water per hour breathing dry coastal air than you would in a sheltered valley.
The practical fix:
- 1 litre of water before leaving the accommodation in the morning
- 500ml in the car on the way to launch
- Water in your harness hydration pack or a bottle in a side pocket for flights over 1.5 hours
- Mineral water (not sparkling) at lunch and dinner — replenish salts, not just fluids
- Coconut water or electrolyte tabs if you are flying multiple long sessions per day
Check your urine colour before leaving for the site. Pale yellow: you are well hydrated — good to go. Dark yellow: drink 500ml before you launch. Dark amber: drink 1 litre, eat a salty snack, reconsider whether you are ready to fly thermics for 3 hours. It sounds simple because it is. Most pilots skip this check entirely.
Pre-Flight Eating — What Works and What Doesn't
Paragliding in turbulent thermic conditions with a full stomach is uncomfortable in the way that matters most: it is distracting. Nausea draws attention away from the wing. The pre-flight eating window requires more care than most pilots give it.
The morning routine that works well:
- Breakfast (2+ hours before flight): substantial and slow-release. Muesli with milk or yoghurt, wholegrain toast with eggs or avocado, fruit. This gives sustained energy that does not spike and crash. A café galão (Portuguese latte) is fine — caffeine sharpens alertness at low doses.
- 30 minutes before launch: nothing heavy. A banana, an energy bar, a handful of nuts. Enough to keep blood sugar stable but nothing that will sit heavily in your stomach in turbulence.
- In flight (flights over 2 hours): something small and easy to access — a gel, half a cereal bar, dates. Carry it in a chest harness pocket you can reach with one hand without taking your eyes off the wing.
What consistently causes problems:
- A large cooked breakfast immediately before launch (common among UK pilots — the full English habit does not transfer well to morning flights)
- Strong espresso on an empty stomach — acidic and stimulating in a way that increases anxiety rather than focus
- Skipping breakfast entirely and relying on adrenaline — decision-making degrades fast when blood sugar is low at altitude
- Eating a heavy midday meal before an afternoon flight — Sesimbra's harbour restaurants are excellent and the temptation is real. Eat light, then go fly, then eat properly in the evening.
The Ideal Day's Eating on a Coaching Week
Alcohol — The Honest Conversation
Sesimbra is a Portuguese village with excellent local wine, an unhurried pace, and restaurants that stay open until midnight. A coaching week here is also a holiday, and I would never suggest treating it like an athlete training camp. But I have seen too many pilots wonder why they are tired and slightly off-form by day five without connecting it to the three glasses of wine every evening.
Alcohol impairs several things that matter for paragliding:
- Sleep quality: even moderate alcohol disrupts REM sleep — you sleep the hours but do not recover as well. After three consecutive nights, the deficit accumulates.
- Next-day decision-making: mild hangover effects — slightly impaired working memory, slower processing — are not dramatic, but they affect the quality of judgement calls.
- Hydration: alcohol is a diuretic. Drinking wine in the evening and not compensating with extra water leaves you starting the next morning already dehydrated.
My practical suggestion: enjoy wine with dinner on the evenings you fly well and deserve it. On evenings where tomorrow's forecast looks exceptional and you want to be at your best, drink one glass and switch to water. By mid-week you will have noticed the difference in how you feel at the launch.
Sleep and Cognitive Fatigue
Decision-making in the air is a cognitive task. Thermal centring, route selection, go/no-go calls, reading weather transitions — all of these draw on the same mental resources that fatigue depletes. A pilot on day six with five short nights of sleep is categorically a different pilot than they were on day one, even if they feel fine.
The signals of cognitive fatigue in flying:
- Taking longer to make decisions that should feel automatic
- Losing track of your position or planned route
- Reacting to wing movements a fraction slower than usual
- A feeling of wanting the flight to be over rather than wanting to find the next thermal
- Irritability on the launch — a reliable late-week signal I watch for in guests
When I see these in a pilot, I keep the day's flying shorter and closer to the site. Not because the flying is dangerous — we are always in appropriate conditions — but because a tired pilot gets less value from coaching and takes less away from the day.
Practical sleep targets for a coaching week:
- Arrive the day before the week starts — never arrive the morning of day one jet-lagged
- 7–8 hours each night is the target; 6 is survivable short-term but the deficit shows by day four
- An early night on day three (mid-week) pays dividends on days five and six
- A 20-minute afternoon nap after a long morning flight and before a review session is genuinely effective — not lazy, strategic
One of the overlooked benefits of Sesimbra as a base is the food culture. Fresh Atlantic fish, olive oil, vegetables, legumes, and excellent local bread — the local diet maps almost perfectly onto what sports nutritionists would design for a flying athlete week. The challenge is not finding good food here; it is resisting the temptation to over-eat, over-drink, and stay out too late. Sesimbra after dark is genuinely enjoyable. That enjoyment is best sustained by not overdoing it any single night.
Nutrition Comparison: Flying Week vs Standard Holiday
| Aspect | Standard Holiday Approach | Coaching Week Approach |
|---|---|---|
| Breakfast | Light or skipped; coffee only | Substantial; slow-release carbs + protein |
| Hydration | Water when thirsty | Proactive; 2L+ before first flight, more in flight |
| Pre-flight snack | None or coffee | Small slow-release snack 30 min before |
| Lunch | Full restaurant meal including wine | Moderate; avoid heavy meals before afternoon flight |
| Evening wine | 2–3 glasses routinely | 1–2 glasses + compensating water; early nights mid-week |
| Sleep | Late to bed (midnight+), variable | Target 7–8 hours; early night on day 3 |
None of this is extreme. It is the difference between a good coaching week and an exceptional one. Pilots who arrive already thinking about their energy management — who have read this before they pack — consistently get more out of the week than pilots who figure it out by day four when they are already tired.
The flying is the reason you are here. Everything else is in service of that. Eat well, sleep enough, drink water, and Sesimbra will look after the rest.