Breakfast should consist of a good tender porterhouse steak, broiled rare, and thoroughly masticated before swallowing. As a drink, a cup of black tea. Drink no more than absolutely necessary either at meals or any other time.
After breakfast, eaten slowly, no exercise should be taken for about an hour; at the expiration of which time, the crew can get in the boat and row the same distance expected to be rowed in the race, and at a good pace.
After returning from the row, a rub down and then a moderate walk, until shortly before dinnertime. Dinner should consist of roast beef or broiled chicken, with soft boiled eggs, etc.
If any drink is taken, tea or water, in moderate quantity, should be used. After dinner no exercise for about two hours, when the crew take the afternoon pull, which should be over about the same distance and at the same pace as that of the morning.
After coming ashore, rub down as in the morning, with a coarse towel, and then take a moderate walk, returning home about an hour before supper, which, when eaten at all, should be a light one, composed of a little broiled meat, with a piece of dry toast and a cup of tea.
Two meals, at the least, should always be taken; and where only two are taken, they should, in all cases, be what is known as breakfast and dinner, as both these meals, or rather either of them, are more essential to the man in training than supper, particularly if he, as I would advise him to do, rises with the sun and retires at about nine o’clock, or half-past, in the evening.
After a night’s sleep, and after having left the bed at five in the morning and walked or ran two, three or four miles, as well as taking a bath, the system is generally quite importunate for sustenance by seven o’clock or half-past.
This is not always the case, however, in regard to supper; as, after having eaten a hearty dinner, at 1 o’clock, without any other exercise thereafter than the afternoon row, a man with very little practice can accustom himself to doing without more food until the following morning, if he retire at about nine o’clock.
Up with the sun in the morning and pursue the regular plan of bath, walk, etc., unless stormy, in which case exercise indoors should be substituted for the walk.
The dumbells and clubs are proper implements to use for this purpose, and every man in training, whether amateur or professional, should have one or other, or both.