You are currently browsing the monthly archive for June, 2007.
Drool.
Anyone who is into multi-sport activities will understand the importance of fuelling and nutrition and pleasant tasting ones at that. Gone are the days when 100plus and H-Two-O were all I thought I needed for my training sessions (they even put a photo of a guy on a Trek bike on the 100plus can, convincing me that it really was all I needed). Besides fluid and electrolyte replenishment, there is an even more important dimension of fuelling called energy replacement.
The logic is simple: your body burns up all the carbohydrates when you’re in the thick of action, so what better way to fuel up than to mix in carbs in your water! There may be energy bars, gels, jelly beans and what-have-yous, but when you’re spinning up and down the undulating hills at breakneck speed, dying of thirst and someone is sitting hot behind your wheels, the last thing you want to do is fumble with energy bar wrappers and jelly bean packets.
The result? A HUGE market for energy drinks is born.
I have been experimenting with a few of the more popular brands in Singapore. Actually, that’s all I can lay my hands on because the market is small and that’s all that is available to us.
I started out with a canister of Accelerade, then got bored and decided that I’d try something new. So I bought two individual-serving sachets of PowerBar Endurance and one of Hammer Heed.
This is the verdict, in order of my preference (from least to most):
1. HAMMER HEED (Lemon-Lime flavour)
Taste: Awful, the worst of the lot. It had the same aftertaste as the liquid antibiotics I ate when I was a kid. It made me want to gag, definitely not an ideal race-day drink.
Solubility: Great. There was no residue or clumping.
2. ACCELERADE (Orange flavour)
Taste: Pleasant. I actually liked it.
Solubility: Accelerade fails where solubility is concerned. Despite vigorous shaking/stirring/swirling, there was residue aplenty and some clumping as well. It’s like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates – you never know when a clump is going to hit you.
3. POWERBAR ENDURANCE (Lemon-Lime flavour) – THE WINNER!
Taste: This is my favourite of the lot. It tastes pleasant and citrusy enough to make you feel like you’re drinking lemonade on a hot day.
Solubility: Great. No residue, no clumping.
I made The Best Pasta Salad for you.
I also made The Best Tzatziki, The Best Tiramisu and The Best Sausages for you too.
It is always refreshing to break away from the monotony of routine, and to escape the humdrum of fingers hitting wearily at the keyboard. Once in a while, it is good to kick off your shoes and break the rules that we have unknowingly confined ourselves within.
During my lunch break today, the 2 office tri nuts and I literally did just that. When everyone had left for lunch (we waited evidently to avoid stares), we jumped out of our office garb and into our running gear (I felt like Superman), and took off for a run under the blazing noon sun. We ran from the office to South Buona Vista and back with some gentle slopes along the way, covering a total of 8.4km in 56 minutes. I found the route to be relatively easy despite having to negotiate some tricky traffic situations and road bends.
Not impressive timing there, but I felt good. I half expected myself to cop out on the way back (uphill all the way) but I felt better running uphill than down. I can’t put my finger to it, but I have a suspicion that it’s got something to do with running, being out in the sun, and it being some sort of escapism from reality (albeit short-lived).
By the time we got back to the office, I was sweaty, mucky and branded with new tan lines. But I felt soooo daaarn goood, it certainly kept the spirits up for the rest of what would otherwise have been a long-drawn Friday afternoon.
In less than a minute, I managed to convince my first Melburnian race buddy to join me for the Melbourne (Half) Marathon. It didn’t take much effort to begin with since she already is a keen runner who just needs a little prodding. We are also eagle-eyeing JT to join us – that’s chicken feed for Mr.-Swimmer-who-outruns-his-army-commander. That’s just as well, because it means I might have found a swimming coach too.
Northern Indian food, sinfully rich cakes, frozen margaritas and 4 ladies (cousins in fact, albeit a decade older than I).
You bet we had a great night out.
Editing season’s begun and I’ve got myself started on the first two lines of the Jman’s thesis introduction. I couldn’t help but laugh when I read this comic strip just now:
Click on image to enlarge.
The Jman’s English is actually pretty good, but I still got a good chuckle out of this!
Image courtesy of Stomp.
What I love best about birthdays in the family, or any occasion for that matter, is the food.
Tradition has it that we celebrate every Fathers’ and Mothers’ Days with a steamboat dinner at the sister’s in-laws’ home. Birthdays are an equally grand affair, and is often celebrated around the dinner table as well.
In today’s case, it was both lunch and dinner.
It is Dad’s birthday today and his 3 little pigs took him out for lunch at Kai San, a Japanese restaurant seated quietly beside the courtyard of the Raffles Hotel. It is so quiet that it often goes unnoticed by passers-by. Yet despite its understated facade, it serves up some of the finest Japanese cuisine I’ve had in Singapore and remains at the top of my list where distinctively GOOD Japanese food is concerned, perfectly justifying its hefty price tag.
The afternoon was spent running errands and doing miscellaneous things, but the evening saw the reprise of Dad’s birthday parade over at the dodgier end of Singapore, where the island’s best food secrets are kept. Geylang is a treasure cove of local delights; from seafood to sex, Geylang’s (in)famous for them all.
Tonight, we satisfied our crustacean-cravings at the No Signboard restaurant, ironically one of the most famous seafood restaurants around. So much is the power of understatedness, eh? Crabs, crayfish, prawns – we feasted like there was no tomorrow and stuffed our faces silly till we almost literally had to roll ourselves out the door.
But no meal is complete without fruit, so the hunt for durians began and sure enough, we emerged from the stall triumphantly with 3 durians, 3 coconuts, a HUGE bag of mangosteens and a basket of lychees.
It was like…I just came out of paradise, y’know?
When Nakspud sent me news of this, I knew at once that I was heading for paradise. It’s happening on the 7th of October and I’ll be aiming for the half marathon.
I guess this is some sort of compensation for missing out on this year’s Standard Chartered race.
In other news, I managed to convince the Socceroo to sign up for his first duathlon in September. Yay me!
