"You can't put peanut butter in coconut pudding!"

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

I like to use Facebook to post the amazing pictures I take whenever I’m backpacking in the Adirondacks. Once in a while, I’ll put in an update…usually something about my training so that friends can criticize me more easily than they can on the blog. Last night I found that making the appropriate posting can have excellent results.

I mentioned that I was having sugar withdrawal. The more aerobic training I do, the greater my desire for sweets. This is not so uncommon for endurance athletes since the activity they’re doing makes great demands on their storage of glycogen (sugar stored in muscles that fuels aerobic activity). The glycogen is depleted and needs to be replaced before the next bout of exercise and if it isn’t, endurance performance will suffer. Let me make it clear that my performances never suffer for lack of sugar intake…I got that going for me.

So…I needed something late Wednesday night and posted that there was no ice cream, cookies, pudding, cobbler or other sweets in the house. Five minutes later, Holly was in the kitchen, clanging pans around and mumbling something about my being a ‘whiner’. I am a whiner and tend to ignore the word when I hear it, but I couldn’t figure out what I’d been whining about that she’d have heard since I was downstairs and she was up in her office.

“I saw your posting on Facebook, whiner baby girlie man, and so I’m making you some pudding. You don’t like chocolate, do you,” she said. Actually, I’ll eat about anything.

“Well…it’s not my favorite, but I’ll take it,” I said. She found some coconut, which I said was fine and she started cooking.

“You gonna put some peanut butter in it?” I asked. She looked up from the stove like I’d lost my mind. She always put peanut butter in pudding, though I suppose it was vanilla and chocolate.

“You don’t put peanut butter in coconut pudding,” she said with some disgust, like I was a moron or something. I responded with an ‘oh’ since I didn’t want to push my luck. She finished it and left it in the pan on the stove to cool some before pouring it into pudding glasses. I wasn’t waiting for that nonsense. I went into the kitchen, grabbed the peanut butter jar and a spoon and began shoveling it into the still-hot pudding. It melted nicely into the dessert. I scooped out a large quantity into a cereal bowl and immediately began to eat. It was perfect…and you can, in fact, add peanut butter to coconut pudding with excellent results.

I’d done a long ride earlier, which is what I blamed for my craving. I’d put in a 2-hour effort over a road I hadn’t ridden before and won’t be riding again. I’d picked up Caves off of Mulberry and headed south to Dines/Pekin. I wanted to try something different and since it’s hillier, I knew it would be more challenging. It’s a very busy road after work though, and has no shoulder to speak of. I don’t recommend it. I returned on my more traditional and favorite route.

John didn’t ride with me as we’d planned because he is still laying in bed recovering from our trip to the Adirondacks. It was a grueling event for someone his age and will take him some time to get back in the swing. He’s not the man he…well… never was…and it’s getting worse. Maybe he’ll be recovered enough by the weekend to give it another try. As for me…back to running tomorrow.

P.S.  Postman:  Let me know when you're in town...we'll do Slyman's together..then run...they puke.
Bike duration: Two hours.
Training Heart Rate: 120 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 1,800.