Turkey, Cheese, Ham

Food is said to be a great motivator for working out. I cannot agree more with that statement.

I dragged myself out of bed for our Sunday 21km run this morning. There were very few festive runners - Michael, Ricci, Wong, Peter, Julie, TH, Jason, Siew Lee, Wayne, Lai Chee, Alber, Thomas and myself - and about half the group took a shorter route. It was a slow but not-so-easy run for me. I was trying to wean myself off my reliance on the Endurance drink that was a staple for previous trainings. Alber and I took a wrong extension and went a longer way. At the boring Marina South Pier stretch, I saw Michael and Thomas, who quipped that they were on a recovery walk. Ha, felt so much like joining them on the walk. The return run was a hopscotch mix of jog, walk and... hop. There were so many millipedes crawling on the pavement, I had to do a little tip-toe dance and hop to side step them! I hate creepy crawlies, yucks! Alber, on the other hand, was full of energy, having rested a whole week. He kept running ahead and jogging back to wait for me. I was getting giddy seeing him run in circles.

The only thing that kept me going was the thought of the party my mum was having in the evening, complete with all the requisite xmas feastings. My usual practice was to count my running rhythm. So I started mumbling "Tur-key-Cheese-Ham" to myself. Brilliant! A 4-count beat! And if I wanted to go faster, I would hum "Tur-key, Tur-key" in a 2-beat pace. If I ran a little bit more, I could have an extra ham or cheese. That was the extent of my mathematical grasp. No complicated simultaneous equations. Just a straightforward linear tradeoff between running steps and food bites.

But the run was worth it, and made dinner even more gorgeous. My mum found a wholesale supplier of poultry, cheese, sausages and the likes, and bought an array of food for the party. Looking at the size of the ham leg, I wondered what size the animal was before it met my dining table. Turkey, cheese, ham. Protein recovery? :)