The Road to Recovery

No-sweat salted caramel

Exercise is one of those bad habits I’ve long tried to avoid. Especially the sort that calls for stretch shorts and sweat and—worst of all—sports drinks. That candy-red bottle of sugar-and-salt water strikes me as downright unhealthy. Not to mention vile.

And yet something came over me recently—humiliation, perhaps—that led me to take up bicycling. Not the pleasant coast-to-the-coffee-shop kind, either. The sweaty kind on the bike-to-nowhere. In the (pardon the expression) morning. I get up early. I stretch on shorts. I go nowhere, fast. And sweat.

Which shocks my family, especially our local cyclist, the one who’s committed to biking endlessly, every day, forever. The one who’s fond of energy drinks and power bars and Sport Beans and goo packets.

At first he seemed skeptical. Then surprised. Then scandalized to find me in bed with Bicycling magazine. I even listened to a lecture by a sports nutritionist, the sort of professional who, faced with a steaming bowl of bouillabaisse, sees not life-enhancing stew but performance-enhancing molecules. In short: the enemy.

She explained that the athlete needs protein. But not too much protein. And carbs. But not too many carbs. And fluid. Unless she downs too much fluid, which can do her in. I started feeling shaky.

The athlete needs recovery, she explained. This struck me as sound. The athlete needs a jolt of sugar and salt in order to right the internal chaos caused by sweat and stretch shorts and getting up early.

Suddenly I remembered salted caramel. The way its sticky center sets off its crunchy crust. The way its one-two punch pleases—over and over.

I set to work melting sugar and boiling cream and slicing squares and twisting tight. Each little packet offers the palate a stretch-and-strengthening routine. Each offers a chewy chunk of recovery far tastier than any goo or bean.

Armed with a pocketful of salted caramel, the amateur athlete might even enjoy her workout. At least until she recovers from the urge to exercise.