The Best Donut I Ever Had

From the Archive - November, 2018

Yesterday I ate the best donut I ever had. It went down in four bites and I was brushing crumbs out of my beard for the next ten minutes, watching them fall into post-training ice bath and swirl around in tiny eddies on the rippling surface of the water.

I'm taking ice baths right now because at this phase of training my body is in a constant state of semi-mutiny — everything hurts. Waking up in the middle of the night to pee becomes a diagnostic ordeal. After I find balance in the dark, and each step towards the loo sends up a variety of warning lights on the dashboard of my mind, from my biggest toe up through the last vertebrae just beneath my throbbing skull. SERVICE VEHICLE. Yeah, probably should.

But I had to snatch yesterday, heavy. And I managed most of the session well until the last set. The first repetition of two was hard, but I wrestled it overhead and stood up. On the second, I gripped the bar and pulled, thought it was never going to make it. The barbell spat me out and thundered to the rubberized floor.

My brained whirred, in top justification gear.

I was tired before training and that weight would have been hard under any circumstances. My right ankle is really the only thing holding me back from finishing that lift strong. This is still more than I was snatching last year in November. 

It was a perfectly reasonable result. I understood why I missed the attempt. Perhaps I even understood it before I pulled it from the ground. Maybe that's the definition of fate.

I took off my shoes and sat and sweated from the end of my nose for a minute. Screw this. The shoes went back on and all of a sudden I was angry. Angry that I didn’t have my authentic moment — that moment where you truly don’t know the outcome but throw your full self into the arena anyway and live with the consequences. I gripped the bar again. Two reps, done. When the weight thundered down this time it was from me hurling it into the floor and screaming at my white-knuckled fists.

It felt good to disobey my own expectations, and in doing so, realizing how often I don’t.

Minutes later one of the strength coaches poked his head out of his office holding a pink box. “There’s a couple left if you want one.” It was as if the universe was rewarding my mental fortitude, at least that’s how I saw it. My resilience deserved punctual recompense.

Maybe that’s the definition of karma.

My diet has me consume carbohydrates with my protein. You see, simple carbs flood the bloodstream with glucose and trigger an insulin response from the pancreas. That insulin creates an environment conducive to protein anabolism, insofar as it instigates an acceleration of amino acid absorption. These carbs should be quick to break down, sugars, ideally, and must be ingested soon after training is completed, in tandem with a protein supplement.

I walked over to the box and grabbed a donut. The gym was closing, the lights snapping off around me, and I was the last athlete inside. Hunched over a trashcan so that I wouldn’t drop crumbs all over the floor, dripping sweat into the black plastic, I ate the donut. Four bites. I was laughing as I chewed the pastry down.