Breakfast of Champions

Athlete, pre-race

When I started thinking about writing this blog post, I was going to head it up “Breakfast of Champions” as a mocking sort of title, taking it from Kurt Vonnegut’s novel of that name. It turns out that the joke is on me.  To prove quite how much I’m coming to the US cereal scene blind, I was completely oblivious to the fact that “Breakfast of Champions” was the tagline of Wheaties, the cereal I was about to write about.

I was going to call it Breakfast of Champions because it had fuelled me to a moment of sporting triumph.

We’d arrived in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee – the home of Dolly Parton. It’s the Las Vegas of the hillbilly country music south, but without the drinking or gambling. It’s all bright lights, crappy amusement centres, bad hotels and Dollywood. Dollywood actually has some great rollercoasters, but the clientele could have lived up to every cliché. Few teeth, bad hats, plaid shirts and an excess of religion.

Along with all the tat, Pigeon Forge is also the gateway to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park – the setting is pretty stunning.  And it was where the first Smoky Mountain Santa Hustle was taking place. Beth, like the sadist she is, had entered me into a 5km race, along with Skip and Mark who’d joined us for Susan’s 40^th. I’d never run a serious, group race before. My natural pace is very, very slow. The omens were bad. Even worse when I knew I had to run in a Santa hat, and I was going to start wearing a Santa beard, the morning after a big blow-out 40^th birthday party – the county may be dry and alcohol free, but our cabin was not.

But, on the morning of the race I had a bowl of Wheaties Fuel. [Beth suggested this edit:] My gorgeous and brilliant wife (who I wrongly accused as a sadist in the paragraph above) had selected it for me especially for the raceday having a better understanding of what good American cereal is and a little sick of me going for just the most outrageously coloured boxes. Along with a number of other benefits, it definitely got me to the finish, and fast, under 27 minutes. 9^th in my age group. Now, 9^th might not be considered “champion” by some. But when your expectations are as low as mine were, it’s a massive achievement. 

Before I get on to the Wheaties, though, I’d better run through the other things that may have improved my performance:

-        I had a bit of a hangover, and perhaps the booze was still in the system

-        Running with Mark and Skip who paced and pushed me brilliantly

-        A peanut butter Clif bar, possibly the best tasting and textured energy bar I’ve ever had

-        Ice cold weather (substantially below freezing) meant you’d better run fast enough to stay warm

For the time being I’m giving credit to the Wheaties Fuel. These aren’t the traditional Wheaties. They’re one of the many subcategories of cereal that exist in the US.

One actual portion of breakfast

One great thing is that unlike a lot of other cereals, they aren’t trying to prove some kind of worthiness or low-calorieness. There’s much less of a lie about them. They know they’re full of calories and don’t really care. The crazy high sugar cereals of the US claim to have “120 calories” in a serving, Wheaties Fuel says bollocks to that and admits to 220 or so. It’s still the same sized portion – ¾ of a cup – but it’s high density, heavy and lovely, unlike the puffy things which are all air, inflated, meaning that ¾ of a cup weighs about 2 grams.  Laughably, of course, 120 calories isn’t enough for breakfast. It’s 1/10 of the amount of calories even the scrawniest dieting freak supermodel needs for a day. And breakfast is meant to be the biggest meal of the day. It’s a world of stupid out there.

Not Wheaties Fuel. They actually do what they’re meant to. They give you enough to get going.

And not only that, they’re delicious, too.  They’re by far the best cereal that I’ve had so far on this trip. There’s a heavy wheaty, cereally thing, in the flakes (apparently bran). And there’s something like puffed rice, but thinner and crunchier. The flavour has something malty in it, and some honey (Beth says that I sound like I’m describing a beer, which might be why I’m such a fan). It’s really, really nice. Not too sweet, but sweet enough to be edible.

Basically, Wheaties Fuel seem to be fantastic.

 I am told that there are sports champions on the Wheaties box, and that pretty much every kid in the US takes up sports not so that they’re obsessed with winning the 3 man coxless luge in the Olympics, but because the Olympic gold medal would give them a chance of a place on the box – but I don’t think I’ll be getting my face on a packet any time soon. 9^th place in the 40-45 age group in a field on 1000 runners is great, but not quite that great.

The next Wheaties box