Reading a book like “Born to Run” by Christopher MacDougall just before going to bed, makes any runner, good or bad, feels that he/she has the superpower ability to run like the Tahumaras or the great ultrarunners mentioned in the book. That is what I have been feeling the past two weeks, but was almost at the point of depression because a few things have been preventing my run. First is my greatest nemesis, an old injury on my neck that makes me feel like an old lady: a suspected degenerated cervical disc due to a bicycle accident 22 years ago. This was the worst I felt it as I could barely move my neck after a 16km trail run 10 days ago. Second reason was the hazy air in Singapore. Now I finally understood why Singaporeans were so upset with us, Indonesians, regarding this forest fire in Sumatera.

Luckily, I am back in Jakarta for the past few days and was so looking forward to my Sunday long run. Unfortunately, my long-run running buddy had some event he had to attend, so I had to do it on my own. And I am one of those runners that needs to be motivated by others during training. I usually have hundreds of reasons why I should stop running when I run my myself. But luckily, not this morning.

Getting up fresh in the morning, armed with my new zero-drop Altra running shoes, did make me feel quite close to the ultrarunners in the book. Inside my head, I was imagining how fast and enjoyable my long run would be and how great I would feel. At the end of the run, those imagination did not come true at all. While we did not have the thick haze like in Singapore but the weather has been extremely hot and for some reasons I felt that everyone in the neighborhood has been burning their waste this morning. Instead of the fresh forest air that a trailrunner supposed to breath, I got choke full of CO2 air.

Returning back home, the first thing that I had in mind was a nice cold drink. Easy for me, we always keep a stash of some green coconut in our fridge. But I thought coconut water alone would not cut my thirst this morning. So I juice some pinneaple with mint leaves, mix it with the coconut water, then add a drizzle of mineral salt into the drink. Wow, that was one great thirst-quencher that really made it up for the lousy weather.

For any of you with easy access to coconut water, like me, who lives in a tropical area (green coconut costs around IDR 15k or USD 1dollar and brown/matured coconut costs around IDR 6k – less than USD 50cents), here is an easy recipe for what I think is a great healthier replacement for sport drinks.

Ingredients:
1 whole green coconut or brown coconut (I personally prefer green coconut because it has more nutritional contents and less calories than the matured one. In terms of taste, the lower calories content translates to less sweet taste)
6 slices of fresh pinneaple
Half teaspoon of himalayan pink salt
Optional: frest mint leaves

1. If you have a juicer, use it to juice both the pinneaple and mint leaves together.
2. Mix the juice with the coconut water
3. Add the salt and stir.
4. Served with ice

If you don’t have a juicer, use a blender to mix everything then add the salt. The pinneaple will give the sweet taste and sugar you need after a run and the pink salt adds the sodium and other minerals the coconut water does not provide. I think this is one of the best and easiest after-sport that I ever had! 🙂