The Herald's Steve Deane powered his way through the massive breakfast Olympic superstar Michael Phelps eats each morning, and then tried to beat his own PB in the pool
KEY POINTS:
Michael Phelps may be the greatest Olympian of all time but he doesn't know a thing about breakfasts.
That's my recurring thought as I manfully tuck in to a third slice of French toast covered with powdered sugar.
The concoction is apparently a key component in the carb-crazy breakfast that has fuelled the mighty Phelps during a career that has made him the most successful Olympian of all time at just 23.
Quite frankly, it's crap.
Of all the evils visited on the world by the culturally imperialist United States, perhaps none is more heinous than this mismatch of sweet and savoury that somehow passes for breakfast. Pancakes and waffles before the sun is over the yardarm? You've got to be kidding, mate.
Speaking of which, next up in the unrelenting feast the Weekend Herald has tasked me with devouring is an enormous chocolate sauce-covered crepe. That's crepe, stupid. It's a substitute for the three chocolate-chip pancakes Phelps polishes off each morning.
The idea behind this exercise is simple. Take the most athletically gifted man at the Herald and see if a Phelps breakfast can transform him into a super athlete. It says a lot about the journalistic profession that an overweight 34-year-old who spends most of his time sitting on his backside watching other men exercise seems to be the natural choice.
Not that I am without a swimming pedigree, having finished 19th out of 20-odd in my age group in the 750m version of the King of the Bays Ocean Swim in April.
I may be doing breakfast a la Phelps but I'm doing it posh French style, at Cafe Voila on Sandringham Rd. The crepe, therefore, is actually quite delightful. But before I'm even halfway through it a five-egg omelette arrives.
Oeufs are definitely the backbone of the Phelps brekkie. Hopefully his parents own a chook farm. The omelette is perfectly cooked, beautifully moist inside, but by the fourth bite I'm struggling. It is without much enthusiasm, then, that I greet the arrival of the first of the egg sandwiches (actually a croque monsieur or something like that with fried egg on top).
As for the bowl of grits, forget about it.
After the best part of an hour's carbo-loading I feel ready to, well, roll up into a ball.
Instead I hustle down to the Tepid Baths for a shot at my 200m freestyle PB, set 16 hours earlier on a diet of sushi and Coke.
I dive in and, just like Phelps, my goggles come off. Safe to say, the similarity ends there. At the 100m mark I'm ready to barf. Having pre-paid my membership, I knuckle down and keep the biliousness at bay.
It should be pointed out that Phelps actually dines after his training swim to replace the gazillion calories he has just expended. It's a tactic I have employed myself, sometimes choosing to walk to the pie shop instead of driving.
Coming home on the final 50m I feel surprisingly strong and when I check the stop watch I have actually knocked 12s off my PB.
So maybe there is something in this after all.
But two hours later I crash big time and need a nap. You can forget about half a kilo of enriched pasta (whatever that is) and pizza for lunch.
Perhaps my fatigue is down to not having slept properly for three years because of the two toddlers who rule our house, but I'm blaming the powdered sugar.
Phelps is doubtless in no shape to conduct a similar experiment. Given all the time he spends swimming and eating, I doubt he's even touched a girl. And if he has, I sure hope he didn't take her out for breakfast afterwards.
