The Tour of Richmond

For any of you bikers who appreciate a great venue, the Tour of Richmond is one of the best.  David did the century ride in 2012 and was so impressed, he wanted to go back again in 2013.  The first qualification for a great biking event is:  being safe and well organized.  There were volunteers or police at nearly every intersection, as well as lighted signs warning motorists of the event.  The after party was fantastic with music, beer, and southern pork barbecue.
By September my knee was pain free (save the road rash from my previous post) and I was ready to tackle the 30 mile course.  My son Derrick had recently taken up more riding, so we decided to do the event together.  I was confident that the 30 mile ride in October would be manageable, and I was looking forward to a beautiful fall day in Richmond.  Unexpectedly, the temperatures climbed to 90 degrees in the days leading up to the Tour.  I knew my biggest challenge would be dealing with the heat and staying hydrated.  The course was reasonably flat with a few rolling hills, I found myself chuckling when my fellow riders complained about the few small hills we had to tackle.  I had spent the last several weeks climbing the hills in Mount Gretna, PA which were 3 and 4 times the grade and length of the Richmond terrain.  Given the 90 degree temperatures I had to stop at each rest area for more liquids.   Derrick, being young and ambitious only stopped once.  In the last 10 miles the heat started to get to me, and the final leg of the race - around the searing blacktop track at the Richmond Speedway - was a killer.
David had a flat tire, and still managed to finish 164/410 for males doing the century, 105/286 in the Masters category, and 22/71 in his age group.
Derrick at his first major bike event finished 45/201 overall on the 30 mile course, 30/113 for males, and 2/4 for his age group.
I finished 65/201 overall, 18/88 for females, and 6/12 for my age group averaging 14.5 mph and finishing the 30 mile ride in 2:05.
We're looking forward to doing the event again, and my husband in the spirit of: if you can't beat em join em.. has taken up swimming!
Hopefully we'll be able to do a Tri together in 2014!

Breaking 1:46 in my 46th Year

Every four years I get the Olympics for my birthday. This year the technological and athletic precision that goes into many of the events had me in awe. The bobsled and the skiers 17 degree angles to the ground have me in awe. The personal bests of skiers Bode Miller and Tim Leit are inspiring me. And the determination of older athletes like Bode and Tim prove to us all that we can keep pushing ourselves beyond previously thought retirement "deadlines".

On my 46th birthday I headed to the pool for a session with Coach Matt. We've been focusing a lot on my technique this winter season. Now that I'm a competent swimmer, I've decided I have more to gain by balancing out my swim, bike, run workouts rather than emphasizing the quantity of pool time. So in each swim workout, I'm really going for quality and focus on technique - and it seems to be working. A few weeks ago I broke my previous 100 yard personal best.

A few weeks prior I had managed to get a personal best, knocking down my time to 1:46:15. So close to 1:45 I told myself. So I showed up the pool on my birthday with energy and determination. I knew I would need to do it early in my set before fatigue set in so I was happy when after some drills, Matt established we would start with 3 x 100. I didn't tell him about my intended drive for a PB but surely as I took off with the first 100, he could see I was on a mission.

When I had a less than perfect wall turn, I thought, oh no, maybe it won't happen on this one. Perhaps it made me push harder. I got to the finish thinking if anything, I would be within a thousandth of a second from my PB, and I thought I heard Matt wrong when he blurted out 1:44:75!!!!

And so, I've proved once again, we can get better with age.

The Exercise Cure

Hello, my name is Cathy and I’m addicted to exercise.  That may as well have been the introduction for those of us who attended the launch of Dr. Jordan Metzl’s latest book, The Exercise Cure.  As I scanned the room and spoke with those in line for the book signing, Dr. Metzl is most likely preaching to the choir with this crowd.  I also ran into my good friend Will, who was my first inspiration to contemplate doing a triathlon.  “Boy, you really got hooked!” he exclaimed as I rattled off this years’ races.

I’m not only hooked on exercise, but these days I devour reading anything about its benefits so I frequently consume the Phys Ed column in the NY Times (I guess there was a reason why Phys Ed teacher was on my 6^th grade list of “what I want to do when I grow up”).  The Exercise Cure gives great evidence on the need for people to exercise.  I had to have this book!

Getting my signed copy at the book launch

 The book cites many of the clinical studies I’ve been reading about the last few years such as:

• Exercise lengthens life – just 2.5 hours of moderate exercise per week can increase your life expectancy by 3.5 years (2012 study in the journal PLOS Medicine)
• Low fitness is the single strongest predictor of death – highly fit 80 year olds are less likely to die than unfit 60 year olds. (Dr. Steven Blair, University of South Carolina Arnold School for Public Health)
• Being fit is key to work performance – and fit people out-earn their peers

The Exercise Cure provides various exercises that address specific health issues.  A few days after the book launch, my normally energetic colleague was clearly in pain from a back issue.  “I have just the book for you!” I proclaimed.  I went on to tell her how 5 years ago my husband was experiencing even worse symptoms.  The doctor told him there was a 70% chance he would need surgery.  Our physical therapist brother-in-law confirmed the chances – but pointed him to some exercises that gave him hope for curing his ailment with exercise.  He diligently followed the exercises and overcame the issue.  Anecdotally, I’ve heard stories of people who underwent the surgery and found themselves in worse or no better shape than before the surgery.  As the book points out, in the US, we spend 17% of our GDP on healthcare to the tune of $8,300 and yet we only rank 28^th in the world for life expectancy.

If the evidence is there, why don’t people exercise more and what can we do about it?  In my professional life, we study a lot about human behaviors related to health.  It often comes down to habits – both good and bad.  Everyone knows cigarettes are bad for you, many desire to quit, but knowledge and desire are not enough for many to kick the habit.

If you are reading this blog, chances are I’m also preaching to the choir.  And chances are, if you are in “my choir”, you are middle aged like me.  So here’s my idea – we fitness prone, middle aged folks need to rally the rest of the population.

We are the sandwich generation who can influence both the younger and older generations (ever notice how families fit levels are clearly mirrored?  Make it fun – e.g. see my “natural StairMaster” Paris workout which will save you money and time seeing the Eiffel Tower).

We are the bosses who can encourage healthy habits and sponsor active team outings (our company sponsors a regular healthy lunch, participation in events like 10K and 5K walks/runs, gym memberships, and a WebMD health and wellness program).

We are the healthcare professionals who can influence our patients (read The Exercise Cure for the one simple test he recommends all physicians do).

We are government officials and teachers who are impacting this country’s fitness levels (I can point to the government sponsored Presidential Physical Fitness tests as a source of my early enthusiasm – while I wasn’t necessarily good at all of the gym team sports, I still have a fond memory of my gym teacher challenging one of the jocks to beat my record breaking chin hang, which he could not do!).

Remember these patches?  I wore mine proudly!

Make it your New Years’ Resolution not just to get yourself healthy, but those around you!

P.S. Thanks Will for that early inspiration!  While I’ve always been an active person, triathlon training provides a whole new level of commitment and here I am, 3 years later and still committed with even better habits!  And…isn’t it interesting to see the web of influence of those I’ve influenced who are now influencing others.

 
Dr. Metzl is my sports medicine physician.  His first book, The Athlete’s Book of Home Remedies, that I wrote about made me a successful patient – but perhaps not a successful “customer” since I’ve since been able to stay out of his office!

A Paris Run

Climbing the 600 steps to the Eiffel Tower's 2nd floor

Mike and I spent our Thanksgiving week in Paris.  Having been many times, this trip was about showing our godson and nieces this beautiful city.  This was the first vacation in the last few years that we left the swim gear behind as there were better things to do than look at the black line on the pool bottom.  So, ascending the first two floors of the Eiffel Tower via the stairs and the 300 stairs up to Sacre Coeur’s dome became our natural StairMaster.  And, we logged about 30 miles of walking during our stay as we explored the streets of Paris and the grounds of Versailles.

Climbing Sacre Coeur's 300 steps

On the last morning, with not much time to spare, we decided to go for a run.  While we had seen a few new corners of Paris this trip, nothing had given me that newly discovered sense of awe…until this run.  We set out from our Saint Honore apartment dodging people and “merde de chien” (it seems Parisians don’t clean up after their dogs), and made our way over to Parc Monceau when what to our wondering eyes did appear but a flock of fellow runners (apparently a growing sport in France although not to the same numbers of the US) and a handful of people doing the Parisian version of bootcamp.

As we made our way around the outer circular path, we came upon an interesting array of monuments – had we stumbled upon some ancient Roman ruins???  During my travels home I researched the history of the park – Wikipedia satisfied my curiosity:

The park was established by Phillippe d'Orleans, Duke of Chartres, a cousin of King Louis XVI, fabulously wealthy, and active in court politics and society. In 1769 he had begun purchasing the land where the park is located. In 1778, he decided to create a public park, and employed the writer and painter Louis Carrogis Carmontelle to design the gardens, which was was finished in 1779. It contained a miniature Egyptian pyramid, a Roman colonnade, antique statues, a pond of water lilies, a tatar tent, a farmhouse, a Dutch windmill, a temple of Mars, a minaret, an Italian vineyard, an enchanted grotto, and "a gothic building serving as a chemistry laboratory," as described by Carmontelle.

While The Duke was a supporter of the ideas of the French Revolution, and even voted, as a member of the Assembly, for the execution of his own cousin, Louis XVI, it did not save him. He was guillotined during the Reign of Terror in 1793, and the park was nationalized.

After the monarchy was restored, the park was restored to the family of the Duke.  In 1860 the park was purchased by the city, and in August 1861 Parc Monceau became the first new public park in Paris to be remade by Baron Haussmann as part of the grand transformation of Paris begun by Emperor Louis Napoleon.

There have been some remarkable events at this site.  In 1797, it was the site of the first silk parachute jump, when Andre-Jacque Garnerin jumped from a Montgolfier hot air balloon, landing in the park where a large crowd was gathered.  In 1871, following the downfall of Louis Napoleon, and the subsequent uprising and then crushing of the Paris Commune, the park was the site of a massacre of Communards by army troops. Claude Monet painted a series of three paintings of the park in the spring of 1876 and two further paintings in 1878.

So, on this morning Paris run, I was in awe.  I didn’t know the whole history but I had sixth sense that this was a “place magnifique”.  This “petit coin de Paris” (small corner of Paris) somehow brought our whole trip together…the stories of the French Revolution at Versailles, the guillotining in the Place de la Concorde, the Monet paintings in the Musee d’Orsay, and learning more about this guy “Haussmann” whose name surrounded our 8th arrondissement apartment.  This is why we travel – and run.