Who's obese?

Wednesday, April 7, 2010


I went to Jack’s track meet last night and was thinking about childhood obesity. The Plain Dealer is doing an ongoing story about obesity in America, and with good reason. Anyone that reads my stuff or has the patience to listen to me knows I’m all about increasing activity levels and setting goals. Watching what you eat is part of the program, but second to activity. I passed a group of girls from a soccer club and a baseball game in progress on my way to the track and, including the track teams, didn’t see too many examples of the obesity issue – oh…except from the spectators and coaches.

Big surprise. People doing stuff were thin and people watching stuff were fat. The big question here is – do they represent the majority of high school kids and…what happens when they stop participating in team sports after high school? I know what happened to me. I gained twenty pounds in my first year of college. I ate the same, but I wasn’t on the track team. No mystery to that.

So I went to do my run. It was freaking hot again. Mid 80’s and humid. I had decided that I’d try the run without the camel back – I didn’t really like carrying it while running, but that I’d bring a stick of gum to chew if I got too dry. I had remembered having a similar problem when I ran my first race in 9th grade. I took second, gagging down the homestretch. There was this girl I really liked and I told her about it and she gave me a piece of Big Red gum to chew for my next race, which I won. When it was announced over the PA the next day in school, she came to me and excitedly took credit – “it was the gum!” I never ran a race without gum for the rest of the year. Thanks, Diana.

I was about twenty minutes into the run and having difficulties swallowing. I pulled out my Trident, popped it in my mouth and began to chew. It worked! I immediately had saliva going again and could swallow. I chewed away for the remainder of a 60-minute effort and had none of the discomfort previously experienced. Gum is the answer.

I’m now ten days away from the birthday triathlon and starting to worry. The ride the other night following a 30-minute run was only half what I’ll need to do a week from Saturday, which left me exhausted, and that didn’t include a 5.5 mile kayak first. I’m thinking I’ll do the run first thing in the morning, followed by the kayak – both at East Branch Reservoir and then home for the bike ride. My biggest concern is that ‘the Whiner’ will be fresher than me on the bike and I just can’t have that. Whose dumb idea was this, anyway?

Run duration: 64 minutes.

Training Heart Rate: 140

Calories burned during workout: 1085