Tuesday, January 3, 2012
I met with Bill Bodnar, another of my Rite Aid runners, to perform the fitness test and write his program for completing the half marathon in May.  He’d already been reading my blog and when he’d seen the entry about watching the documentary ‘Baseball’, knew that I was a diehard.  “I play on an ‘over forty’ team and wondered if you’d like to play with us,” he asked.  And I would love to.  I’ve still got a pretty good arm, can run well enough…but my hitting’s for shit. 

“Actually…I’d love to play again.  But there is no way I’m going to do it unless I’m ready and there’s no way I can commit the time I’d need to get ready…and play the schedule…if I didn’t give up something from my routine…and that’s something I’m not willing to do,” I said.  The thing I enjoy the most about the way I work out is that I’m on no one’s schedule but my own.  I like to put in long rides through the summer and to be able to take impromptu trips to the mountains for camping and climbing.  All that would change if I committed to a baseball schedule…but I admire the old farts like me who are still playing baseball…like Bill.

In fact, it was during games when he was trying to make the run from first to third that he first became aware of his shortness of breath.  He mentioned it to his doctor who did some testing, which eventually discovered he had 70% blockage in a coronary artery.  Bypass surgery was recommended.  “I didn’t like that diagnosis, John, and so I went to another guy who suggested I make some significant lifestyle changes…like the ones suggested in the book ‘Eat More, Weigh Less’ written by the cardiologist, Dean Ornish.   He stresses regular exercise and a plant-based diet and has shown that people can reverse coronary artery disease.  I’ve been following it since last July and I’ve lost 20 pounds!”

He began running after a 27-year hiatus from the sport, but got back into it quickly.  He wears a heart rate monitor during all of his exercise and makes sure to keep it below 85% of his age predicted maximum…which may mean that he needs to stop running at times and walk a distance until his heart rates returns to his suggested rate…a good precaution for a guy with 70% blockage.  Still…he’s determined to avoid the surgery…and run a half marathon.  All that…and he plays baseball at age 57.

Kim and I took on the snow and freezing weather so she could do a final Survival Workout before returning to Florida and her graduate studies.  We found ourselves parking in a different part of the park…they still don’t know to plow my spot at the bottom of Ox Lane so I can begin my work out there.  Lost the memo again, I suppose.  We were both wearing boots, which made running awkward but made every step through the snow that more challenging.  They also tend to get in the way for climbing poles, leg lifts and abdominal work, and hopping up and down on things I’m not supposed to hop up and down on.  We did climb out of the valley on the steep hill behind the Oak Pavilion and then slipped and slid down the other side, trying to avoid smashing into a tree and stay on our feet as we descended.  There must be 20 ridges and ravines in the North Chagrin Reservation and I intend to take one Saturday this winter and climb in and out of everyone.  It should be a killer workout…something I just love.

Most of the rocks we used were frozen to the ground and when I broke them loose, I brought frozen earth with them…which added considerably to their weight and the ability to hold and balance them.  I found it necessary to cut some of my reps and look for other things to lift…but there’s a pretty endless amount of things to do in the woods to get a work out if you just use a little imagination…something I seem to have in large quantities.  Can’t let a little snow chase me away from my workout. 

Survival Workout: 60 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 100-150.
Calories burned:  600.

Rob McCann is a fit machine...

Monday, January 2, 2012
Rob McCann is a man after my own heart.  He’s one of the eight folks I’ve tested and written training programs for, though he’s already in damn good shape.  Rob works for the Downtown Cleveland Alliance as a Safety Ambassador where he assists downtown residents and visitors in making their time in Cleveland safe and rewarding.  He works a foot or bike patrol and often walks 15 miles during a shift.  As a former Marine, Rob was completely familiar with staying fit and running regularly.  When he left active duty over ten years ago, he stopped running.  After an 8-year hiatus, he returned to running, giving up drinking and finally, smoking.  He was looking for something to keep him on task when he noticed the invitation to run the Rite Aid Marathon.  “I responded to the ad because I wanted something to keep me from having an excuse not to run,” he wrote.  He doesn’t drive..using his bike and his feet as his primary forms of transportation...and is already running over forty miles a week.  He’s a lean 6.8% body fat and ripped off 60 push-ups.  He scorched the fitness test, scoring 815 points out of a possible 1,000.  Anything over 800 is in the elite category.  He’s got excellent discipline and I believe he will have no trouble meeting his marathon goals.

I hit the park as dark was setting in and found that, with the new snow, I had the place practically to myself.  We’d received about four inches, but it was soft and fluffy and provided good traction.  I started thinking I’d do about 30 minutes…or less if my calf troubled me…but I knew by the 20-minute mark that it would be one of those days I could run as long as I wanted.  Maybe it was the forgiving, soft nature of a trail covered in snow…I don’t know…but I went 45 minutes quite effortlessly.  I decided not to push my luck since I’d run only two days earlier, and stopped then.  I’m starting to regain my confidence in my running…and just in time since it could ease some of the time I need to spend indoors on the trainer.    I’ll have to be careful to not go overboard and hold the runs to this range.  I don’t need much more than that to keep my winter fitness and I really wouldn’t mind staying healthy for a spell.

Run Duration:  45 minutes.

Training Heart Rate: 140 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 750.

April Halm kicks asthma with running...

Sunday, January 01, 2012
“You’re just a girl.  Don’t worry about not being able to do pull-ups,” I said to Kim when she struggled trying to pull herself up.  It had the desired effect, and I continued to remind her throughout the workout whenever I thought she was slacking that she was ‘just a girl’.  She is a girl…but as driven to perform as on human I’ve ever known.  Still…it’s fun to get a rise from her.

And she gets one from me, too.  Not intentionally…but I can’t help but push myself whenever I’m with these young, fit runners I used to coach.  I want to show them that not only am I not old…that I’m getting younger.  We’d just completed a rock lifting station when I told her to “follow me.”  I took off at a sprint into the woods yelling over my shoulder that we needed to find things to jump and run around (and not into).   I continued with her hot on my heels for 30 seconds by which time I’d looped back to the bridle trail…and recovery.  We did plenty of high skips along the way and included picnic table hops, pole climbing and a new version of abdominal work on the swing set.  With feet on the swing and facing down with hands on the earth as in a push-up position and our bodies fully extended, we brought our feet in towards our chests before returning them to the extended position.  After a set of 15 or so, we were both ‘feeling the burn’ in our cores and our shoulders were beginning to fail…trying to keep us from doing a nose plant.  Kim would call me later to say that her abs were killing her…attributing it to this move and climbing the poles.  She’s right…they really get the core.

I conducted a fitness evaluation and wrote a training program for another of the Rite Aid Cleveland Half Marathoners.  Two years ago, April Halm was diagnosed with asthma and placed on steroids and given an inhaler that she was told she would use for the rest of her life.  She thought she had another option…changed into some running clothes, headed out the door …and ran one block.  She was overweight and out of shape, but determined to improve her situation.  And here she is today, 25 pounds lighter, medicine and inhaler free,  and having run a couple of road races, but preparing to run the Rite Aid Half Marathon.  She took the fitness test, scoring 314 points and is looking forward to the challenge of completing the distance.  As with the other runners I’ve worked with so far, I believe the fitness evaluation…finding out where they are…has motivated them to consider total fitness and set achievable goals.  Anyone doing this will be more likely to succeed at their fitness-related goals.  I found out quickly that April is someone who challenges herself…she struggled to do every last push-up…and this told me a lot about her and the program I could design.  I encouraged her to think more about running fast than just running and that we should continue on with new targets and goals after Rite Aid.  I think she’s in.

Survival Workout: 60 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 100-150.
Calories burned:  600.

Dick Clark is orange...

Saturday, December 31, 2011
I’m regularly bugging people to come and join me for workouts in the park and so when one of them calls me, I pretty much have to go…even if they want me to meet them there on a Saturday morning at 6:30 a.m.  Bruce and Jeff would both be coming…Bruce to show off his new backpack he’d gotten for our next trip to the Adirondacks…and Jeff because I gave him so much crap that he couldn’t not come.  Jeff and I had done some workouts together this past summer as he was preparing for an elk hunt in Colorado.  He went on the trip and was very pleased for the workouts we’d done since he found himself hiking long distances in rugged country…and carrying a heavy pack stuffed with elk meat. 

I arrived in the total darkness of an early December morning.  It was cold and a light rain was falling and I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell I was doing in the park when I could be in bed.  Bruce is an early riser and always wants to do things at the crack of dawn…but I think he forgot that dawn wouldn’t be cracking for another hour.  Since I spend the most time in the park, they left it to me to lead the way.  The trails were drenched and covered in roots that would be invisible in the dark, so I stuck to the bridles early on, but eventually had to hit the hiking trails.  It was treacherous, but I’d walked and run the one I took that I was fine…and if they tripped…well…too bad.  At one point I commented on how the conditions we were walking in…rain, muddy trails, cold damp weather and the dark…were all things that should keep normal folks inside.  Yet here we were hiking and talking and quite enjoying the serenity of the woods, and the scents and sounds that came with them.  Once again I was learning that although I hate to get up and get started in the morning on such days, that once I do…I always enjoy the experience.

It wasn’t much of a workout though, so I returned home and climbed on the trainer for my last workout of the year.  I plugged in the movie ‘Whale Rider’, which is a wonderful story about the Whangara people of eastern New Zealand and a 12-year old girl who believes she is the descendent of Paikea, the legendary leader of the people who was saved from drowning by riding on the back of a whale.  I managed 70 minutes and pushed my heart rate over 130…something I seldom do indoors.

Holly and I had a New Year’s Eve dinner that, for me, was very Paleo.  I ate a lobster tail without the butter, a grilled pork chop, homemade applesauce and a tossed salad with mushrooms and craisins (dried cranberries).  Later, we watched a little of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Eve show and was shocked at Dick’s appearance.  In 2004 he had a stroke which, to this day, has made speech a labor for him and why he has had a co-host who handles most of the show.  When he did come on the air, he skin looked orange…like a really bad spray-on tan.  If it’s just that the makeup people aren’t looking at him closely before he goes on…well…they need to.  Orange is really not a good color for him.

Hike Duration:  80 minutes.  Bike Duration:  70 minutes.

Training Heart Rate: 80 hiking and 120 cycling.
Calories burned during workout: 400 hiking and 1,000 biking.

John Bechtel returns from the dead to run the half marathon...

Friday, December 30, 2011
It’s not a good sign when, after running a 1.5 mile run, you collapse to the track and someone has to apply a defibrillator to your chest to shock your heart back to life.  It certainly isn’t an indicator that you should be running the Rite Aid Cleveland Half Marathon less than two years later.  Tell John Bechtel that.

I met John, a 34-year old East Cleveland Police Officer a couple of days ago and conducted his fitness evaluation.  He’s one of the eight folks I’m working with as they prepare for the half or full marathon to be run this May.  Over the years, I’ve had many opportunities to work with people recovering from major surgeries, but never one that came as close to dying as John.  He was completing the SWAT entrance physical exam…a 1.5 mile run…when his troubles began.  He told me that the last thing he remembered was starting the race…and nothing again until he was in a hospital.  He collapsed after the run and had a doctor with an AED not been present, he would have run his last mile.  Instead, he went to the Cleveland Clinic where he had open heart surgery to replace the valves in his aortic artery with those from a cow (pig and mechanical were his other choices).  He started his rehab at the Clinic barely able to walk ten minutes.  He’d been running before the incident and had been planning to run a marathon and so as his recovery continued, he again began to dream of bigger things.

John completed the fitness test, scoring 398 out of a possible 1,000 points, which is low average.  He knows he’s got work to do…running, losing some more weight, and strengthening his core…if he is to achieve his goal.  He has been through adversity though, and something like running 13.1 miles should seem relatively tame for him at this point.

I was in the car with Marla heading back from completing two fitness tests on other contestants.  We were sitting at a light on Madison Ave. on the west side of Cleveland when we heard the sirens blaring.  Marla was looking in her rearview mirror when suddenly her eyes bulged.  “Oh my God!” she exclaimed as a yellow mustang flew past her, crashing the light and continuing on.  Three of Cleveland’s finest squad cars were in hot pursuit and also sped through the light and made the turn in hot pursuit.  I leaned forward to see one pull alongside the mustang while the other two closed on its bumper.

“Go, go, go,” I said, wanting to follow and see the action.  I hate chase scenes in the movies…but this wasn’t the movies.

“The light’s still red,” she said…law abiding citizen that she was.

“So…who’s going to care?  Everyone’s still pulled over and every cop is chasing that mustang,” I said…law abiding citizen that I wasn’t.  But…she did the right thing and ignored me.  I returned home and had just gotten in the door when Marla called.  “Turn on the news!” she exclaimed excitedly.  “Our yellow mustang is on…and it robbed a bank!”

I turned it on and she wasn’t wrong.  I wasn’t surprised to see it smashed into a telephone pole and to learn that it had crashed into at least two other cars during the final chase.  Thankfully, only the driver seemed to be badly injured.  His girlfriend and an infant in the back seat seemed to be okay…and the cash strewn over the interior of the car would clearly be recovered.  The commentator kept making comments about the wisdom of using a bright yellow mustang to make a getaway.  “They’re pretty easy to spot,” she said again and again.  I’m not too sure robbing banks in any colored getaway car makes you the sharpest knife in the drawer.

After the excitement of the chase, I made my way to the park where I completed a fast (for me) 4-mile run in 30:24.   It was only 30 seconds slower than my pr for the course on a day when I wasn’t really pushing and the footing was treacherous at best.  I went home, hopped on the trainer and rode for another hour to complete the double.

Run Duration:  31 minutes.  Bike Duration:  60 minutes.

Training Heart Rate: 140 running and 120 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 500 running and 850 biking.

Back to the Survival Workout...

Thursday, December 29, 2011
John Williamson spent most of his 41 years extremely overweight.  He endured all of the hardships associated with obesity, not least of which was the persecution from his peers in his formative years.  I suffered through some of that myself and as with all bullying and bullies, I can only wonder what makes them the way they are.  I digress…back to John.  Nine years ago he decided to make a change.  By 2002, he’d reached the unmanageable weight of 407 pounds and when a co-worker had a successful gastric bypass, he decided to take the plunge.  A little over a year ago, he decided to take up running and has since competed in seven 5K events…but that’s chump change compared to running a half marathon as he is planning to do in May.  He’s gotten his weight down to 240 pounds, but after completing the fitness evaluation and getting my training program for the next five months, knows there is a lot to do, though I know he’s up to the challenge.  He wrote that he wants to accomplish this goal for better health, make people that matter to him proud, to prove to naysayers that he CAN do it, but most importantly to making it happen…he wants to do it for himself.  He’s set the goal…he has the plan…he’ll achieve.

I returned to the park for my first Survival Workout since the dizzy spells on Christmas Eve.  I was feeling worthless and weak…and guilty, too…when I dropped to the ground for that first set of push-ups.  I was laboring by 50, but pushed hard and made it to 80 before falling on my nose.  I knew then that I would not be making it to 100 by the end of the year…I only have one more chance…but I won’t let that discourage me.  If I just stay consistent and healthy, I’ll achieve that milestone sometime in the new year…and when it happens…it happens.  The workout out was a success in that I did a full routine and was only about ten percent off what I would have done normally.  I felt tired for sure…but not dizzy or sick…and that’s a very good thing.

Survival Workout: 60 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 100-150.
Calories burned:  600.

Carrie Flagg and her marathon goal...

Wednesday, December 28, 2011
I met with the first of the eight runners selected by Ohio Sports and Fitness that will be running either the half or full marathon in the Rite Aid Cleveland Marathon next May.  I will be conducting full fitness evaluations on each participant and then designing their training programs to have them ready to achieve their goals come May 20^th.  All are running their selected distance for the first time and all have interesting stories to tell.  I’ll be doing a feature story on them in the upcoming February edition of the magazine, but thought I’d introduce them here, as well since I believe their stories are, and will continue to be, inspirational for anyone trying to get…or stay…fit.

Carrie Flagg is a high school teacher, mother of three, and cross country coach who has already run three half marathons.  Four years ago though, things were quite different.  She was 70 pounds heavier than she is today and couldn’t run half a mile without stopping.  She was tired of the way she felt and knew she had to do something dramatic to change and when a friend suggested she sign up for and run a local 5K, she gave it a shot.  She had a goal to run a marathon before her 40^th birthday and was training to complete that goal last fall when she stepped on a tree nut, rolled her ankle and ended up with a fractured foot and shelving her goal for a time.  She had run her first 20 miler the week before.

Now Carrie is running again…but the mileage…after all the physical therapy…has to build slowly.  Still…she needs to be able to run 26.2 in May and that means lots of miles between now and then.  I gave her the full fitness evaluation…step test, body fat assessment, flexibility check, and two measurements of muscular strength and endurance – a maximum effort of push-ups and curl-ups.  She did amazingly well, scoring 725 out of a possible 1,000 points (anything over 700 is elite) and is someone driven to improve.  I wrote her a program of running that will work on her ability to run long…but fast, too.  She’ll be doing fartleks, hill repeats, tempo runs, 1,000’s and probably some track work, as well…all things designed to work the different energy systems utilized when running competitively and to make runners faster  while breaking the monotony of always running the same pace and courses. 

I do the full fitness assessment to give them baselines of fitness…both to help with motivation (when they re-take the test and see how much they’ve improved) and to encourage total fitness.  Running is aerobic and the cardiovascular system is critical, but running a marathon is so much more.  Having the core strength to maintain good form in the waning miles helps immeasurably in completing the distance as best you can and should be a part of every runner’s regimen.   Carrie, no doubt, will take to heart the information I gave her.  She is driven to be better…and she’ll be 40 this June…so she needs to get the Cleveland Marathon done if she is to achieve her goal.

I began the day with my first dizzy spell since Christmas Eve…and it happened while I was sleeping, which I didn’t think was possible.  I woke…sweating like I’d run 20 miles on a hot July day…and nauseous.  I stumbled into the shower and by the time I was dressed, felt fine and had no further episodes throughout the day…though I elected to skip my workout.  Holly and I went out to eat that night with John and his wife Teri and I had a pork chop the size of my head (which is big) and Teri’s homemade pumpkin roll for dessert.  In other words…way too many calories in…way too few out.  I have a couple of more days before 2012 which will be my banner training year, so I suppose I can take a couple more liberties.  After that…light’s out.