Posts filed under 'personal'
August 18th, 2008
 My wife and I just joined several of our friends for a long weekend in northern Wisconsin and while we there four of us went out for a morning run.
That’s nothing unusual for us, my wife and I have been running for years. What was unusual was how we felt.
Despite running on a road that was never flat for more than two steps in a row, I realized about halfway in that we were moving pretty well without really feeling the effort. The answer was simple, we were enjoying the new scenery — several deer crossing our paths included — too much to pay attention to how hard we were running.
You don’t have to travel five hours north to experience the same thing, though.
If your running times have hit a plateau and just won’t budge, try a different route or several different routes and turn off your stopwatch. Run just for the heck of it.
Even if your times don’t improve when you get back to training, you’re apt to take renewed pleasure in the workout.
 Â
July 28th, 2008
I’ve been thoroughly Bix-ed.
My wife and I were in the Quad Cities over the weekend for a family reunion and she signed us up for her favorite race of all time. The Bix 7-mile run.
She and her buddies have done this race several times, but it was always done as a girls weekend out, so husbands were never invited. That made this my first Bix, and probably my last.
I knew the course was hilly. I knew it would be hot and humid. I knew every inch of everything I was wearing — including sweat squishing out of my shoes — would completely soaked when I finished.
I did it anyway.
I have never passed so many people during a race and still finished so far back in the pack and, while I was munching on a couple of granola bars in the post-race cooldown area, it occurred to me — again — that I’ve done all the racing I care for.
It’s time to leave that to younger, stronger and certainly better runners.
Still, I did beat my goal of finishing in less than an hour and a half. My official time was 1:25:18 (1:19:23 chip time) and I was 100th of 187 runners in my division so I was pretty far back.
Then, of course, if I started training seriously at Rock Cut State Park who knows …………….
June 17th, 2008
HealthyRockford.com, among other things, is supposed to impart information that helps people make healthy changes in their lives.
I don’t know about anyone else, but it may be changing me.
Until I wrote about them last week, I hadn’t given much thought recently to correct portion sizes. After I did, I realized I had let my own discipline on portion control slip quite a bit.
Consequently, when I dug into the pasta with vegetables at my favorite self-serve lunch counter today, the spoon dipped in a couple fewer times that it might have before.
Then, I went even further.
Of course, I’d read stories about the pesticides and so on used in growing food, but I’d never really worried about it before I edited a story on organic foods for the Web site, shot one video and helped with another.
Suddenly, I caught myself washing apples before I ate them.
And today I opted for the 10-cents-per-pound more expensive organic red delicious apples when the regular non-organic ones were less than a foot away. I’ve been eating one while writing this.
Those people who advocate organic foods because of the taste may have something here, because I can’t remember the last time I thought an apples tasted so good — and I really like apples.
Anyway, maybe paying attention again to portion control will help shed a few pounds. I still don’t know what to think about those organic apples, except that there are three more in the bag and one may be calling my name.
June 9th, 2008
I fulfilled a promise Saturday when I ran the 4th annual 911Run.
When Mark Marinaro called the paper four years ago to ask for publicity for the first run, I promised him I would run it because the proceeds benefit the Fire and Police Chaplains Division, the Rockford Fire Department and its Division of Fire Prevention.
Well, something came up and I didn’t run the race that year. And, somehow, something came up in the other years as well. But I was in town Saturday morning so I finally made my 911 Run debut in a less than stellar 17:05.
 Don’t look up the per-mile pace. I didn’t and I don’t want to know.
The remarkable thing, though, was that as we started out on the first loop of the race I overheard a couple of ladies talking about why they were in the race. One said to the other that, despite the humid conditions, she was glad they were getting their exercise in the race that morning “because it makes me feel good when I’m also doing it for a good cause.”
That reminded me why I got into running races way back when. Even if my time didn’t make me feel particularly good, the idea that a good cause benefited did.
If you’re looking for a motivation for your training, think about getting into a run, a bike race or even a non-competitive walk that benefits something you would support.
Rockford MELD has a 10-kilometer race coming up on July 4 to support its programs for families and youth (see www.rockfordmeld.org) and the Hall Creek Scamper, a well thought out 5-kilometer “green” race to benefit the programs of Severson Dells Nature Center (see www.seversondells.org or e-mail to dellsgreenrun@gmail.com) is scheduled for July 26.
 There are plenty of others throughout the year, just pick one and promise to do some good in more ways than one.
May 6th, 2008
Welcome to HealthyRockford.com.
Who would have guessed that taking a pass on the newsroom doughnut club could lead to a new job?
OK, there’s a little more to it than that, but my bosses here at the Register Star have assigned me to be the editor of and a writer for a new Web site called HealthyRockford.com. It’s a one-stop shop for medical, health and fitness, lifestyle and nutrition news for and about the people of the Rock River Valley.
I come into the job after 20 years writing everything from obits to politics on our news side and just short of another 19 covering local sports. I got interested in physical fitness in my early 30s after a photographer friend took what I call the “blue whale” family portrait.
I became a regular runner and weight lifter after that photo and, in 2000, stepped that up a notch and earned a personal trainer certification from what is now the National Exercise Trainers Association. I still maintain that and will be re-certifying this July.
 Since mid-March, we have been recruiting local experts — doctors, nurses, personal trainers, exercise physiologists, registered dietitians and others — to stock HealthyRockford.com with information you can use.
 When you visit HealthyRockford.com, you’ll find a searchable physician’s directory, health topics from Harvard Medical School, local and national health news and features, fitness tips, healthy recipes, a link to health-related careers and, soon, a calendar of health events in the community.
What you won’t find is a Web site that tries to take the place of appropriate visits to and conversation with your own physician.
So, welcome and enjoy.                                                 Â
