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My best friend and I have this in common: we find the purchase of new sports shoes a deeply moving, spiritual experience. For him it's more tennis shoes and for me it's more running shoes, but we have the same awestruck reaction. There is nothing else like it. Being present at the birth of your first child may come close.

The subject came up when I went to the doctor yesterday to check out a small growth on my face. The doctor had a close look but quickly pronounced it safe. ``Completely benign,'' he said, and I relaxed. ``It's an age thing,'' he said, which rather ruined the effect.

He gave me the option of having it removed immediately or later, and then asked how my achilles tendinitis was going. This had been the cause of a visit to his surgery five weeks earlier, and I gave him a brief and grumpy summary of my severely curtailed jogging program. The doctor listened and suggested moving off concrete paths and running on grass, and also considering new shoes.

``Anyway,'' he said, standing to end the visit, ``I'm glad I've been able to deliver good news. As I said, that little growth is nothing to worry about.''

``Who cares about the growth?'' I said, hardly listening while counting on my fingers.

``You're right! It's been almost three years. I'm off to get new running shoes!''

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Exercise, Health, Interests

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Talk the walk

October 2nd 2010 11:08

Heaven

Dear Achilles Tendon,

You have done a sterling job for 57 years, and I hope you don't doubt for a moment that your support has been appreciated. You have been with me through thick and hinge, often a step ahead of me, and a rock upon which I have built the journey of my life.

But now, I know, you are suffering. Believe me, I feel your pain. No need to walk me through this.

I know also that you blame me. You think that my insistence on jogging for exercise is, well, past its use-by date. That's in public. In private, you think it's moronic.

Yes, old friend, I still hear things.

You think cross-training, swimming, indoor-rowing, gym work, pilates and many non-weight bearing alternatives are far more appropriate for someone my (our) age. And you may be right. But here's the thing. When it comes to exercise, I prefer fresh air to water, and I prefer outdoors to indoors.

Is that too much for a city-dwelling, office-bound bloke to ask?

And now my wife has organised a trekking holiday in New Zealand at the end of the year. Queen Charlotte Sound, at the north end of the South Island. It sounds like heaven.

But we have to hike for up to eight hours a day, and there's my problem. You. I've been trying to fix you for months, but it doesn't seem to matter how long I rest you, each time I try a gentle jog I spend days afterwards limping and resisting the temptation to overdose on anti-inflammatories.

Old friend, we aren't that old, are we? I'm really looking forward to this hiking tour. Please take pity on me. Stop being a heel and heal yourself.

Thanks,
The bloke upstairs

Hell

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: 50s, Exercise, Health, Achilles tendonitis

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Green exercise

June 6th 2010 19:49

Some incentives to get off the sofa and burn a calorie work better than others. Here’s one that, for me, works very well indeed.

A team of British scientists analysed the results of 10 separate studies involving about 1250 people to try to determine what affects mental wellbeing. That’s a fancy way of saying mood.

What the scientists came up with as the best way to raise spirits was sweet: a five-minute walk in natural surroundings.

The type of exercise is not important – you can cycle or row or skate or jump on a pogo-stick – and you don’t have to limit it to five minutes if you want to stay out longer.

It’s just that, if you find a park or a beach, and do some exercise in it, it is going to lift your mood. And the biggest lift comes in the first five minutes.

The effects were stronger if there was water nearby – so the beach or a park with a lake is best – and the biggest benefits were in young people and mentally ill people.

Study leader Jules Pretty, of the University of Essex, said those who were generally inactive, or stressed, or with mental illness would probably benefit the most from green exercise.

Paul Farmer, chief executive of the British mental health charity Mind, said the research was further evidence that even a short period of green exercise could provide a low-cost and drug-free therapy to help improve mental wellbeing.

"It's important that people experiencing depression can be given the option of a range of treatments, and we would like to see all doctors considering exercise as a treatment where appropriate."

The research results were published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Exercise, Health, Psychology

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The Pilates Kid

July 9th 2009 00:27

I'm starting Pilates lessons this Saturday morning. I don't really know what Pilates is — this was one of those bilateral decisions which my wife made on a unilateral basis — but I intend to do a little reading before Saturday.

In fact, I'm looking forward to it, not as the start of something but as the continuation of something started in the week after last Christmas

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: 50s, Exercise, Health

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The long and windy groan

April 26th 2009 07:55

A deed of epic endurance and heroism has been done here this day. Despite overwhelming difficulties, I can place a tick in today's box on my exercise schedule. Or at least, I will once I get the frostbite treated and regain use of my right hand.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Exercise, Health, Vintage Sportsman

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