I’m a more obsessed than usual today with cycling. I’ll explain why in a moment. First, an observation or three from the cycling realm.
* * *
Being honest about your shortcomings is an admirable trait in anyone, let alone a pro athlete. Humility among our elite athletes is a rare commodity. Sure, an air of confidence is good, but too often athletes become taken more with PR than performance, and if lucrative endorsements are about anything, they’re about style rather than substance. Which is why Lance Armstrong’s observation following his disappointing finish in Saturday’s Tour de Suisse prologue was especially refreshing. The 4.7-mile time trial was run on wet streets, and Armstrong didn’t pull any punches in admitting that riding fast on wet roads is a weakness.read more
Marcy and I weren’t looking for a marathon hike (we’d done that a couple weeks earlier, to mixed reviews) and that made the Blue Ridge Parkway a perfect destination. This linear National Park that links the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park straddling the North Carolina/Tennessee line, is best known for the 469-mile two-lane road that takes motorists through some of the Southern Appalachians most stellar scenery. But you’ll find more than 100 hiking trails along the way, the vast majority of which do not fall into the marathon category.read more
For the last 20 years or so, childhood obesity has been, almost literally, the 800-pound gorilla in the room. The room in question, unfortunately, has been the pediatrician’s examining room.
Despite the fact childhood obesity has reached almost epidemic proportions in the past quarter century — the percentage of obese kids in the U.S. grew from 6.5 percent in 1980 to 17 percent in 2006, one in three kids born here in 2000 stood a risk of becoming diabetic, the statistics go on — it’s been an issue rarely discussed at the annual well-child exam. According to a 2008 survey of its membership, the American Academy of Pediatrics found that only 52 percent of pediatricians measured patients for their Body Mass Index, an imperfect but general indicator of obesity. Even then, if their BMI indicated they were overweight or obese, 59 percent of pediatricians said they were reluctant to discuss the matter.read more
A couple weeks ago I mentioned a report from the Center on Everyday Lives of Families at UCLA that found, among other things, that middle class American families have spacious backyards that they rarely use. This got me reminiscing about those halcyon days of my youth on South Boston Court when we did everything from play the World Series and Super Bowl (which hadn’t been invented yet) to tight rope and play endless games of hide-n-seek without leaving the block. And that got me to thinking about our own backyard today and how underutilized it is. Which spurred us to do some updating over the past couple of weeks.read more
We weren’t thrilled by this study from Indiana University that found that people with neat houses tend to be more physically active. Nearly 1,000 residents of St. Louis between the ages of 49 and 65 had their health evaluated as well as the tidiness of the interior and exterior of their homes. Finding: Those folks who kept up the inside of their homes tended to be in better shape. But was there a chicken-and-egg thing at work here? “If you spend your day dusting, cleaning, doing laundry, you’re active,” said NiCole Keith, one of the researchers. Some people may not be inclined to “take 30 minutes to go for a walk, but they’ll take 30 minutes to clean.”read more