WATCHING WORKOUTS - I was developing a case of shutter shoulder Sunday afternoon after taking 800 race photos over two days and answering one hundred questions of, “How come you’re not running?”
After working out people eat, drink and become Mary - rather merry - and they have earned it because cranking a 5K on a hot summer morning is rewarding. So there is little guilt if you find yourself hunched over an outside table gnawing on chicken wings and drinking Blue Buds knowing you’ll never be a blueblood.
I went walking at 3 p.m. at the Cape Henlopen State Park Sunday afternoon and the temperature was a least 113 degrees. I had no water and I almost got hit by an obnoxiously big travel trailer which I considered attacking and pounding.
You know when local news stations provide tips on how to stay safe in the heat? I then go out and do the opposite because I am that contrary.
FULL BODY MASSAGE – Forty-two-year-old road runner Larry Levy steps out of his Element an into his element 52 times a racing season and always looks smooth unlike a lot of guys who move with the fluidity of a corroded skeleton in a Halloween parade. Levy won last Saturday’s Jungle Jim’s 5K and the week before won the Beach Paper Firecracker 5K. Larry flows without a hint of injury.
“Most runners don’t understand how to take care of themselves,” Levy said. “I gave up the marathon and doing too many long training runs. I’ve been getting a full body massage three times a week for the last 15 years and I use a personal trainer to help me work on core body strength. I came into this season at 135 pounds with 15 percent body fat which is not good for me. Now I’m down to 130 and 10 percent and I feel much better.”
My reporter’s notebook was resting on a soft pretzel as I took down Larry’s information.
FREAKY DEAKIES - I’m used to the regular “whack jobs” in the gym, but this long weekend just passed brings in the All Solar Fitness Crazies who have been training all winter just to share their summer silliness with the rest of us.
I saw this dyed blond, long-haired, 50-year-old guy who was about 6-foot-3 and 290 pounds wearing a “Soft Tail” shirt, which I assumed to be obscene. But then I learned there is a raging controversy in the mountain biking community about hard tail versus soft Off the Hook
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tail suspensions, if you enjoy debating with a forked tongue. Well this guy was walking like he had just suffered an industrial strength groin pull when I noticed - because not much gets past me - he had a 45- and 25-pound weight clipped to chains hanging from his wide belt and swinging between his legs. As I child I saw pictures of men - black tape covering their eyes - in my mother’s nursing book that looked similar minus the weights.
TINSEL STRENGTH - The older an athlete gets the harder it is to hold a pump after weightlifting, but younger athletes respond quickly to resistance training, nature’s way of assuring they may survive an attack for saying something stupid. The weight room at the high school - a chance to park on a dirt mound and use the 4 wheel function on the family SUV - is open Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 9-11 a.m. and 6-8 in the evenings. If you play a collision sport like football you definitely need to be there.
I remember 10 years ago when a sophomore came into the weight room for the first time and benched 225 five times and everyone went “wow.” Three years later he was benching the same weight three times. He never got any better and, in fact, declined in strength and talent on the field and those college offers never came.
The moral of the story is that all competition is pegged against your own talents and if you don’t push yourself some day someone will be pushing you if the battery on you shopping cart goes dead.
And don’t forget physicals for fall sports. No more lame excuses. Show up and be ready!
SNIPPETS - Roger Federer of Sweden’s five-set championship victory over Rafael Nadal of Spain was his fifth Wimbledon title in a row. The good news is that Federer is unspoiled, a great athlete and appears to be a really good guy. And I was rooting for Nadal, who is also awesome. Will this rekindle interest in tennis in this country?
And how about Venus ranked No. 31 winning her fourth Wimbledon? Will that spark renewed interest in tennis among African-Americans? The answers are no and no.
The sprocket rocket of Australian cycling, Robbie McEwen, crashing during stage one came back from the second group and caught the lead pack with a 10K to go then passed all 130 lead riders to win a final sprint in his pink shirt. Robbie is a pixie of a pink-shirted Aussie athlete, but the boy is terrible bad as in good. The race took 4 hours and 39 minutes and all the doped blood in the world couldn’t keep me on a bike for that long.
Wladimir Klitscho, a 6-foot-6, 245-pound Ukrainian heavyweight fighting in his adopted Cologne, Germany, defeated American Lamon Brewster, whose trainer Buddy McGrit threw in the towel after round six saying, “I ain’t gonna let you stand there and take any more shots.”
Brewster, a high-IQ guy, nodded his head. “Sounds like a good idea to me.”
Klitscho looks like a James Bond villain, but a fighter like “Smokin’ Joe Frazier” would have slapped him silly. The Germans jeered during the singing of the American anthem and I’m German, but all I could think was “you want some more”?
The Phillies have limped into the break at .500 only four and a half games behind the Mets, but without a trade for pitching help – look for young minor league guns and trade Pat Burrell - they are not a playoff team.
Who was the best to wear No. 12? Tom Brady or Roger Staubach? Sports Illustrated says Brady, but I strongly disagree and nothing will convince me otherwise. SI picked Terry Bradshaw as No. 2 ahead of Roger and Joe Namath, Ken Stabler and John Stockton.
Mid-Atlantic Lifeguard Regionals are Wednesday in Rehoboth, basically all day long. Go on now, git!
