My New Mountain Bike

I just bought a new mountain bike. Well, actually, I got glasses. And since I have no eye insurance, because eyes apparently aren't part of the human body, I paid full price, which coulda, woulda, shoulda bought me a mountain bike. So it goes.

Some mountain bike routes in Eastern Oregon capture the imagination. Take the Steens Mountain Loop, for instance. Or the ride to the Hat Point Overlook, near Imnaha. Or perhaps the ride through the Zumwalt Prairie, near Enterprise, and up, around and through the Chesnimnus country. Any one of these would be a supreme challenge.

The dream will have to wait. Real life keeps getting in the way.

Quality, not quantity

A 37-year-old Kenyan marathoner was asked how he could compete at an international level at such an advanced age. Quality, not quantity training, he replied. Favorite coaches John Gagliardi (Division III football, St. John's University, Minnesota) and John Wooden (Division 1 basketball, UCLA) emphasized quality, not quantity. Watching another team perform vigorous pre-game calisthenics, Gagliardi laughed. "That team is going to be the best in the nation at pushups. Unfortunately, pushups aren't part of the game." Gagliardi emphasized the fundamentals, blocking, tackling and running the plays. Mainly his teams practiced by just running plays. Wooden, meanwhile, programmed his practices down to the minute, and they moved faster than games. When players got in games, they were better conditioned than the other team and it seemed as if everything was unfolding in slow motion.

The practices of both Gagliardi and Wooden were some of the shortest in the nation. The results? Multiple national championships. They practiced smarter, not longer.

How does this equate to Younger Next Year? Well, we do weights twice a week, an hour a time. Those weights should be specific to your needs. I program mine to help with my golf swing, my balance and the ability when I'm older to get out of a chair or of a car. I don't pump huge weights overhead or do curls with massive barbells, not that there's anything wrong with that. But I know what I need. That can change. When it does, I will adapt my program to the needs of the moment.

Slug Day

Even God rested on the seventh day. What's good for God is good for me. Of course, like all good Americans, I tried to defy this basic law. I thought, If working out six days a week is good for me, working out seven days a week would be even better. Soon, however, my body rebelled. And if you don't listen to your body, it will scream louder and louder in an attempt to get your attention.

The Wonder Woman, my wife, agreed with God. She told me, in no uncertain terms, that I needed to incorporate a Slug Day each week.

On closer examination, the authors of "Younger Next Year," Chris Crowley and Dr. Henry Lodge, also recommend a day of rest. Dr. Lodge, in his special fundraising event on national public television, said the sweet spot for getting the most benefit for the least effort, and not turning yourself into an Olympic athlete or a crazy person, is six days a week, an hour a day, four days of aerobics, two days of weight lifting.

Of course, due to circumstances, some weeks the rest day gravitates. This week, for example, I have an appointment in the Tri Cities of Washington state for the Prius Snow Leopard, so I'll take the rest day on Saturday rather than on the usual Sunday. The important thing is to get into a healthy routine and not have to make a fresh decision each day to exercise or each week to take a day of rest. If Slug Day was good for God, it's even better for me. No, scratch that. Too American. Try again. If it's good for God, it's good for me.

Beating Daylight

Vitamin D is in short supply in the northern hemisphere in January. Today I hit the road at 3:30 p.m. and barely beat sundown. It was great to be able to bicycle outdoors in the heart of winter, but I had to watch the traffic. I was the invisible man.

Some people say they don't have time to exercise. The truth is, they just have other priorities. It's not that difficult to invest an hour a day, six days a week, not when you begin seeing the results.

I've taken away most of my wintertime excuses by setting up bicycles that can be ridden indoors and outdoors. No matter what the weather, or the light, I can still ride. The indoor bike at the mountain cabin in Cove now has more than 1,400 miles, while the indoor bike at the beach condo is just beyond 400. I'm more than halfway across America in search of the Fountain of Youth.

You Can Teach an Old Dog New Tricks

After 20 years of using Quark for laying out the newspaper, we switched, suddenly, dramatically, irrevocably, Tuesday to InDesign. Now I'm an old dog. I'm 54 years old. I had all the shortcuts down in Quark. I could whip out pages like a card dealer in Vegas deals blackjack. The switchover has been slow. I'm learning. I love the challenge. I will learn the InDesign shortcuts and pretty soon wonder why we didn't switch over from Quark years earlier. For now, I've got a full-body cramp from the stress of so much learning, so fast.

The bigger point is this. No matter how old you are, you can start something new, whether that is weightlifting, aerobics or joining a bird-watching group. Just do it. Go for it. Have a good time and enjoy the new challenge. An old dog can learn new tricks.

Cookie monster

My wife, the Wonder Woman, likes baking cookies, which for her is a labor of love. And she's good at it. She even made a chocolate chip with orange zest, which was spectacular.

Most of the week I am disciplined. I eat five times a day, with a combination of 60/20/20 complex carbs to proteins and fats at each snack. I eat by the rules of 2: twice as often, half as much and chew twice as long.

On weekends, though, I like to be more relaxed around food. And when cookies are tempting me, I have cookies. Once I start, though, I have a hard time stopping. I have a really large sweet tooth. It's about the size of a walrus's, apparently.

The fewer sweets I eat, the fewer I'll want. My theory, though, is to not put any food on the banned list. If I have a craving, I just try to limit the damage. I try not to stay on the carb rollercoaster too long and get off that glorious ride, the Blood Sugar Express, express before roars up the mountain and then comes crashing down into the valley.

The good part is, exercising six days a week, an hour a day, I'll burn off the cookie calories. And it's good to feel loved.

Drink Your Food, Eat Your Drink

The Indian proverb — "Drink your food, eat your drink — resonates with me. I've always been a man who bolts down food. Before the 20 minutes an appetite lingers is up, I've gone back for seconds, thirds even.

Now it is important, for weight maintenance, for longevity, for feeling good, that I don't snack between meals and that I don't go back for seconds. It's all about portion control. And eating on the 2x2x2 plan — eat twice as often, eat half as much and chew twice as long — helps with not snacking. It keeps my blood sugar at an even keel and not riding on the unsettling big waves.

I struggled, mightily, with bolting food, with hurrying through meals and snacks, until I discovered the Indian proverb, "Drink your food. Eat your drink." Drinking your food means chewing it up fully and tasting every bite. Maybe even — probably even — setting down the fork or spoon between bites. "Drinking your food" also helps with digestion. It helps avoid that most common of older American concerns — heartburn — and the accompanying gas that can lead to major social faux pas.

The Indians know that eating is about quality and not quantity, and if you drink your food you're more likely to live longer and better.

Dr. Ball's example

One of my wife's favorite people, Dr. George Ball, died the other day at age 96. He was a fixture on the Whitman College campus, a man long ago retired as a professor of religion but who still maintained an office on campus. Dr. Ball was known a huge smile and good word for everyone he met, and carried with him a robust energy. Dr. Ball taught by example through his wit, wisdom and love. The image of Dr. Ball riding his single speed bicycle across campus, recycling cans — each 12-ounce can recycled saves six ounces in gasoline, he was fond of saying — and exchanging pleasantries with staff and students will endure.

The lessons from Dr. Ball are all about connection. About being involved. About caring. About reaching out to people. About listening. About helping people think clearer and feel better about themselves.

Dr. Ball was always upbeat and optimistic. No retiring in front of the TV and going into isolation and low-grade depression for him. No loss of identity. He was active and engaged until the end.

Sitting is the Next Smoking

For a time smoking was cool. Everyone wanted to be the Marlboro man, until he got lung cancer and died. Then smokers were uncool. Smokers gathered in little knots, outside doors, no longer allowed even in bars and restaurants.

Today sitting is the next smoking. We are in the midst of a sitting epidemic. The average American sits 10 hours a day. We sit in the car on the commute to and from work, we sit at our desks at work, we watch four hours of TV a day, we sit in front of our computer doing Facebook and exploring the web.

All this sitting is leading to epidemics of diabetes, stroke, heart disease and cancer. We need to get up and move more, even if that is just walking three days a week, 30 minutes a day. We need to park at the other end of the lot at the grocery store and take extra steps. We need to get off the couch and move. We need to get up from the desk at work and move every hour. Move. Move. Move.

By moving more, and quitting eating and drinking junk, we can eliminate half the illnesses and injuries in people 50 and older. We can reduce a lot of the health care costs that are soaring and stressing out our pocketbooks and our national budget. Each of us needs to make the decision to sit less and move more, and if we do it will make all the difference for us as individuals and as a country.

B6

B6 is more than just a vitamin. It is a rallying cry I am using to try to quit taking in empty or unnecessary calories. Lately, I've been drinking too much sugar beer, which like sugar pop contains a lot of empty calories. One or two drinks a day is OK. More than that can be a problem, especially as the calories add up into pounds over time. The incremental effect is what hurts the most.

I also need to cut out seconds and snacks. Of course, eating five meals a day helps. I try to eat a balanced meal or snack at 6 a.m., 9 a.m., noon, 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. The meal is about 60 percent complex carbohydrates, 20 percent proteins and 20 percent good fats. I also aim for 75 percent plant products and 25 percent animal products.

And lately I've been following the Indian proverb, "Drink your food, eat your drink." That goes hand in hand with the rules of two: eat twice as often, eat half as much and chew twice as long.

B6 refers to finding something to do for six minutes when a craving arises. Usually, by the end of the six minutes, the craving will be gone. Wish me luck!

The Incremental Gym

Life is what you make it. And I am fortunate enough to socially engineer my work so that I can do weight training throughout the day. Ten minutes here, 10 minutes there. By the time I go home in the evening I'll have completed a one-hour weight workout. Sure, I use a rock painted gold as my "weight set." The rock was once thrown through the office window by vandals late one Friday evening. Someone got drunk and was mad at the newspaper for one reason for another and took action. I made the most of the opportunity by turning the vandal's weapon into my own personal weight set.

Doesn't seem like much, 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there. But over the year, even doing weights one day a week at work, I can get in 48 hours of weights (minus four weeks off for vacations). That's the best part of being a member of The Incremental Gym. It's all about staying disciplined. Building positive habits. Over time good things happen.

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

"One of the great things about the Younger Next Year program," I was telling my wife, Teri, the other day, as I got out of bed, "is how it helps minimize the aches and pains. All the stretching, aerobics and weight lifting does wonders. You really ought to join me on my hour-long bike ride."

"Aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!" I hollered before my feet hit the floor. "Oooh, my aching back."

"Are you OK?" she asked, extremely concerned.

"Sure, just a minor thing. No big -- yooooowwww! -- deal."

There is no guarantee that exercise will cure what ails you. You still might develop a rutabaga in the brain pan, or debilitating arthritis, or whatever. But following Younger Next Year will most likely put way more spring in your step than there is now. Even if the word "Aiiiiiiiiiiiii" is still an integral part of your vocabulary.

Peaking for the Big Race

It used to be we'd start football practice in August, work like whirling dervishes for several months and then the season would be over. Same with track. We'd start training in March for the start of the season in early April. By May we'd peak for the district or state championships and then go on to other pursuits.

Today, athletics is a year-round endeavor. It's about preparing not for a season but for a life.

The Younger Next Year program that pays the most dividends for the least investment is an hour a day, six days a week, four days of aerobics and two days of weights, with a day of rest a week for good behavior. We are not in this to win a league championship, or a state title. We are in this for quality of life, because most of us will live a long time, whether we want to or not, and it's up to us whether those years are quality.

The Big Race now is life.

Play 60

The National Football League has a nifty advertising campaign aimed at targeting the national epidemic of childhood obesity. It's called Play 60. The program, however, is good for not just children but adults of all ages. Face it: we are a nation of couch potatoes. Many of us sit at a desk all day at work and then come home and sit for hours in front of the TV or computer playing on the Internet. We all need to get up, get outside and Play 60 minutes a day.

Sitting, it is said, is the next smoking. We are in the midst of a sitting epidemic, and paying the price through heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and various cancers. Play 60 encourages us to get off our duffs and be active, whether it is around the house or around the neighborhood, so we can whip these pesky health maladies and improve our quality of life. If we can make this activity into play, all the better.

32 degrees

32 is just a number. It's the mark in the Fahrenheit temperature scale that designates freezing. Above 32 and you're thawing, sweating, burning or roasting. Below 32 and you're getting popsicle toes.

As long as the road is bare, the wind is taking a nap, and there is daylight in the swamp, 32 is plenty warm for bicycle intervals. Today I did 16 miles of intervals. The course was in the rolling hills east of Milton-Freewater. It was Friday. The sun, however, had had enough work for one week. Only its color piercing through the thin clouds suggested warmth.

That was OK. You can be as comfortable as you dress to be. Getting too cold just means you haven't put on the right clothes, or have yet to invest in adequate insulation. I wore two pairs of cotton socks. My toes still got cold. I needed wool socks. There's a sheep somewhere grazing innocently in some meadow that is growing the wool I need for my next 32-degree bike ride. I hope he is growing the wool quickly because I will need it soon. Winter is only just getting started, and it's a joy to be able to have a few hours off work in the daylight to ride outdoors and get a Vitamin D fix. A number on a thermometer won't stop me.

Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

A sale is on at the mall. Got a hangnail. Dog ate my homework. There are 1,001 excuses not to exercise for an hour a day, six days a week. A lot of us are extremely busy with family and job obligations. But consider how much time we watch TV and sit on the Internet in an average a day. It all becomes a matter of priorities. After all, there will always be a sale on at the mall. There will always be minor health complaints like hangnails that are annoying but should not derail you from your program. And the dog will always be hungry for homework.

Ode to Joy

Aerobic exercise is better than any antidepressant medicine. The cost is just time. And the payoff is several hours (all evening if you exercise right after work and happen to have a day job) of endorphins being shot throughout your body in gay profusion.

It's a physical ode to joy I try to give myself six days a week. The Younger Next Year doctor says the greatest payoff for the least investment is six days a week, an hour a day. I am for four days of aerobics and two days of weights.

I'm also smart enough, finally, to not think always, if an hour works great, more would be better. Not always so. There is a point of diminishing returns.

I can maintain the six-day-a-week, an-hour-a-day schedule without burnout. But I do need a day of rest. I take that on Sundays.

Aerobics can be addictive. Yet no matter how much I want to get out there, how sunny and beautiful the day, how much my body yearns for physical activity, I try to take a slug day and recuperate. That discipline of "not doing" will better ensure me future joy.

9 mph in a Cloud of Dust

The idea is not to wait for inspiration. It's to just keep going no matter what. Coming back from food poisoning, however, I was more or less energy free. I usually ride the indoor bike at about 14 mph, but I found myself running at 9 mph Monday. That's OK. Long and slow aerobics are good for you, too. I went a half hour, took a break, then finished with another half hour. On the second leg, I was back to about 12-13 mph. My energy was coming back.

Food poisoning is not the best way to achieve weight loss. Mostly, you just achieve dehydration, and it takes several days of concerted effort to recover.

It's also important not to wait for inspiration but to reach out to people. Make the phone calls. Get on Facebook. Email. Whatever. This is the area I need the most help with. I am shy by nature, and used to have to make long pep talks just to get myself to pick up the phone. My first wife, Tina, claimed I spent two months just nodding at her before I said my first word.

Fragile health

No matter how much you exercise, or how well you eat, health is not guaranteed. A recent bout with food poisoning has brought that fact front and center. The main thing I was thinking was, well at least it happened the evening before my rest day. My goal is to work out six days a week, an hour a day, with Sundays off for good behavior. Now I have about as much energy as a pancake. Will I be able to do the hour of biking I had planned for this evening? Or will I have to rest and recover? No one is perfect. It's making good choices most of the time that counts. In the end, I will just have to listen to my body and make an educated decision about when to resume training.

The down time has allowed me to read a good book, Michael Pollan's "Food Rules," which tells us to eat in moderation and mostly plants. Moderation? That's my biggest nutrition bugaboo.

The downtime has also helped me reconnect with my sweet wife, who is bringing me tea, warm Jell-O and homemade chicken noodle soup. The caring and connection will help me get better sooner.

Choice cut

When it comes to nutrition, it's all about choices. Last evening Teri, my wife of four months, had just returned from the dentist after having a root canal. She was limited in what she could eat. Of course, she loves Jell-O and could have lived on that for a month. But we needed something more substantial — and something she could eat using just the right side of her mouth. So we chose pizza. The real choice, however, was between thick crust and thin crust. We chose thin crust. We also chose medium size rather than large size or family size.

It might also have been better to cook the pizza and then immedicately cut and wrap half to put in the freezer for a future meal. There is still plenty of room for improvement.

Life is like that. Whether we live to 70, 80, 90 or 100, there will always be something in the in-basket, something still being "worked on," when we die. We are not afraid of death. We are afraid that the pile in the in-basket will be embarrassingly large.

Fight or flight

Friday is interval day. It's a chance to change up the aerobics to prepare for that day when you're in a dark alley and a group of guys with glowing eyes, yellow teeth and Mama tattoos approach. My standard operating procedure is to do the rolling hills east of Milton-Freewater by bicycle. I focus on the right leg for the length from one telephone pole to the next, then move on to the left leg for the next segment and then "rest" for the next. I love the challenge. It helps me prepare for the next big adventure, whether it be Ragbrai, the great bike ride across Iowa; the ride up 10,947-foot Beartooth Pass in Wyoming; or Crater Lake.

Fight or flight also comes into play on the social sphere. I can choose to do things with people, or hide out. Today's challenge was to attend the funeral of a true American hero gunned down by a coward. The service for Rob Carter at the Seventh-day Adventist Church was truly inspirational. Carter paid close attention to detail, never took the easy way out, and always had the time to build relationships.

Freeze frame

Jack Frost has sent storms north and south of us this winter. Today it was 36 degrees for my one hour of bike intervals in the rolling hills east of Milton-Freewater. The high Blue Mountains wear a blanket of snow.

I called mom this morning, thanking her for collecting my letters over the years and sending them to me in three notebooks. At first I wondered about delving into the past. There's no looking in the rearview mirror. You might see something gaining on you. Truth is, there are a lot of details missing from my memory that the letters bring back and for that I am thankful. I am also going to a funeral today with Teri for an authentic Northeast Oregon hero who was gunned down in his plumbing office by a coward seeking revenge.

The shredded wheat and blueberries for breakfast got me one-third of the way to a healthy day.