Resolution Athletes

Yes it's that time of year again when the membership of gyms in all of civilization grows to epic proportion. If you are lucky enough to find parking when you go to exercise you will undoubtedly be irked at some newbie that cuts in on your natural flow from machine to machine.

If you own a gym, or are involved in exercise equipment sales, or athletic apparel. This is the time to have your inventories stocked to the gills! Sell baby sell because this opportunity only lasts about three months and then it's back to the couch for these resolution athletes. This boom continues into the medical market as Physical Therapists, Physicians, Orthopedic Surgeons, Chiropractors, and Massage Therapists tend to the resolution athletes that end up injured. I guess we should be thankful to these "RA's" for keeping our medical practitioners at the ready when someone who actually takes exercise seriously gets injured and needs their help.

I suppose when you think about it we were all RA's at one point or another in our climb to a consistent exercise routine. Perhaps we were just lucky that we didn't over do it and end up on the couch before we were able to establish a lifetime routine. Last October I over did it a bit at the Tahoe Triple and ended up with what I thought was a stress fracture of my tibia. Turned out it was only a separation of tissue but it kept me from running for about 6 weeks. When I started running again I couldn't believe how quickly I got winded and how hard it was to keep up with my running partners. I had all these little aches and pains from my stabilizer muscles that had quickly atrophied. It took me about three months to achieve the level of fitness that I enjoyed before attempting the Triple. I took it slow and built up my mileage so as not to re injure my leg or create any other injuries along the way. That injury made me appreciate my level of fitness and gave me respect for building a strong base before increasing your mileage.

My wife Michelle and I along with some members of our YMCA running club are going to start promoting a couch to 5K program for the YMCA membership. We have two goals: 1) Attempt to get at least 500 members from our Korum 18,000 member branch of the YMCA to participate in the Y-Run for Kids 5K which supports a Partners for Youth program. 2) Develop new runners in our area using a gradual walk/run program that will allow them to slowly build the strength and stamina to run a 5K without making the medical practitioners any more busy than they already are. I suppose that this can be considered one of my new years resolutions. And yes we will be taking advantage of the resolution athletes by attempting to get them to sign up for the race and training now so they will be prepared in April. Perhaps a few of them will break out of the RA mold and become lifelong fitness freaks like us!