​There’s something nice about being an old fogie runner; there isn’t any competition!  Our town just had its annual Turkey Trot 5K race on November 24.  Since I turned 80, I have been the only competitor in the “80 and up” age group.  So, at age 83, I now have a collection of four trophies from this race.  I’ll not get into what my times have been except to say that, at least in my opinion, they are terrible!  I still have dreams of running a 5K at a 10 minute/mile pace and maybe even completing the race in a sub-30-minute time.  I’ve already started a training program designed to enable me to achieve this objective.  We’ll see how that works out…

I have an added incentive this time around.  There was a “young” 79-year-old guy in the race this year whose time was roughly a minute and a half faster than mine.  So, no more easy trophies for me.  If I want to get another one, I’ll have to work for it.  I DO think this possible, however.  Again, I’ll have to see if the training program I’ve put together works or not. 
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Actually, my program is very simple.  I try to run at a 10 minute/mile pace --- initially running for only 15 minutes (around 15 laps on the 1/10-mile track at our YMCA).  Then, every week after that, for 20 weeks or so, I will add a minute that I also hope to be able to run at the same pace.  Assuming I can do that, my mission will be accomplished --- and maybe I’ll win another trophy next year!  

​The major feature of the K*I*S*S* Exercisers (at least the “horizontal” Exerciser) is that they give you a great upper body and core strength workout with only ONE exercise.  I don’t know of any other exercise device that does this.  However, they do nothing for your legs!  Well, this problem is now solved!  Just in the last few days, I have added a leg press machine to my Exerciser gym.  So, now, by using the original “horizontal” exerciser and the leg press machine, you can get a complete full-body strength workout.  Like the other Exercisers, the resistance in the leg press machine is provided by a hydraulic cylinder (the same one as used with the other Exercisers).  This maintains the safety aspect of the Exerciser family (when you stop exerting effort, the resistance goes to zero) which is wonderful for senior citizens.  The main conceptual difference is that there is only resistance when EXTENDING your legs. There is none during the recovery motion when you bend your knees.  Recovery is done by means of elastic bands.  For a first-off prototype, the leg press machine works very well.  It is now a part of my daily morning workout.  If I ever get around to making a second version, I will tweak a few things.  The prototype was built by making extensive modifications to a “horizontal” Exerciser.  If you look closely at the leg press machine, you can see its roots.

​So, I am hoping that the regular use of the leg press machine will help build up my leg strength and even add a little bit of muscle to them.  Running, at least at the slow pace that I move at, doesn’t do much for leg strength.  In order to build strength, you MUST do a squatting motion against a resistance.  Walking and running (at a slow pace) don’t do this at all.  

Wow!  It’s been a long time since I made a post in this blog.  Many apologies for my long silence! 

Most important is that I have made good progress in recovering from the shoulder injury.  Except for rare circumstances when I move the arm in a strange way, the shoulder is pain-free and I have almost complete range of motion.  For some movements, however, the shoulder is still very weak.  Surprisingly, the movement where I feel I have lost the most is pulling down, like when doing a chin-up.  Two years ago, I think I did 13 of them from a dead hang.  Few people at any age can do that.  Now I can’t even do one!  I am starting to do additional training to remedy this problem.  However, it is unlikely that I will ever get back to where I was previously.  C’est la vie.  Hopefully, no more stupid injuries.

​I’ve added a few items of memorabilia to the gym.  There are some old photos of my mentors: Win Franklin who was an inspiration both as a runner and strongman, and Werner Manrau, a world class athlete and my rowing coach from when I was a teenager.  He got me started on what is a great sport what happens to be an almost “perfect” exercise.  Also, some old photos of me from when I was a bit stronger than I am now.  In addition, I’ve mounted a sculling oar on the wall that I that I bought from a company in the Adirondacks that sells used rowing shells. I guess it’s a bit crazy to think an oar is beautiful.  Anyway, I love it…
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I promise to write more regularly!   

It has taken a long time, but I am slowly but surely getting back in shape again.  I’m not there yet and I may never recover the level of fitness I had six months or so ago, but I am very satisfied with the progress I have made.
 
First of all, the running is going well.  Whereas, back in June when I fell, it was still a challenge to run the full 5K distance.  Now, I feel that I can do it easily.  I have no idea what my pace is and I’m determined not to get fixated on that again.  The important thing is that I can run the distance.  My feeling is that the pace will get better as long as my running is consistent.  In that regard, I have been doing well for over a month and have been running back and forth on alternate days on my backyard “track.”  On my “off” running days, I pedal intervals on the Concept 2 BikeErg.  It’s a good combination.

One piece of the recovery puzzle that I didn’t anticipate is the muscular weakness associated with essentially not moving the wounded shoulder for two months or so.  As the pain diminished and I started to move it, I realized that I barely had the strength to move the arm in certain directions, in spite of the fact the pain encountered in doing so was minimal or non-existent.  I use the K*I*S*S* Exercisers for my upper body workouts.  The “horizontal” Exerciser is OK to use as well as the “vertical” Exerciser standing when pushing down and pulling up.  However, when using the “vertical” Exerciser sitting when pushing up and pulling down, my strength at the pushing motion is just about nil.  I suspect that this is the muscle/ligament area that was most severely damaged when I fell.  This makes sense as, falling forward, it is probable that my arm might have been stretched out in front of me --- even somewhat overhead as I went down --- and damaged the muscles and ligaments associated with putting a sudden load in the downward motion.  However, I am making improvement.  As I said initially, I may never recover all my strength, but there will be improvement.
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I think it was in late June that my second son, Fred, visited with us.  He suggested that a better location for my gym would be in our sun porch rather than in the basement.  This was an excellent idea that I never thought of.  The sunporch is bright and cheerful and we really only used it for a mud room.  Anyway, over the past month or two, I gave it a major cleanup and made a raised wooden platform to which the Exercisers are very rigidly bolted.  I also got the propane heater in the room working.  I love working out in this new environment.  Now I do a strength workout almost every day.  It’s not quite as serious as it was before the fall, but it is getting better.  Little by little is the name of the game…

After I finally ran the entire 5K distance in the Guthrie Gallop race on May 13, I got really serious about improving my 5K race time.  My short-term objective was to get my time down to a 10:30 pace, with a longer-term objective of a 10:00 pace.  Not very many over-80 guys that compete in my part of NY can run a 5K at that pace.  So, I decided that this would be a neat goal to work toward.  And I thought it was something I could definitely achieve…

I quickly made progress and, within only a few weeks, my time on the track where I train was consistently below the 10:30 pace, with a number of laps (it takes 10 laps on the track to make up the 5K distance) close to the 10:00 pace.  After four weeks or so, it started to look like I could maintain the 10:00 pace for the entire 5K distance.  I was enthusiastic as I didn’t expect that I would improve this quickly.  To make a long story short, on June 13, I brought my daughter, Margie, with me to the track and, after every lap, she called out my pace for me.  I was doing fine with all of the laps being at or near the 10:00 pace.  However, the ninth (out of a total of ten) lap was starting to get hard.  Not wanting to give up, I maintained the pace and, only 10 feet of so before the end of the tenth lap, I blacked out and fell, the result being that I dislocated my left shoulder!

I think I was only out for a few seconds.  The only thing that I think I missed was the actual event of falling.  But when I woke up, I was really hurting.  Poor Margie probably thought I had a heart attack!  To abbreviate the story a bit, she got my son to help out and they took me to the hospital ER.  Luckily, the attending physician had experience dealing with dislocated shoulders as she had worked a ski resort in the past.  After a few X-rays and other preliminaries, she got me in position such that she was able to “reduce” the dislocation.  Instant relief of pain as it “popped” (I should more accurately say, "clunked") back into place.  I could actually hear this happen, although I doubt if anyone else in the room could.

Anyway, now, almost five weeks later. I still experience some pain and don’t yet have full mobility of my upper arm.  The encouraging thing is that every day there is a tad of improvement.  This is all reminiscent of a motorcycle accident I had around 60 years ago.  I vividly recall the long-standing pain following it and the long time it took to regain full mobility of my arm.  That was my right shoulder and my right collar bone in still “separated” a bit from my scapula as a reminder of that accident. 

The motorcycle accident was a result of the stupidity of youth.  This mishap was the result of the stupidity of an old man who ignored warning signs that were screaming at him to stop and take a rest or to at least slow down.  So, although I’m improving, it will probably be another month or so before I am able to exercise my upper body.  Only this week have I begun to run (very slowly and carefully) and to do sit-ups.
 
The fall was a major setback for me as I was about to “open” my home gym.  My feeling is that I have to be in good shape --- a mentor --- for folks who might want to join.  This will probably delay these plans by three months or so.  In the big picture, that’s not a long time.  However, in the here-now, it seems like forever as I go day by day monitoring my recovery and looking forward to being more or less normal again.

Strangely, the moral of this story is something that I have written about in the little fitness books I have produced and that I always tell people when they talk about beginning or re-beginning a fitness program.  Take your time and let your body adjust to the increasing demands you are placing on it.  This is true for anyone and, even more so, to senior citizens.  Don’t be a jerk and hurt yourself!  Shame on me; I should know better!

Still a mystery is the actual reason why I blacked out.  I suspect that I might have been dehydrated.  I was sweating, but I don’t think I was hot enough to have a heat stroke.  I’ll be meeting up with my physician/mentor in a week or so and she might be able to offer insights…

The K*I*S*S* Gym is open for business!  I have spent a lot of time converting the basement of my almost 200-year-old home into a functional gym.  It is perfect for my own needs and I now feel it can accommodate two additional members at the same time.  If this works out, I plan to add more Exercisers so that it will be able to accommodate four.

As you might expect, the heart of the gym is the K*I*S*S* Exercisers.  Right now, there are two “horizontal” Exercisers and one “vertical” Exerciser.  The reason for the difference in quantity is that the horizontal Exerciser will probably always be the foundation of a members’ workout and he/she is likely to spend a lot more time on it than on the vertical model.

The Gym is also set up so that members can do the “up” exercises as a supplement to their work on the exercisers.  This supplementary work isn’t really a necessity.  I feel it’s “extra credit” and helps to relieve boredom.  An exception might be sit-ups.  A person really can’t do too many of them!  In case you’re curious, the “up” exercises are sit-ups, push-ups, and pull-ups (or chin-ups) --- the Marine standards.
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A lot more information on the Exerciser can be found on the page of this website dedicated to it.  I have even written a report about it that you can download for free there.   
 

A few weeks ago, I finished my 4-month running improvement program which began in mid-January. It involved a 30-minute walk/run that initially consisted of a 1-minute run and a 4-minute walk repeated 6 times.  Gradually, over the 4-month period, the idea was to lengthen the time running and reduce the time walking such that, by the end of the 4-month period, it would be a non-stop 30-minute run.  I would also attempt to do all the running at a 10-minute/mile pace.  This was an ambitious plan and it was almost successful.

I managed to get up to six 5-minute runs at the 10-minute pace, but I couldn’t do them without a rest of between 15 and 30 seconds between each run.  Ultimately, I decided to decrease the pace to 10:30. I tried doing three successive (.319 mile) laps (at the soccer field where I run) at a 10:30 pace and it was doable (takes around 10 minutes) and I guesstimated that I might be able to continue at this pace for the full 30 minutes.  However, I didn’t have time to test this.  The reason was that, the very next day, May 13, I was scheduled to compete in a 5K race --- the Guthrie Gallop in Sayre, PA!

This was the first time I had run the entire 5K distance in over three years.  The last 5K race that I ran was sometime before Covid.  As you know, I’ve competed in a few 5K races in recent years, but I’ve always had to walk part of the distance.  This time around I was determined to run the entire thing again!  My plan was to aim at what I thought would be around a 10:30 pace.  I did close to this for the first mile but, after that, I could tell I was slowing down.  To make a long story short, I did manage to run the entire distance.  My time was 33:38 which I think corresponds to a 10:51 pace.  This is an improvement of around 2 minutes compared to my November 2022 time in the Norwich, NY, 5K Turkey Trot.  However, I still have a ways to go if I’m to achieve the goal of a 10 minute pace…

There were two of us in the 80 and over age group.  I was the oldest competitor in the race!  The other guy was 80 years old and he beat me well with a pace of 10:05.  He’s from the town (Sayre, PA) where the race took place and I knew from last year’s results that, if he ran again, I probably wouldn’t be able to beat him.  However, I hope I’ve given him something to worry about for next year’s race!
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My next 5K race is scheduled for July 4 in Cazenovia, NY.  I’ll post my results here shortly afterward.  My goal will once again be the 10:30 pace.  We’ll see what happens…
 

​You may have noticed a new tab in the website entitled “The K*I*S*S* Exerciser.”  Now that I’ve become an old fogey, I have pretty much stopped “pumping iron.”  Lifting weights, and any exercise wherein you quantitatively keep track of how strong (or weak!) you are, is no longer attractive to me.  Inevitably, as one ages, you become weaker.  I’d rather not be reminded of that fact at every workout!  So, in addition to providing a complete upper body and core workout, the exercisers I have designed and built, and that are now the main part of my almost daily upper body/core workouts, have the feature that they enable a person to exercise to his/her max but without providing a numerical indication of exactly what this max is.  This is all that’s really important.  Everyone should simply exercise to their max.  There is a lot of info on these exercisers in the “The K*I*S*S* Exerciser” tab.  It is even possible to download a report about these exercisers.      

Around 50 (!) years ago, I was running some very long distances on Guam, even including one marathon.  It’s a funny thing, though, we often don’t realize how good we were at something until we no longer are.  This certainly applies to me and running!

Over the years, my running has had many stops and starts.  Fortunately, I’ve never given up on it which is the plight of many runners who were competitive high school and college athletes.  I started in rather late at running --- when I was a graduate student --- and did it on my own without a bunch of teammates or a coach to push me along.  Perhaps that’s why I still run today and am still pretty much on my own.  The unique thing about my situation now is that it has become crystal clear to me that it isn’t as easy to get back in shape as it was in the past --- even ten years ago.  My thinking right now is that, if I can once again get into acceptable condition, I’d better stay that way, because it might be impossible to recover again. 

Here in Norwich, NY, my hometown now, we have an annual Thanksgiving 5K run.  I’ve competed in it many times, usually winning first or second place in my age group.  After COVID restrictions were lifted, I again competed in 1981 at 80 years old.  My time was a disgraceful 42:08.  I was in such terrible condition that I had to walk a lot more than I ran.  In 1982, I competed again with a time of 35:29, a major improvement, but I still had to do some walking to finish the race.  This coming Thanksgiving, I’m determined to run the entire race with a time of under 30 minutes.  This will amount to a pace of under 10 minutes/mile.  After that, I vow to never get out of running condition again.  You can hold me to that vow!

Amazingly, in both 1981 and 1982, I won first place in my age group (80 and up).  The reason was simple.  In 1981, there were no other competitors and, in 1982, there was only one other guy whose time was very slow.  It’s a sad fact that, among seniors, there are very few of us that are capable of running a 5K distance --- or even walking it.  I’ll be writing more about the sorry condition of senior citizens in future blog posts and what I hope to do about it --- at least on a local level.
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In December of last year, I had a hernia repaired.  Needless to say, that messed up my fitness activities for a while.  However, I mapped out a “post-surgery” fitness program that I’ve been fairly faithful to since then.  It includes both strength and cardio work.  For cardio, I run and pedal a stationary bike on alternate days of the week.  My feeling is that running at the slow pace I’m stuck with doesn’t do too much for leg strength whereas, when pedaling a bike (of any kind!), it’s easy to make your thighs burn --- something that has to lead to strength gain.  My running program uses the method I described in my first book, The K*I*S*S* Fitness Program.  This program involves a 30-minute “walk/run.”  You start the program walking almost the entire time and gradually replace the walking with running until, ultimately, you’re running the entire 30 minutes.  Sounds like my goal for the 5K, right?  So far, I’m on track.  I’m up to running around 4/5 of the 30-minute time period at the 10-minute pace.  My plan is to be running the whole thing by the end of April.  As soon as I can run the distance, I plan to compete in 5K races.  Actually, my hoped-for time of 30 minutes is very good for an 80+ year old guy --- even though it seems like a snail’s pace to what I’ve done in the past.  That’s the way things go, I guess.  I’ll provide a running update in another month or two.  Stand by…
 

It’s been close to nine years since I last posted on my own fitness activities!  So, there is no shortage of stuff to talk about!  Perhaps the most important thing is that I am still at it.  I recently turned 82 years old and this decade promises to be a challenging one physically.  Sarcopenia --- the loss of muscle with age and its replacement with fat --- has kicked in big time and my former “Mr. America” physique is slowly but surely becoming a thing of the past.  The best that anyone in this situation can do, I fear, is to fight it to the best of his ability in an effort to try to stop the process.  The prevailing medical advice is to exercise, specifically to do strength training.  I don’t always agree with medical advice.  However, in this case, I feel it’s on the money.  I would only add that a compete fitness program also requires aerobic exercise.  In addition to our muscles and bones (osteoporosis is another problem that senior citizens face that can be countered by strength exercise), we must keep our cardiovascular system in shape too.  So, the bottom line is that, in-so-far-as exercise is concerned, it’s business as usual for me.  Getting old should not be an excuse for stopping.  We should --- no, must (!) --- exercise as hard as we safely can if we are to maximize our potential to remain physically fit to a ripe old age.

For me, “business as usual” means two workouts almost every day.  In the morning, after I down at least a half-quart of diluted orange juice to rehydrate myself, I either run or exercise on a stationary bike for at least a half hour.  Both are great aerobic exercise.  However, I feel that the bike is also a good strength workout for the legs.  I do interval work that leaves my thighs burning --- just like pedaling up a long hill on a real live bike.  I do my upper body strength workout before dinner.  It centers on the use of the K*I*S*S* Exercisers that I have developed.  There’s a lot more info about them elsewhere in this website.  I do a bunch of sit-ups beforehand both as part of a warm-up and because I feel that, except for a few very lucky people, one’s abs require special attention.  Even though I’m basically a skinny guy, I still pay extra attention to my midsection.   
  
And, remember, all this exercise stuff improves our internal health too.  Our body is a system.  We eat healthy natural food to load our blood with the nutrients our body requires for its health.  Exercise moves this blood to every cell in our body in an efficient manner.  I already mentioned that exercise can be at least a partial cure for certain diseases.  Cardiovascular issues, sarcopenia, and osteoporosis are three; I’m sure there are more…
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Plenty more to talk about.  See you in my next post.