It is exercise alone that supports the spirits and keeps the mind in vigor. Exercise and temperance can preserve something of our early strength even in old age.
Marcus Tullius Cicero, 106-43 BC
Exercise
Written : March 2023
Last edited : February 2024
I have been reasonably active all of my life, but mostly through the physical work required for my several houses construction activities. When I was 39 years old I started running because of a $20 bet with one of my co-workers. The bet was that I would be able to run a 5 minute mile after one year of training. I was a track and field "star" in high school, and so I was pretty confident that I would win the bet. On my first try it took me 8.5 minutes to run a mile running as hard as I could and I almost dropped to the ground exausted at the end! Clearly, I had a lot of training to do! So I started training and within about six months I was running 5 to 6 miles every day, seven days a week, and I had lost about ten pounds. As I had an office job, I was able to run at lunch-time during the week . So my running interfered with my family responsibilities for about an hour only during the weekends.
After about a year of training, it was time for my 5 minute mile test. I run as fast as I could but my fastest time was 5 minutes and 11 Seconds. I was allowed another try about 3 months later, and continued training to shave off the 11 seconds from my mile running time. But I never could do it! Three months later I run a 5 minutes 5 seconds mile ... and lost the bet. I kept trying, but I could not shave off the last 5 seconds. It is amazing how fast the legs have to move to run a five minute mile!
I lost the bet, but it started a twenty-five year period in my life of methodical physical training with participation in several road races, some of which I even won! Then a number of events interfered with regular training and for the last 20 years or so I stopped running all together. When I was confronted with the diagnose of Leukemia on April 19, 2022, one of the first thing that came to mind was that I should get back to doing some serious exercise.
Family responsibilities prevented me for immediately embarking on an organized program to deal with my Leukemia. My reading on cancer, cancer treatments, and cancer research quickly convinced me that I had only one course of action to keep my Leukemia at bay and that was to improve my health and thus give to my body "ammunitions" to fight its own battles. And so I started an organized health refurbishing plan consisting of a nutritious Diet, vitamins and mineral Supplements, and Exercise.
It was no surprise to me that when I first tried exercising, I found that I could not do much. I had lost my flexibility, I had lost my strength, every movement hurt, and I would get winded just thinking of exercise! As I would suffer through my exercises, I could not help chuckling within myself as the pain at every movement would bring to mind George Burns famous line on old age: "You are old when, in getting up in the morning, everything hurts and what does not hurt does not work!". But I have persevered and, as the tables E1 and E4 below show, I am progressing well in spite of my age, and I have no pains anymore when I exercise.
