Road to perfect health not easy for us lazy sceptics

By CHRIS BARTON

My baptism into the new religion of fitness was a devastating trauma in the grey and torpid waters of Lake Pupuke.

Earlier that morning at the ungodly hour of 6am I had parked some distance away and joined the throng of solemn souls trudging in the dark to the water's edge.

The congregation was the Mi Services Corporate Teams Triathlons - an annual pilgrimage in praise of strength endurance and the fit who will inherit the earth.

At the pearly gates of Lake Pupuke's Sylvan park, I met a colleague - a well know endorphin addict. He expressed surprise at seeing me - and then a little disdain that I was only participating in the "Tri a Tri" and only doing the swimming leg.

"It's a lot of fun," he told me - as had many others in the build up to this event. The best thing is smashing people."

"Smashing?!"

"As in beating them - especially those in the IT industry."

Indeed. As the first light of dawn began to break I ambled off wondering how the hell I had arrived in this place of madness. Paula - a Business Herald journalist - was to blame.

She'd done a story on the fitness ethos in business and the PR woman had rung her to suggest we enter a team in the upcoming event - so we would really understand what this phenomenon was all about.

Foolishly I agreed. I had become a little anxious about my sedentary lifestyle and thought this might be the shove I needed to get back in shape.

At first I didn't think swimming 500 metres would be too hard. But since I hadn't really done any for about 20 years, I had forgotten what exercise was.

No matter, Silas from Performance Labs would sort out a training programme that would do the trick. Silas said the important thing with training is to show your body what it is expected to do.

I told him my body had shown if I tried to swim any more than 100 metres it expected my chest would explode.

"Excellent!" he said. "If you can go that far now, you'll have no trouble with 500m in six weeks."

Silas was playing his part as a high priest of the fitness religion - being a motivator.

These people thrive by attracting converts. They make you believe. On the web they are everywhere - each with their own preaching style - such as Dean "get-fit, look lean" Piazza.

Or Ray "There are no rules, all you need is dedication" Kybartas. His book, Fitness is Religion: Keep the Faith which you can find on Amazon, tells us fitness is a spiritual journey, the goal of which is health, not beauty or vanity.

"Fitness is a lifelong pilgrimage. And like religious pilgrims, all who seek health must commit themselves to the journey: Those who do will find lasting results."

I was more interested in short-term results. Silas' training programme was built around the Jon Ackland methodology which says " ... training too much, too hard, or too quickly will not lead to long-term performance gains. But it will lead to injury, fatigue, illness and staleness."

To avoid the perils of overtraining, one trains, then gives oneself time to recover. Which suited me - although I was highly sceptical that such a gentle six week programme (between 1100 and 1800m over four days a week) would get me to the point where I could survive a 500m swim.

Not everyone subscribes to the this view. At hulaman.com for example it says: "If you slowly incorporate one hour of swimming three days per week with five days of a running workout and two days with a bike ride, you can be finishing a half Ironman distance tri in as little as 3-6 months depending on your prior fitness."

But I stuck with the programme and by about the fourth week began to feel I might make the distance. On the face of it swimming length after length in a pool seems a mindless activity. But as with much repetitive exercise - once you get into the rhythm - there is a kind of meditative side effect. Recovering in the sauna after training was quite pleasant too.

By now I was beginning to believe - I even gave up drinking and began to eat healthy food.

And I toyed with idea of carbo loading. At Zingasia I read the words of Chan-Yam Yoke Yin: "The purpose of carbo-loading is to help the athlete store up more glycogen in the body to promote endurance."

And Wan Shu Wah, 30, assistant triathlon coach from the Hong Kong Sports Development board: "About four to seven days before the race, I will eat lots of protein and less carbohydrates. This will prompt my mind to tell my body that it needs to store more carbohydrates than the usual level. Three days before the race, I will then top it up with lots of carbohydrates."

I found out more at Peak Performance - "a revolutionary new way to slam 20 per cent more glycogen into your muscles."

Well, I ate a lot of rice and bananas. It was disgusting.

When the big moment arrived I started as I had been advised a little behind and to the side - to avoid being pounded by the "washing Machine effect" of flailing bodies. I made it to the first buoy OK.

But I was totally unprepared for what arrived at the same time - a churning mass of water, kicking legs and beating arms. This was a vigorous baptism. Buffeted, tumbled, washed clean and purified for 200 metres.

By the second buoy panic had given way to exhaustion.

With the shore still far away, I was truly in hell. But I was not alone. I found myself amid an orchestra of heaving gasping groans desperately crying out for salvation.

Somehow I clambered up the lake's slime coated banks. My legs would not walk. I stumbled pathetically to the transition point, gave Paula the armband and lay down on the grass for a long, long time. Every fibre of my body screamed in agony. My head ached. There were no endorphins.

This was not how it was meant to be. My goal to finish with dignity was dashed. Later I learned I had not come last. I was somewhere in the two thirds back bunch. Our team came 113th out of 221.

That night, I opened a pinot noir. My faith had lapsed. It was not long before the bottle was half empty. Life was good again.

Links


Mi Services Corporate Teams Triathlons

Endorphins

Performance Labs

Dean Piazza

Fitness is Religion: Keep the Faith

John Ackland methodology

Hulaman

Zingasia

Peak Performance<