Geelong’s Gym

Geelong’s Gym’s very own Gym General Manager and Personal Trainer, Adam Ryan, has once again blitzed a super challenging stair climbing event.

On Sunday, Adam took part in the Eureka Climb 09 at the Eureka Tower in Melbourne, the tallest building in Australia and the world’s second tallest residential building.  The climb was a charity event to raise money for disadvantaged young people.

Eureka Tower in Melbourne, Australia

A huge amount of endurance and stamina was required for this event and Adam has put in months of strategic training to prepare himself, both physically and mentally.

The climb consisted of 1958 stairs, 89 levels and 300 metres of vertical elevation!

Adam had two goals: to beat his personal best time and to break the event record. He achieved both goals and came in second overall in the Race. What a fantastic effort! Well done Adam!

As Adam accomplished both his goals… a question that begs to be asked why second place, well we should all have goals and targets to aim for… just be careful what you aim for…. because sometime you only get what you aim for.

With 189km to ponder things whilst Walking Home, shadows was a topic of solo conversation in my head many times.

With the weather in the high 30s and full sunshine blazing down on the walkers, shadows were everywhere.

It occurred to me that shadows are often used in a negative way…hiding something, representing an issue that hasn’t been resolved, some deep dark secret lurking in the shadows!

Well here are some of my learnings:

• Shadows are great company and throw many dimensions to an otherwise flat picture.
• Shadows don’t weigh you down or slow you down.
• Shadows can give enormous relief from a seemingly in-escapable situation… in this case, the sun.

On day 3 of our walk from Camperdown to Colac, the air temperature was 35^oC.  The bitumen temperature was 60^o C.  Our feet were burning, our blisters were screaming, heat rash was appearing on many and heat stroke was starting to take its toll on a few.  The greatest relief was to walk closely to someone and find shade.

Some nasty blisters!

So here is my new saying in life:

Sometimes it’s really important to walk in someone else’s shadow.

This morning I woke up my young son, Germain, at the crack of dawn and we headed off to Winchelsea to cheer the Walking Home team on for their final day.

What a privilege to see how motivated and excited they still were after a physically and emotionally draining four days.  But they were all pumped for the cause they’re walking for and that attitude is contagious – and one of the main reasons why I chose to take Germain with me!

Check out the video below to find out a bit more of what it’s all about.

Have you ever heard of Wordle?

We were introduced to Wordle by Dr Marc Dussault from Exponential Programs.  He used it to create a Wordle of Power Words from Anthony Robbins’ Firewalk Seminar and also as a unique way to get excited about his New Year’s Resolutions.

Our first attempt with it was to create a gift for my son’s class at school.  We took all the students’ names and the teacher’s name and created a Wordle for the class.

Our use of it gave Marc an exponential idea – why not create a  Wordle of all the members of the gym?!  So here it is…

Don’t be distressed if you can’t see you name, it simply means your name is quite unique, or at least LESS COMMON that the biggest names, those which are most frequently found in our database.  Incidentally, the size of the name represents the FREQUENCY of the name in the list.

By the way, though it may not look like it, we actually have more women than men at Geelong’s Gym.  However, we seem to have a greater variety of women’s names, whereas men seem to be named from a much smaller pool of names and that’s why all the men’s names are bigger, because those same names appear most regularly in our database.

Pretty cool, isn’t it?  Why not have a go with your family members’ names or better yet, how about doing it with your health and fitness goals for 2010 and then stick it up on your mirror to keep you motivated.  Have some fun with it.

Yes, you did read that right.  The poor old lettuce is struggling in the popularity stakes and is proving to be no match in the war against the fast food giants.

Fortune Magazine provides us with this scary market research – in 1989, 10% of lunch and dinner orders included a main-dish salad.  Sadly, today it’s just 5%. 

So what does the future hold for the humble lettuce? 

The salad’s survival is dubious, but one thing is for certain… the fast food industry continues to capture an increasing share of our dining dollars.

And what that means is maintaining a healthy, fit lifestyle is all the more important.

Well it’s not long now until we hit the road from Warrnambool to Geelong and this may be my last blog before we head out.  Hopefully I’ll be able to send through some updates whilst on the road.  For all those who’ve wanted to sponsor me, this is your chance.  I’ve reached my personal target but clearly I set it too low and didn’t realize the generosity of my friends.  Our group target is still a little way off.

 I bounced out of surgery exceptionally well last week.  Still no talking but attempting to whisper and only a bit of a sore tongue.  I’m also back eating normally and didn’t lose any weight so feel very ready.

Yes, that's right... those really are shoes in the fridge!

Well with all the training we’ve done, nothing has prepared us for the heat wave currently upon us.  I walked 20km yesterday and loved it…the warmer it gets, the more active I get…but I’m the only one in the group who feels this way.  It will truly test most of us, and for the first time, road burn on our feet is a real and likely possibility.  This is radiant heat from the bitumen.  I think we’ll all have to put a spare pair of shoes in the fridge in the food van.  Seriously!  Nothing like dry socks and cool shoes after a few kms.  I bought another 5 pairs of excellent socks yesterday (over $80 worth!) as I think I’ll be churning through them.

So thank you for all your support and I hope I step out well on your behalf.  If you still want to sponsor me in The Walking Home Challenge and lend your support, please click here.  This is a secure donation site, so all you need to do is search for me, Ann Cramp.

Annie xxx

We all know that smoking is bad for us, or at least we should be now.  But have you thought about how much it’s costing you, not just your health but your hip pocket?

According to experts, the average Australian smoker is throwing away more than $2500 every year purchasing cigarettes.

2.9 million Australian smokers consume about 14 cigarettes per day at a retail of cost of $7.41 billion dollars – that would be enough to make Fort Knox take notice!

But wait, it doesn’t just hurt your hip pocket, it also chews into your time schedule.  Australian smokers are wasting about 17 days each every year on smoking cigarettes.  Ouch, that’s a whole lot of time running down the drain.

Let’s face it – society has given us a guilt complex about eating chocolate, making sure that we view it as a forbidden pleasure or at the very least a treat for good behaviour.

And what’s the result of that?  Exactly.  We want it all the more just because someone told us we couldn’t have it!

But here’s the good news… recent research has revealed that chocolate is actually good for us because it:

• Lowers blood pressure
• Increases good cholesterol levels
• Reduces bad cholesterol levels
• Cuts the risk of diabetes
• Improves memory

Right there are five exceptional reasons for eating chocolate.  But it gets even better…

Research measuring the brain activity and heart rate of volunteers tasting dark chocolate or kissing their partners found that chocolate produces a body and brain buzz far more intense and UP TO FOUR TIMES as long as the most passionate kiss.

Rob Pattinson

Out of the way Rob Pattinson, I’ll take the chocolate instead!

So now that we no longer have to feel guilty about eating the forbidden fruit, do we crave it any less?

I didn’t think so.  Anyone for a Hershey’s Kiss?

Oh…nervous time…only 7 days to go and the reality of walking is kicking in. We have been involved in quite a few photo shoots for various media, so keep a look out for that.

I have a little hiccup in my preparation for this event as I headed into hospital Wednesday last week for surgery on my larynx (voice box). I have nodules that must come out for future health reasons but also to be able to speak clearly. Gone is the husky voice I hope, but won’t know what I sound like for maybe a month!!! Peace in our house!

What this means though, in terms of the Walking Home Challenge, is that my food intake over the next few days will be sorely diminished and that’s not ideal leading into an endurance event. I will most likely have a stiff neck and jaw pain so walking in the lead up may not even happen – wait and see.

The great news is that my walk of 43kms Saturday before last was effortless. It was 28 degrees which is getting close to nearly warm in my language. I didn’t crave easy carbohydrates (junk food) so my body is metabolizing fat storage well now. AND – No stiffness later that night or the next day. It was like I’d been resting all weekend. Couldn’t have been happier.

So off to Warrnambool in 7 days it is…with little white board in hand to write instructions and requests to the team and maybe even use it for a quick tap on the rump to get them moving!

Thanks for being on this journey with me. Step by step.

Annie

I’ve been training to participate in the Walking Home project for Homelessness – 189km walk from Warrnambool to Geelong. A group of us are walking this distance over 5 days, camping out at the regional towns along the way. I’ve had to give every spare minute to building these walking kms…conditioning shins, hips and feet. No extra running coming into Touch season this year – it’s just walk, walk, walk. I go to watch my husband play cricket and I walk around and around the oval, first one direction, then the other. I walked for 5 hours on Saturday and clocked up 30kms. I’ve also been able to keep the weights going and I’m getting strong.

Well the crunch time came – my reality check! My first run at Touch!

WOW!!!!! I could go and go and go when everyone else had stopped. I really felt like the Ever-ready Bunny off the battery commercial. My endurance base has grown phenomenally and I was able to bounce the short, sharp running off that.

I have never been in such good shape coming into a Touch season. Aerobically fit and muscle strong. Who would have thought that walking in between seasons could do that?