From fat to fit
at fifty It’s truly never too late By Lorne Werbenuk Old? Fat? Lazy? That used to
be me until I realized that old, fat and lazy resulted in being dead at an early age. My friends were runners. I
hadn’t run in many, many years and like a lot of people, I used the excuse of “bad knees”. At 50, I wondered of what I was capable. The gift of athleticism or a mus- cular V-shaped body was never present. Quite the contrary, I looked more like an ‘H’ than a ‘V’ and at 6’2” and 195 pounds cer-
tainly not like an athlete. Proper training became
the most important issue, books contained unlim- ited information. I gorged on them while drinking beer and eating chips and realized in short order that perhaps that wasn’t a good idea. It was baby steps at first with little or no hurry, as patience is a virtue. If I was going to learn to run it would be without injury. My readings educated me to the fact we are all in a
hur- ry to learn and apply. Big mis- take!
Short
races led to lon- ger races, which led to mara- thons. The feeling of being healthy invigorated me and the more I ran and the harder I trained the better I felt. ‘No pain, no gain’ became my mantra
44 ottawaoutdoors
and pain became just a minor irritant. Harder, faster, longer and the feeling of being more and more capable became a disease one which ate at me every day. My only reaction was to question whether I was capable at my age. I became more motivated to
prove that anyone at any age can do anything. With only one thing standing in the way, belief in myself, the journey became an adventure. Over the years, mara- thons gave way to duathlons. I needed a bigger challenge and my first duathlon was a Half Iron- man, 8k run, 144k bike and 21.1k run. Friends and fellow runners thought I was just plain stupid. At 57, one just doesn’t step into duathlons at the Half Ironman level. This is a very difficult sport more difficult than triathlons simply because time on your feet is more taxing on the body
www.ottawaoutdoors.ca
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57