Another heat spell—94 degrees today in New York City, 91 where I live. So I thought I’d post this mentally cooling video.
Posts Tagged swimming
Guy Adami at work
Pretty impressive story about Guy Adami, a Wall Streeter and Fast Money panelist whose historic exercise routine “consisted mostly of walking from his parking space to the front door of the CNBC studios in Englewood Cliffs, N.J.” But friends challenged him to do the impossible, a trainer gives him advice, and there is a charity involved as well.
Guy completes his first triathalon in New Jersey—5/2012
In May he was able to run a triathalon that had legs one fifth or one tenth of an Ironman—a half mile swim instead of 2.4 miles, a 13 mile bike ride instead of a 112-mile ride, and a 3.2 mile run rather than a marathon of 26.2 miles. And he still has not reached any of these Ironman distances in training.
It’s all a work in progress. But his dedication is intense, he is approaching his goals each day. and the results will be determined on August 11th, when he joins 3000 others in New York’s first-ever Ironman. He has already lost 38 pounds (from 235) and six inches around his waist. You sure have to admire his effort…Can you believe that 140,000 people a year compete in an Ironman? Interesting that 20% of those who sign up miss race day due to an injury or fear the night before the race.
Biltmore Hotel
Went to Florida for a week to attend a college mini-reunion in Palm Beach and then meet some high school friends in Miami. I was able to play singles and doubles tennis games on four days, which was quite an accomplishment in the humid, 80+ degree heat. My legs were rubbery, and I collapsed exhausted most nights.
All my opponents the three times in Miami were former or current school team players. One was just 18. When I participated in a round-robin tournament raising funds for a private high school, most of the opponents were team alumni in their 20’s and 30’s, and my team (with a 45-year old) won just one of 16 games. I was easily crushed by the power and spins. In the singles sets, I lost 1-6, although there was a 4-6 defeat…or should I call that a victory (that I won so many games). All very humbling. Glad I was able to play at all. And the intense sweating contrasts shockingly with this past week’s CT snow storm that dumped 20 inches in 27 degree weather. I have had no internet for five days, and six out of 10 CT houses were without power. Lots of tree damage still being fixed. The indoor tennis courts I went to play at yesterday had water on them in spots and were unplayable—an 8-inch diameter tree branch fell through the roof and let in the melting snow. So we played outdoors in a windy 45 degrees. It ain’t that way in Miami!
long lap length at the Biltmore Hotel pool
The day I left, I forced myself to swim in the largest pool in North America : one lap was over 300 yards, and I had the thought that I could pass out and drown. In spite of all the cardio I do on the tennis court, my breathing was pathetic, when I did my two laps—one of butterflies and another of backstrokes. I hadn’t had a push like that in over a year…but I made it, of course, and was just dizzy for a few minutes. I was thrilled I didn’t fall on the concrete.
Ken Kantrowitz, age 70, is one of those fortunate individuals who discover a passion that embraces him for life: he loves swimming in pools, has been competing on and off for 55 years, and still practices eagerly many many days each week. Inspired by this web site to describe his love affair, he has written a detailed narrative that shows his determination and what it took to make the most of his talents. Especially interesting is that after college and daily swimming, Ken gained 60 pounds due to the lack of intense exercise. Then at age 48, he returned to the pool and the regular exuberant workouts he loves, and much of the weight dissolved in the water. Most years he swims 5-10,000 yards (3-6 miles) a week and 300 to 350,000 yards a year. His best year was 504,000 yards (306 miles).
Ken's specialty was the butterfly—1996
SWIMMING FOR LIFE: MY SWIMMING CAREER
by Ken Kantrowitz
CHAPTER ONE: ELEMENTARY AND HIGH SCHOOL DAYS
When I was six years old, in 1946, my dad took me to a swimming pool and saw that I received lessons to learn how to swim. My teacher, according to my dad, was Jack Morris (more about him later.) Today I would call what I learned to do “swimming doggie-paddle.” It was one step beyond learning to float. I could keep my head above the water level, move my arms and legs and very slowly get from one spot in the pool to another. During the next few summers I went to summer camp and had some more exposure to what a person could do in the water. I was very comfortable in this element and usually had to be bribed to get out of the pool or lake. Little did I know in those days in elementary school that my prime passion at the age of 70, in 2010, would be working out in a swimming pool three or four times a week for an hour and a half each session, and swimming competitively.
In 1954, in the ninth grade, when I was fourteen years old, I wanted to play for a high school varsity team. I was, and still am, a spectator and participation sports nut. Through grade school and junior high, I played softball, baseball, touch football, and basketball. These sports and several others were played on the street in pick-up games, at the Pittsburgh Oakland “Y” on Saturdays and during the summer school vacation, and in a league or two, whenever. Getting into a swimming pool, a lake or an ocean was an afterthought most of the time when the opportunity arose or if we wanted to cool down after doing other exercising land activities or sports. In most sports, I was decent or better than average, but I didn’t feel that I was good enough to make the starting high school varsity in any particular sport.
Ken (far left) and friends—4/94
I knew how to swim I thought— but not really! “Doggie-paddle” wasn’t VARSITY SWIMMING. So in ninth grade, I tried out for the Varsity Swimming team. Coach Claude Sofield, who was a junior and senior high school physical education instructor, coached the Taylor Allderdice High School Varsity Swimming Team in Pittsburgh. Al Wiggins, who swam for Allderdice and the Oakland “Y,” was one of the premier swimmers in high school and in the state and the country. Al set the state record for Pennsylvania in the 100-yard backstroke and eventually was an All-American at National Champion Ohio State and later a top medalist in the Olympics. It was an understatement to say that he was my HERO. Read the rest of this entry »
Here I am beside the biggest hotel pool in North America, 22,000 square feet, at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, built in 1926. It’s fun to swim in these 700,000 gallons: never crowded and when you do a few laps, you feel like you have been somewhere. Usually I do just the butterfly, but this time the shoulders hurt from my recent injury, so I stayed with the crawl and backstroke. Not really much of a workout. But something. And a welcome antidote to the very humid 85+ degree weather. The picture of me by the pool was taken just after an hour of exhausting tennis practice. I am still dripping from the heat. In Connecticut that week, I had played tennis outdoors in 36 degrees!
Biltmore Hotel's gigantic pool
after hot tennis, a cool pool at the Biltmore—10/09
According to one article I found, “That pool played an important role in helping the Biltmore through the nation’s economic lulls in the late 1920s and early 1930s. People came from all around to aquatic galas with synchronized swimmers, bathing beauties, alligator wrestling and Jackie Ott, the boy wonder who would dive from an 85-foot platform and slip through a circle of fire into the pool.
Before he was Tarzan (in the movies), Johnny Weissmuller was a swimming teacher and broke a world record at the Biltmore pool. Weissmuller was fired for running naked through the hotel one night. His female fans put up such a fuss, the hotel management hired him back.
The man famous for swinging through trees is only one source of entertaining stories at the Biltmore. The hotel had a gangster reputation, too. Mobster Thomas “Fatty” Walsh was murdered there while an illicit casino was in full swing. His ghost continues to scare occasional guests on the 13th floor, according to hotel storytellers.”
The hotel’s own web site boasts that “The Biltmore was one of the most fashionable resorts in the entire country in its heyday, hosting royalty of both the European and Hollywood variety. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Ginger Rogers, Judy Garland and Bing Crosby were frequent guests. In fact, everyone who was anyone – from politicians like President Franklin D. Roosevelt to notorious gangsters like Al Capone.”
Last year when I stayed there, I saw John McCain (campaigning for President) leave the hotel in an SUV caravan that had been sniffed by dogs and included snipers with sunglasses.
Excerpts From an article in the NYTimes, 5/24/09, by Gretchen Reynolds. [Summary: Six minutes or so a week of hard exercise (plus the time spent warming up, cooling down, and resting between the bouts of intense work) had proven to be as good as multiple hours of working out for achieving fitness. The short, intense workouts aided in weight loss, too.]
The potency of interval training is nothing new. Many athletes have been straining through interval sessions once or twice a week along with their regular workout for years. But what researchers have been looking at recently is whether humans…can increase endurance with only a few minutes of strenuous exercise, instead of hours? Could it be that most of us are spending more time than we need to trying to get fit?
The answer, a growing number of these sports scientists believe, may be yes.
“There was a time when the scientific literature suggested that the only way to achieve endurance was through endurance-type activities,” such as long runs or bike rides or, perhaps, six-hour swims, says Martin Gibala, PhD, chairman of the Department of Kinesiology at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. But ongoing research from Gibala’s lab is turning that idea on its head. Read the rest of this entry »