Unhealthy lifestyle

I attend Yoga for Triathletes again Saturday, and the more I hear our yoga instructor, Michael Glenn, talk about endurance training, the more swimming, cycling and running seem akin to smoking, drinking, and eating chocolate swirl ice cream. Rather than healthy lifestyle activities, apparently swimming, cycling and running are sinful indulgences that will wreak havoc on my lower back, quads, shoulders, etc.

This comes on top of my teammate Anthony Zeller explaining to me his hypothesis that the human body has an optimal capacity of 25,000 miles and just like a car, once you click past that point it is all downhill with lots of time in the repair shop.

Now I am regretting my misspent youth. I guess I shouldn't have squandered my 20s and 30s on those wasteful long, easy runs. Perhaps I should have played pool or darts or just drank, and then I could look forward to running along the beach in my twilight years and winning the over-80 age group.

Oh well, at least at least lately I have been making the most of my remaining miles and keep my back intact by emphasizing quality over quantity.

As noted in my blog post on Saturday (my quarterly training review), my training totals the last three months have been relatively low - only 30-40 kilometers per week of running. These limited workouts are mostly either interval work, long runs or tempo runs.

For example, two weeks ago Wednesday I did a ladder workout on the track with Namban Rengo and managed to hang on and run 3:50 for 1200, and 5:12 for 1600. Then at a 5k time trial last Wednesday I managed a time of 17:31 (despite running the first 800 in a ridiculously fast 2:32). This time is still somewhat feeble, but it is my benchmark for now, and if people ask me my 5k PB I will tell them I ran 17:31 in July 2006.

Quarterly mileage and training time review

This is ostensibly a triathlon training blog, so at least every one in a while I suppose I should review my training totals.

The simplest and easiest measure for triathlon training is weekly hours of training.  Ideally I should be cycling, running and swimming an average total of about 12 hours per week, with 4-5 hours of that one long bicycle ride.  Since I have not been doing long rides lately, my mileage over the past three months is limited.  Hopefully it is adequate to maintain conditioning for the Sado half-ironman in early September

May 1-6      14:00
May 7-13      6:30  China Trip
May 14-20    4:00   Taper
May 21-27    4:30   Taper
May 28 -3    14:30   Ironman
June  4-10     6:00    Recovery
June 11-17    7:30  
June 18-24    9:45
June 25-1      5:30  Singapore Trip
July 2-8         9:30 
July  9-15      8:00
July 16-22     5:45
July 23-29     8:15

The typical week entails 2-3 swims, 2-3 bike sessions (including spin workouts), and 3 running workouts.

The other item I track is weekly running mileage (which is much more meaningful to me that swimming or cycling mileage).  Again, these figures are not terribly impressive (especially when you note that they are kilometers, not miles).  Certainly every other runner I know of who talks about how many miles or kilometers they are doing every week is doing considerably more that the amount I have run lately.  But then it stands to reason that the people who talk about how much they are running, tend to be the people who are running considerably more than the average. 
Here is my weekly running kilometers over the past 3 months --

May 1-6        22
May 7-13      40   China Trip
May 14-20    19   Taper
May 21-27     8   Taper
May 28 -3     47   Ironman
June  4-10     38    Recovery
June 11-17    46  
June 18-24    31
June 25-1      27  Singapore Trip
July 2-8         35
July  9-15      36
July 16-22     28
July 23-29     39

Kamakura Beach Party

I had concluded that it would be an interesting daytrip to experience the Kamakura trails along with the Shonan beach house scene. I had also determined that it was only worth making the journey to the beach on a sunny day, and when Sunday morning saw dark grey clouds I was inclined to cancel, and like a gerbil in a maze, continue my same mindless Tokyo routine that I have been stuck in for the past 25 days. But most every day over the past month has been dark and wet. Moreover I had sent a message to the e-mail list announcing the run, and it would turn out that a dozen of my teammates would we waiting to meet me at the train station in Kamakura.

As always it was an enjoyable day. As always it was cathartic to run on the forested trails, see the temples and end the run with a swim in the ocean.

The day started with Keren and I doing a 1.5k training swim in rolling swells. Keren had no problem navigating the waves, but I found myself feeling a bit queasy as the waves lifted me and dropped me broadside one after another.


Then Keren and I met the other dozen intrepid runners and set off on a variation of my trail/beach loop around Kamakura. An early highlight was visiting Asuka's grandmother's gravesite at the Suizenji shrine. Asuka hoped to pay respects to her ancestors and the rest of the rest of the group (at the least the non-Japanese) were delighted by this authentic cultural experience. The cemetary was a gorgeous hillside setting, and the group diligently scrubbed the tombstone for a few mintues before heading back on the run.

At this point we begun climbing the steep rocky hillside and the day's primary challenge turned out to be dealing with mud. On the one hand the day was blissfully cool, on the other hand the trail was terribly wet - worse than I have ever experienced - and I was frequently worried about my teammates tumbling off the steep trail. Somehow everyone survived the rollercoaster run through 10-kilometers of trails punctuated by the excellent photo opportunities at Kencho-ji and the Daibutsu. I figured we needed to add a bit extra to the run after the Daibutsu, and I added a 3-kilometer loop up around the quaint neighborhood of Gokurakuji and the crashing waves of Imamuragasaki.


Amazingly almost the whole group plunged into the ocean after the run for a bit of body surfing. The ocean was followed by a 1,500 yen shower (perhaps the most expensive shower of my life, but it was definitely one of the best showers I have experienced).




The Thai village is one of the attractions of Kamakura's summer beach (you can almost, kindof, sortof feel like you are in Koh Samui), and on this night we were treated to the added bonus of Thai fire dancing -- which appealed of course to the primal instincts of the Namaban barbarian horde.

Atsugari

I find myself struggling more than most people in the heat and humidity. The Japanese language has a word for this -- "atsugari" which essentially means weak in hot weather. Of course everyone complains about the heat on these 30 degrees / 85 degrees plus days, but everyone else seems to be exercise more this time of year while I retreat into my air-conditioned apartment. This in contrast to those lonely days outside in January when I was happily cycling and running when the temperatures where just above freezing.

I learn from an article in today's New York Times (copied below) that I should be "Glycerin Loading" in order to improve my athletic output in the Tokyo heat. OK, Pocari Sweat, the market leading sports drink, has not been working, so perhaps Glycerin will help me survive. It is just not at all clear how one goes about obtaining Glycerin.

I am pleased to learn from this article that my predisposition to snack all day and eat relatively large breakfasts is closer to the ideal eating schedule. Not that advocating eating a big breakfast seems like a huge scientific breakthrough -- I recall my mother encouraged this when I was a child. The endorsement of eating three energy bars each day though is an interesting break from "three squre meals".

July 18, 2006

Race to the Swift? Not Necessarily

By GINA KOLATA

INDIANAPOLIS — Steve Spence arrived in Tokyo on an August day in 1991 to run a world championship marathon. He knew right away that it would be bad.

The city was hot and humid and the air so polluted, Mr. Spence said, that he felt as though he could not take a full breath. His adviser, David Martin, an exercise physiologist, agreed. They were, Dr. Martin said, "the most challenging conditions that have ever been reported for world championships."

But Mr. Spence, who is now the head cross-country coach at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, had trained long and hard for the race, the International Association of Athletics Federations' World Championships. He had run so much that a five-minute-per-mile pace "felt like a jog," he said. But his training had been so exhausting that he had to sleep 10 hours a night and nap 2 hours every afternoon. And his schedule, running 140 miles a week, was so onerous that he needed 5,000 calories a day to sustain himself.

"I got sick of eating," he said.

Even so, he and Dr. Martin, who is a professor at Georgia State University, planned his training by trial and error, Mr. Spence recalled. "We just kind of muddled our way through," he said.

Times have changed. Armed with new knowledge of how to survive a grueling race in heat, humidity and pollution, trainers and coaches say they are already starting to plan for two races that may be as bad as Mr. Spence's — the World Championships in Osaka, Japan, in 2007, and the Olympics in Beijing in 2008.

It is so early that the athletes for the races have not even been selected. But exercise physiologists and trainers are planning every detail, from a mile-by-mile examination of the routes to the use of a chemical that can prevent dehydration to methods for coping with the extreme air pollution in China.

Each tip, each special preparation, might take only 1 percent or so off a runner's time, but that can mean the difference between fame and defeat.

And that includes psychological preparation, says Gloria Balague, who directs sports psychology services at the Sports Medicine Center and Human Performance Lab at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

"You can't just hope to have a good day," Dr. Balague said.

Mr. Spence's experience shows how preparation and planning — even without the advances of the last decade — can determine who wins a race. At 6 a.m. on race day in Tokyo, the temperature was already in the 70's and humidity was high. Mr. Spence knew he could not keep up his usual pace in those conditions, so his strategy was to run slower than usual and hope his training would pull him through, allowing him to speed up at the end while the faster runners faded.

The gun went off, and the other runners quickly pulled ahead.

"You begin to wonder, 'Where am I?' " Mr. Spence recalled. "The leaders are so far ahead of me that I'll never catch up." Would they really wilt and fall behind on the 26-mile course?

They did, and so did many others: 40 percent of the runners never finished. Mr. Spence came in third, 40 seconds behind the winner, with an average pace of 5 minutes 11 seconds per mile. He went down in sports history as one of the few American marathoners to win a medal in a world championship.

"Was I the third most fit person in that race? Absolutely not," Mr. Spence said. "Was I the third most talented? Absolutely not." What made the difference, he said, was his training and strategy.

Now, with plenty of time to prepare for the races in Osaka and Beijing, USA Track & Field sponsored a small meeting for coaches, distance runners and trainers on getting to the medals podium. Mr. Spence told how he prevailed in Tokyo; exercise physiologists shared research results; and coaches of the champion American Olympic marathoners Meb Keflezighi and Deena Kastor revealed their athletes' preparations.

It was not the typical scientific meeting. At least half the people in the room wore runners' watches on their wrists and running shoes on their feet. The meeting adjourned for 2½ hours in the late afternoon so the participants could go for a run and eat dinner. And it seemed that no training tip was too minor to be of interest.

The overwhelming challenge, the group agreed, was to run well in high heat and humidity. Dr. Martin, analyzing performance records for men, calculated that the optimum temperature for a fast marathon was about 54 degrees. Running times, he said, slow by one minute or more with every seven degrees above that, because it becomes more difficult for the body to cool itself.

When it is humid, sweat does not easily evaporate, so the body sweats even more. Blood volume drops, and the body has to make a choice: divert blood to the skin for cooling or divert it to the muscles for performance. It sends blood to the skin.

The result is predictable, Dr. Martin said. With less blood going to the muscles, the runner slows down or stops. The challenge, then, is to find the fastest pace that can be maintained for 26 miles. Go too fast and you may collapse before the race is over. Go a little slower than you have to and you may lose the race.

"You're on the horns of a dilemma," Dr. Martin said.

Of course, he added, runners should not use lotions, including sunblock, because they add a barrier to the evaporation of sweat. He said that while it seemed logical to drink as much water as possible before the race — and runners try it — "it doesn't work." The reason, he explained, is that drinking a lot of water increases blood volume and the body responds by getting rid of it, in urine.

"What you need to do is to increase your total body fluids another way," Dr. Martin said.

He added that the legal, safe way to do it is through glycerin loading. The technique exploits the unusual properties of glycerin, a thick, gooey sugar alcohol that is sold in drugstores as a lubricant. Each molecule of glycerin absorbs three molecules of water. During a race, the body uses the glycerin for energy. And every time the body metabolizes a molecule of glycerin, "it unleashes three molecules of water," Dr. Martin said.

The result, he said, is that "you have a water bank account."

Glycerin loading, he added, should be reserved for races of a half marathon or longer, when runners are competing in intense heat for at least an hour and a half. Ten days before the Tokyo world championships, Dr. Martin told Steve Spence to try glycerin loading.

"He told me it would help with hydration," Mr. Spence said. "I asked a lot of questions. I was very skeptical because I didn't want to mess with anything. But they assured me it wouldn't cause any problems."

He tried it in training, and used it in the race. "I definitely think it helped me," Mr. Spence said.

Two American men, Steve Taylor and Brad Hudson, chose not to use glycerin in the Tokyo marathon, Dr. Martin said. Mr. Hudson did not finish the race, and Mr. Taylor "finished miserably," coming in 26th, Dr. Martin said.

Mr. Spence used glycerin again in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, where he finished 12th. So did the other two American men in the marathon, Ed Eyestone, who finished 13th, and Bob Kempainen who finished 17th. One American woman, Cathy O'Brien, used it and finished 10th, Dr. Martin said.

But the glycerin trick is not widely known, and that is just what Dr. Martin wants. He and his colleagues studied it in the early 1990's, testing it on athletes and asking, he said, "if it did any harm and whether they could finish a 20-mile run in hot weather and feel great."

Wanting credit, the researchers published their work. But not wanting to advertise it to the world's marathon runners, they published it in a Swiss triathlon journal, Der Laufer, written in German.

Food is another issue. A change in eating patterns can markedly improve performance, said Dan Benardot, a sports nutritionist at Georgia State. But getting athletes to change their eating habits is another story.

In analyzing athletes' diets, Dr. Benardot and Dr. Martin found that the diets of some, like Ms. Kastor and Mr. Keflezighi, were nearly perfect, "astounding," Dr. Benardot said.

But, he said, "most of the athletes have really severe energy deficits at different times of the day."

They "don't eat enough, and they don't drink enough," Dr. Benardot said. "Their backup plan is to take supplements," which, he added, are not particularly useful.

The typical pattern for athletes, Dr. Benardot found, is to eat a tiny breakfast, snack throughout the day and then, "at the end of the day, oh, my God, they make up for it with a big meal."

What would happen, he and Dr. Martin asked, if athletes parceled out their calories more evenly?

In a recent study, they recruited 60 college athletes. Thirty were told to eat three high-carbohydrate energy bars a day, in midmorning, midafternoon and after dinner. The others got packets of a sweet powder to mix with water and drink three times a day. The athletes thought the study was comparing liquid to solid snacks. In fact, the powder contained no calories, and each energy bar had 250 calories.

No one gained or lost weight; those eating the energy bars unconsciously adapted to the extra calories by eating less at other times. But the athletes who ate the energy bars lost nearly 2 percent of their body fat, a statistically significant change, and greatly improved their performance on a 30-second test of anaerobic power and endurance.

"It's a test from hell," Dr. Benardot said.

He said the athletes were so competitive that they pushed themselves to exhaustion. "We had the world cross-country cycling champion on his knees," Dr. Benardot said.

The test puts athletes on a bicycle connected to a computer. The computer adds 7 percent of the athlete's body weight as resistance, and then the athlete sprints as hard as he or she can for 30 seconds. Five minutes later, the athlete does it again.

Not only did those eating the energy bars do better on the test, they also said they did not feel hungry and that they felt more vigorous, Dr. Benardot said. And, to his astonishment, the changes occurred in just two weeks.

"After the study was over, those who had the bars kept coming to us saying: 'Do you have any more of those bars? What was in them, really?' " Dr. Benardot said. "Some of them thought it was illegal."

A month after the study ended, those athletes were back to their old eating habits, and their body composition and performance on the anaerobic test were back where they had been before the study. "It was incredible," Dr. Benardot said. "They went right back to their baseline levels."

Even if the distance runners in the Beijing Olympics eat perfectly, though, they are going to face the problem of air pollution.

In March, Randy Wilber, an exercise physiologist with the United States Olympic Committee, went to Beijing to measure the air quality at training and competition sites.

"I walked around the city for over a week," he said.

The air was not good. It had high levels of carbon monoxide, which significantly decreases the amount of oxygen that blood can carry. Added to that were high levels of ground-level ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and particulate matter, all of which can inflame and constrict the air passages in the lungs and set off asthma attacks even in people who have never had them.

"When you add in heat and humidity, with the heat index you can expect a sensation, a feeling of 90 to 95 degrees when you are outside," Dr. Wilber said. "With prolonged exposure and moderate physical activity, you will be on the borderline between caution and extreme caution."

The physical activity the athletes will be doing could hardly be described as moderate, however.

Parts of the 26-mile course are particularly dirty. "If any of you have driven through the steel mill district of Gary, Ind., that's what it reminded me of," Dr. Wilber told the meeting participants.

Air pollution can bring on exercise-induced asthma, even in athletes who never knew they were susceptible, Dr. Wilber said. But the runners cannot simply show up at the race and whip out an inhaler.

The drug they inhale, a beta-2 agonist, is considered a banned performance enhancer. If it shows up in a urine test, the athlete is disqualified unless he or she has medically documented asthma.

Since 2002, the World Anti-Doping Agency has said athletes must submit their medical tests well in advance of Olympic competitions. No longer will a doctor's note be enough; an independent panel of medical experts will determine whether the athletes have asthma severe enough to warrant medication.

Dr. Wilber wants to pretest Olympic athletes in Beijing, something he did for several athletes competing in the 2004 Olympics in Athens. One or two years before the Olympics, the athletes will be going to Beijing for other competitions, Dr. Wilber said, and those events would be a perfect time to test them.

To show how important it is to find out about asthma ahead of time, Dr. Wilber described an athlete who was competing in track and field and had no idea he had asthma until he tried exercising at the Athens Olympics.

"He tested positive for exercise-induced asthma, and we gave him the meds right there," Dr. Wilber said. "A few days later, he won a silver medal."

Dr. Wilber also has another plan up his sleeve to help athletes — including those without asthma — compete while breathing Beijing's polluted air. But he prefers not to reveal it to the outside world.

"There's a fine line amongst all of us internationally," he said. "They're not going to tell us everything they're doing. and I'm not going to tell them everything we're doing."

"That's medals for us," he said. "not them.

Run for Africa

Taro Agui's Harriers Running Club organizes the first annual Run for Africa this morning.

Despite my poor running condition of late, despite my general skepticism about charitable causes, despite the brutal heat and humidity in Tokyo, despite a pervasive feeling of malaise, I manage to crawl onto my bicycle at 7:30am and ride over to the Imperial Palace for the 5k event.

I am impressed to learn that Run for Africa benefits the Kasisi Orphanage in Zambia where 180 children (40 with HIV or AIDS) are cared for and that the Asics shoes I donate will be delivered directly to Zambian street children. I am also delighted to see a whole phalanx of Nambanners including Tokairin-san, Ma, Shoji, Marlissa, Gordon, Keren and Bob.

One of the nice things about the sport is occasionally getting out there and mixing it up a bit with the competition. Within a few hundred meters of the start I found myself in the lead pack with 2 younger guys just ahead of me, and Keren, Gordon, Bob, and some other over-40 guy right behind. The competitive instincts kick in a bit, and I even briefly take the lead around 700 meters, before settling into behind the second place kid (Katsu-san, who I later learn is actually 35 years old).

The energy drains out of me as we round the Palace grounds and start up the notorious Palace hill around the 4k mark. But I focus on staying right behind the kid, and hang on for 3rd place and first in the over-40 division with a time of 17:33. Of course in retrospect, I think to myself that I should have at least TRIED to overtake the kid as we ran up the hill. But that is easy to say now. The important thing is feeling more alive after a fine morning and helping a good cause.

The next Run for Africa is on August 26

Kamakura Trail Run

I am biased, but I find Kamakura to be one of the most interesting places to run in the greater Tokyo area with its remarkable combination of forested hills, spectacular temples, traditional neighborhoods, luxury homes and scenic beaches.

Sunday Martin, Keren, Yuka and I ran a 16-kilometer loop which circles around the perimeter of Kamakura.

Here is a map of our course --

http://www.mapmyrun.com/view_run.php?r=1634b496d9edb03a1a0653e618efe43a

The run starts at Kamakura station which is 50-minutes southwest of central Tokyo on the Yokosuka line.


Ten-in Trail
From the station we ran west for 2-kilometers through town and connect to a hilly trail that runs along a ridge on the west side of Kamakura, providing views of Kamakura as well as the beach town of Zushi to the east. We are in the midst of rainy season and the forest is particularly green and lush. Even though we are only an hour out of Tokyo, Keren and Martin commented that they feel like they are in the jungles of Saipan or Malaysia. The trail winds up and down past ancient caves and over huge rocks with footsteps worn into the sides from the centuries of people using these trails.







Kencho-ji
Around the 8 kilometer point the forested tail leads into the back of the spectacular 750-year old Kencho-ji Temple complex where we admired the Bodhisattva Jivo in a magnificent Zen temple with an elaborate copper roof.




Engaku-ji Temple
Martin is determined to see some of Buddha's ashes before he leaves for Afghanistan, so after touring Kencho-ji we run another kilometer to Engakuji where we enjoy the famous hydrangea flowers and monks wandering the sprawling tranquil temple grounds.










Zen-arai Benten Shrine
From Engaku-ji we run past Kita-Kamakura station, through the Jochiji temple grounds, up and down another kilometer of rolling trails, through a tunnel carved through rock and then arrive at Zen-arai Benten.
The sacred water at Zen-arai Benten is said to increase the value of any currency that is washed in it. I wash a 1,000 yen note and the Japanese girl next to me tells me to be sure to "spend it something meaningful." "How are you spending the money you are washing?" I ask her. "Oh, dinner of course" she says. I still haven't spent the money I washed myself, and am thinking to use it for the Namban Lance Armstrong marathon time betting pool, or emerging markets high-yield debt.




Kamakura Beach
We were all tired Sunday and after washing our money we decide that rather than incorporate the Daibutsu trail, we will make a beeline straight to Kamakura Beach through some quiet lanes along the west side of Kamakura town. Summer hasn't officially started yet, (believe it or not there is an official start to summer in Japan), so the beach is still empty.







Sento
We finish the run and head to a traditional neighborhood sento (public bath) to wash up. The sento is one of those wonderful Japanese institutions that is slowly dying out in modern time since nearly every home has its own bath facilities. But even in upscale Kamakura, the sento is clearly popular with a certain elderly demographic. A crowd of over dozen people, most all of them at least 80 years old, have gathered in front of the sento eagerly awaiting the 3pm opening. Yes the sento is one of those charming, culturally unique Japanese traditions to be appreciated and savored, but I have been in Japan for a long time and have grown cynical and jaded. One of the octogenarian bathers alerts me that my feet are sandy and need to be washed (before I even enter the bath house). As I rinse my feet, another old man takes the liberty of brushing the sand off my butt - which generates much bemusement among my fellow runners, and Yuka is quick to snap a rather compromising picture. I am a bit startled, but keep my head, and even thank the old man.

Soba

We find a soba restaurant in the back streets near the station where we plot the next Kamakura run. I had promised Martin we would do the Kamakura trail run again within "a month or so" right after we ran it last December. Every month I tried to find a Sunday that would work for both of us, but seven months have passed and we are only now getting back. I am hoping for good weather in late July and a beach party run.

Intrinsic Motivation

Day after day of rain and I am starting to consider breaking down and buying an indoor bike trainer which will allow me to bike in my apartment.

Perhaps you are wondering why I have resisted acquiring a trainer device in a city where every other self-respecting triathlete is spending every evening during the rainy season on one?   And after reading postings in this blog that are so often dominated by long lamentations on cycling in Tokyo traffic?

Well my philosophy has always been that cycling should be driven by the sheer pleasure of getting out and seeing the world and feeling the wind in your face.  My philosophy on running is much the same.  (Swimming of course is another matter). 

After a difficult week of work I really looked forward to running around Tokyo's Imperial Palace this evening, enjoying the views of the moat and the lights of the city's skyscrapers.   I frequently hear other runners talk about their preference to run in the morning so they "can get their run over with."  I am a bit troubled by this sentiment - I am not eager to "get my run over with" -- it is one of the best parts of my day -- it is something to be savoured.  

Yes, quite a few times it is a challenge to get out on a ride or swim, but I certainly don't see training as drudgery and duty.

I was intrigued to read an article in yesterday's New York Times(and copied below), about  high-level competitive athletes who become overweight couch potatoes after successful competitive careers because they relied on "extrinsic motivation".  It is a shame to see people miss the joy of sports for its own sake.  Perhaps if these individuals had a community like Tokyo's Namban Rengo they wouldn't feel like they are "running in a treadmill in a sea of anonymous gym-goers".  Perhaps if they cultivated an enjoyment of going out and cycling along the seaside they would not just talk about how they should be training.

 

July 6, 2006

Once an Athletic Star, Now an Unheavenly Body

By JILL AGOSTINO

THESE days the thought of running makes Howie Zebersky cringe. As an all-state runner from Long Island and a college competitor, he used to stop at nothing to outperform his rivals. But Mr. Zebersky, who hasn't laced up his sneakers in about a decade, knows that he'll never run as fast as he once did, so what's the point?

"When you run at such a competitive level and come back to do it at a recreational level, that is a hard transition to make," said Mr. Zebersky, 32, who raced for the State University at Albany almost every weekend of college. "With no goal, I find it hard to get out there. There's nothing to shoot for."

Karen Potenziano, who was an all-American lacrosse player at Ithaca College in upstate New York, feels the same. Without a reason to train and no teammates to push her, Ms. Potenziano, 39, a mother of three from North Yarmouth, Me., said, "I just can't seem to make it happen."

The dirty secret among former high school and college jocks is that many don't remain active as adults. In their glory days they were the fittest among their peers. But as adults many are overtaken by nonjocks who embrace fitness as a commitment to health, forget the varsity letter.

Onetime elite athletes often languish once organized competition is over and a coach isn't hounding them, sports scientists and exercise physiologists say. Many are burned out. Others become discouraged when their lackluster fitness can't compare to their highlight reels. Running on a treadmill in a sea of anonymous gym-goers doesn't compare to the thrill of being an m.v.p. on campus.

"Basically, they've been to the mountaintop and now they're on these little hills, and that is difficult to deal with," said Dan Gould, the director of the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports at Michigan State University in Lansing.

Extrinsic motivation is tricky business, said Dr. Gould, a professor of kinesiology. He said he has found that athletes who played for trophies or attention are more at risk of becoming sedentary as adults than people who have taught themselves to get off the sofa and exercise, those with "intrinsic motivation."

Stephen J. Virgilio, the author of "Active Start for Healthy Kids" (Human Kinetics, 2005), agreed. People who grew up without the stress of sports often enjoy hitting the gym, he said, but those who competed in athletics at a younger age have trouble exercising merely for upkeep, especially when many coaches don't emphasize fitness. "In high school and college, they do the sports to win games, not for personal health," said Dr. Virgilio, a professor of physical education at Adelphi University in Garden City, N.Y. "What happens when the sport is finished? They feel like they're finished."

While it may seem logical for disciplined competitors to continue a workout routine, experts say it takes significant reprogramming. "Exercise just seems to lack purpose or meaning," said Tom Raedeke, an associate professor of sport science at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C. "It's pointless."

Part of the problem is that some athletes were more involved in the game than in the exercise, said Bill Karper, an associate professor of exercise and sport science at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

That seems to be the case with John Deodato. As a teenager, he played baseball every day, either with equally gung-ho friends or for his team at Sachem High School on Long Island. But after graduation, without his coach telling him to run laps, he didn't know how to motivate himself. No glove, no glory.

Mr. Deodato, who recently topped out at 265 pounds on his 5-foot-11 frame, is as surprised as anyone that he let himself go. "When I was young and in high school, I was always thin, always active," said Mr. Deodato, 41. "In a million years, if you had told me that I would get to be 100 pounds overweight, I would have told you you were insane."

He always assumed he would take up another sport, but after years of inactivity, he became discouraged. "I decided I was too far gone, and it just seemed too hard," he said.

When he retired in May — after 20 years as a New York City police officer — he felt he had run out of excuses. He joined Weight Watchers and started doing 40 minutes of basketball drills every day, as well as walking and bicycling. But he wishes it had never come to this.

Other players who tire of the ceaseless demands of their sport come to think of working out as punishment. "At some point they do the drudgery — the running and lifting weights — to please their coach," Dr. Virgilio said. "They have to change their attitude about fitness."

The fatigue can often be as much psychological as physical. "The training is very stressful," said J. J. Clark, the women's track and cross-country coach at the University of Tennessee , who has trained hundreds of elite runners. "They need a mental break. They don't want to have to worry about what time they get up or what they eat. A lot of them after long careers, they just say, 'That's it.' "

But taking too long a break from conditioning can be dispiriting for people accustomed to being better than average, making it even harder to start an exercise routine. "It's a case of 'disimprovement,' " said Dr. Raedeke, who worked with swimmers at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. "It's very personal. It can be so discouraging to go into the gym and be lifting, maximum, what they used to be lifting for a warm-up."

It's easier for many former athletes to plant themselves on the couch and shout advice to the television. "They are still into their sport, but as a spectator," Dr. Virgilio said. "If they played football, they'll watch a lot of football, drinking beer and eating snacks."

But that doesn't have to be the case. John Nitti played football and baseball and ran indoor track in high school. Then he played football at Yale and was a National Football League running back for three seasons until he injured his knee. Once it healed, he started making time for exercise.

Now he plays basketball on Sunday morning and runs, bicycles and lifts weights before work. As a marginal player in the N.F.L., he said, he always did extra workouts on his own, and he remains a self-starter. Nostalgia also keeps him active. "It's the only piece of football that I've still got," said Mr. Nitti, who now works in information technologies. "I never wanted to let go."

For others changing activities can be a way to lower their ambitious expectations. It also provides a fresh challenge.

Barb Reichert, a former Division I collegiate softball player, won't step onto a softball field anymore. "My sport is no fun to play because my skill set is not what it used to be," she said. But in the last two decades she has dabbled in activities like hiking and mountain biking. "I watched some of the people I played with and see how out of shape some of them got."

Ms. Reichert, 44, a newspaper editor in Muskegon, Mich., said she still sees herself as an athlete. "And I love that my body does that for me," she said."

After she tore an Achilles tendon playing soccer five years ago, she switched to kayaking for miles on Lake Michigan.

Mr. Zebersky, the runner, is hoping to regain that passion as well. He says he misses running and lately has talked of starting up again. For now, it's just talk.

Running in Singapore - Botanical Garden

 

I had to deal with a week of meetings and attending a real estate investment conference in Singapore  - networking with 650 bankers and lawyers and the like.  Fortunately I somehow managed to get away for a few hours and join Brian Baker for a 12-kilometer run on Tuesday night. 

 

The run took us through a neighborhood of quiet forested streets and palatial colonial-era houses -- I have visited Singapore at least a dozen times, and in all those trips only seen concrete tower blocks, so it was interesting to run past so many immense estates.  Brian's course also took us through Singapore's embassy district and then to the Singapore Botanical Garden.  The Botanical Garden is an enchanting place to run - especially at twilight when the paths are lit up and the trails not crowded.  It was also good that the trails were not empty, as Brian decided to pick up the pace to under 4 minutes per kilometer and I dutifully kept up. 

 

After running in the sweltering Singapore humidity we swam in a 50-meter (yes, 50-meter) pool at Brian's apartment complex.   Talk about ideal triathlon training - it almost makes one consider moving to Singapore.