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This Month's Magazine

Stand Winter Fitness on its Head

Its time to change the mindset. The opportunities to train outdoors will be limited over the next few months. This month we address fitness from two perspectives — Setting sport specific goals and using a fitness ball to stay in shape. In addition, you'll find the Metro Detroit Ski Council Ski Guide inside, filled with a ski club directory, a bunch of trips to try and information on skiing safely.

full story

Inspiration Leads to Gratitude, and More Inspiration

I just received a reminder to be grateful for the life I have and teh business I'm in.

On the Anniversary of being named the Subaru Athlete of the Year in our magazine in 2007, Mandi Tuite sent me an e-mail listing the things the award inspired her to accomplish.

It's an impressive list. Not only because of what is on it, but because last year Mandi was just beginning life as a cancer survivor.

full story

Weight Training for Runners

There are several different types of resistance training equipment available to you in your local fitness club—free weights, Universal systems, Nautilus, Cam Systems, etc. They use different types of resistance: air pressure, fluid resistance, friction, pulleys, free weights, etc.
Which of these is best? It doesn’t matter. As long as you’re pushing or pulling against resistance and overloading the muscle you’ll gain strength.

full story

Get Your Off-Road Nutrition. . . Without Falling off the Bike

Off-road nutrition is much more of a logistical mystery than a simple road triathlon, where you can use a bento box, carry a bar of some type or use gel packets. Off-road, you can’t take your hands off the bars to reach for a package, tear it open, and eat it anytime. Try doing that on a volcano in Maui, or on the twisty, winding roots of a single track trail and you’ll soon be licking fresh wounds.

full story

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Editor's Take :: What's in Your Backyard?

Written by: Peggy Herron
Posted: Monday, 06 October 2008
(0 votes)

People often ask me where I find inspiration for these monthly columns. I usually pretend that it's easy, that sports offers endless inspiration.

If only that were true.

Sports do inspire, but sometimes you have to dig a little to find it.

And so it was that I found myself brainstorming topics with my publisher/husband Jeff. What hadn't I written about in the prior nine October issues? Could I really do one more "changing of the seasons" piece?

Jeff pointed out that it's harvest time. He's been doing some digging himself. It seems he always wanted a garden and this year, inspired by Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, he went a little nuts in our back yard. Brussels sprouts anyone?

In touch with his green thumb, it was easy for Jeff to make the connection between the work we do in the summer, the benefits we reap this time of year, and the understanding that, in the garden, there is much work to be done in the winter.

When Jeff said this to me he channeled Peter Sellers, in his role as Chauncey the Gardner in the movie Being There. It's one of our favorite movies. Chauncey is raised in a protective environment - he knows only two things of the world: what he's seen on TV and what he's learned working in a walled inner-city garden.

Unleashed on the world (or abandoned to it), Chauncey rises to improbable greatness by being honest as a child and talking about what he knows. Gardening. The movie ends with Chauncey performing a miracle - an act most likely explained by the simple fact that know one ever taught him that he's not capable of this particular miracle.

In Chauncey's spirit, and with thanks to Jeff for the idea and the veggies, I offer my best wishes to all of our readers for an abundant harvest. I know many of you personally, and I've enjoyed hearing your stories of personal accomplishment and dedication as you trained and competed this summer.

Here's to a harvest of quicker legs, harder abs, faster split times and medals for completing that first tri. And here's to the rewards you'll give yourselves during the fall marathon season.

You've worked hard in your gardens too. Enjoy the fruits of that labor, but remember Chauncey's admonition that there is much work to be done in the winter.

And, if you're lucky, enjoy performing that personal miracle that you never learned was impossible.

Thanks for reading.

Peggy Herron, Editor
Michigan Sports & Fitness Magazine

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Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved.