10:42am Wednesday 5th August 2009
By Denis Watkins
At my age, 73, I could be in a Home for the Elderly. Or least sitting in a chair with a rug over my knees to keep warm.
Over the summer I have met people who look forward to the “Polypill” which they say gives you everything you need and, with some statins included, you will avoid strokes and heart attacks. This is the mad idea being pushed by someone called “the Health Czar” or some such name.
I have never heard of him, I don’t know his name, but this man – the daftest ideas usually come from men – exists. One man I met says the “Health Czar” wants everyone over 50, including the healthy, to have free statin drugs as it will save so much money later on the NHS. This will also make a fortune for the Pharmaceutical companies which who will get healthy and fit people to take powerful drugs in case they might become ill in the future.
There is, I am happy to discover, another group of people whom I first met in person during the Round Pembrokeshire Cycle Event – 115 miles which should have killed some of them at their age. The age range of competitors was, I think, teenage to 70.
I was at the start to watch Julian, my son, start in wind, rain, cold and, with the rest, facing some tough climbs. Marina, his girlfriend was with me, and we then drove to the first stop. It was here that I saw how tough these competitors were and age did not seem to count.
I watched a man who looked close to my age arrive with a rip in his leg and I think someone stuck something on it at the First Aid tent. Others ignored wind, rain, cold and falls and just kept going. Some were women who were faster over the entire race than many very fit men.
Later Julian recommended a book he had been reading about a very minority activity called “ultra marathons.” I read this and I was amazed. An ultra marathon is at least 100 miles non stop.
I then read another book called Survival of the Fittest: understanding health and peak physical performance by Mike Stroud. This book is by a doctor, is based on careful, detailed research by Dr Stroud who has performed these feats of endurance himself.
He writes that humans evolved over vast ages to become supremely adapted as animals to endure keeping moving over long distances. “The heart attacks, strokes,diabetes, and other illnesses that arise from our modern lifestyles and diets that are far from those for which evolution designed us.”
Once I began this book I could not leave it alone. It is well written, a series of adventures in human endurance that are as exciting as any thriller you are likely to read, and by testing ourselves and pushing our physical and psychological limits, Mike Stroud writes, “our hidden evolutionary strengths allow us to remain active and healthy well into old age.”
So, I took advantage of a sunny Sunday, quite rare, and walked from Poppit Sands to Newport Beach with Freddie, our Labrador. My attitude to the long and testing slopes changed as a result of Mike Stroud’s book.
In fact, my entire outlook on activity, which I have always enjoyed, is confirmed by this excellent and readable book. Besides that, I enjoyed some of the best coastal walking and scenery you could want.
Forget the polypill: read this book and become active.
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.westerntelegraph.co.uk/trade_directory/