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Show Page B2 Thursday, August 9, 1990 Park Record tia&y MUKMlooo- DV EATCI E2sADHIY A helmet and a bucket of luck i " t ui.mi. iii i ihl .! - L - . - rj, , ' ,' v. I never used to wear a helmet when I rode my bicycle. Now I attribute that to the invincible attitude at-titude of youth. The fact that I never cracked my head, I attribute to luck. A bicycle can cruise down most mountain passes faster than a car, I used to brag. I remember pulling my lips tight over my teeth to keep the bugs out and squinting through a blur of windy tears as I banked wildly past cars, my bare head nearly resting on the handle bars. I don't remember any thoughts like "what if the front forks break?" or "what if my tire flats?" ...What if I hit a pot hole or skid out on rocks? or something flys into my spokes? or... I liked it better when my imagination wasn't so vivid. Now I ride my bike down Ontario Canyon, helmet on snugly, and try not to look down at the front wheel and the ground going by. Don't think of the broken body parts and torn flesh you've heard of from high speed bicycle crashes, I tell myself. I haven't felt the need to pass a car going down Ontario in quite a few years. It takes some of the fun out of feeling the wind in my hair, but I'm afraid that luck won't last forever and lately, I've realized that my body won't either. One of life's great paradoxes is that no matter how fit we keep ourselves, it is not healthy to slam our bodies into the pavement at 40-50 miles per hour. We can't be so fit that we are immune to injury in-jury or aging. A lot of Parkites are fanatical about fitness. We choose our foods carefully to sidetrack heart attacks at-tacks or cancer. And we "work out" religiously to keep our bodies young, fit and ready for action. (A recent study suggests that regular exercise may lengthen a person's life span by an average of one year, however, that year, according to the study, is spent exercising.) Then, when we're good and fit, we choose our method of injury... softball? biking? bik-ing? rugby? climbing? Fitness is relative to what it is you want to do. If your life's goals are satisfied by sitting in front of a computer terminal at least eight hours per day, you need to develop muscles accordingly. A person per-son used to constant moving, stretching, and being active is not "fit" for the requirements of the position. posi-tion. On the other hand, if you hope to climb Mount Everest, average fitness is "unfit." Someone who runs 40 miles per week may not be fit for biking because of the different demands of the sports. A weight lifter may not be able to finish a 5-k footrace and an aerobic animal may not be able to do a chin-up. Who's fit? Who cares? It's all relative to what it is you want to be fit for. And then there's the luck part of it. A speed skier shooting down a slope at more than 100 mph may be an excellent physical speciman with superhuman skills, but luck plays a major role. It's very unlucky if one ski is ever-so-slightly deflected by a deviation in the snow's surface at 120 mph. I think we're all given one bucket of luck (or for some people two) to use while we learn about danger and how to take care of ourselves. When that's gone, we're on our own. A-l CO. Cleaning Specialists Offering Reasonably Low Rates and Personalized Cleaning for Fast, Efficient Service Call Peggy Sue 263-1616 or 649-8144 LICENSED, BONDED AND INSURED rOUhon DbsctaL Receive One Hour FREE on a Customized Cleaning from A-l House Cleaning Specialists SHIELDS DRAPERIES Custom Made Draperies Selection of Fabrics 383 East 1 700 South Salt Lake City, Ut. 84115 484-9724 Window covering specialists since 1 948 In store custom workroom Repairing and remodeling of draperies and all types of blinds and rods. New & old designs available UTAH FAT TIRE STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS part of "THE UTAH FAT TIRE FESTIVAL SERIES' Sunday, August 19, 1990 DEERVALLEY CIRCUIT RACE First Timer" Category (12 Lap) All Ages, All Categories WIDOWMAKER. GUIDED TOURS BIKE TOSS $5,000 CASH PLUS $5,000 MERCHANDISE Preregistration Deadline Thursday, August 16, 7:00 p.m. FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL: MED Kalhy McCarthy Open water rowing is growing Tina In Park City 649 -1020 'Volunteers Needed-Please Coll If Interested by KATHY MCCARTHY Record staff writer Touted at one of the best overall fitness workouts, rowing machines can now be found in living rooms across the country. Herb Lepley agrees with the fitness advantages of rowing, but prefers to find the time and skills to take his rowing outside. A nurse practitioner at the Park City Family Health Center and a Park City resident for seven years, Lepley took up sculling in 1988, especially as a summer training compliment for his winter crosscountry cross-country ski racing. When asked if he and his boating compatriot, David Reddick, call themselves "rowers," Lepley says, "You know, I think we are rowers..." "Rowers," that is, as compared to the more technical collegiate "scullers." "We're not that technical," says Lepley. Lepley theorizes the difference between what he and the traditional collegiate scullers do is primarily a function of different time constraints. con-straints. College students can often arrange their schedules more easily to meet the needs of sculling with one, three or even seven other crew members. Lepley calls what he does "open-water sculling." With a job that demands specific hours, and friends whose jobs and families keep them busy, it can be difficult to find time for anything but solo workouts. Exercise like running, biking, and skiing are the norm, but Lepley and Reddick would like to see more people peo-ple in the area find the same romantic roman-tic involvement with sculling that they have. Granted, slipping into your boat for an evening workout requires a bit more preparation than slipping into your shoes for a jog. But the effort ef-fort isn't more than many other sports about the same as other water sports. Mostly you need a scull, a place to store the scull, a body of water to row it in, and a way to get it to the water. Lepley pretty much has all four bases covered with a minimum effort. Balanced on his one-man, water-skipper-like craft on the small lake at Silver Springs, Lepley briefly demonstrates the basic stroke, and then shoots smoothly across the lake and back. The light racing boat barely displaces water as it skims over the surface. Lepley has discovered that training in a figure-8 pattern on the small lake is good for technique and gives a more steady workout than a straight-line, turnaround turn-around system. On the other hand, Northeast Utah offers many larger bodies of water. "You can row everywhere," says Lepley, "Echo, Rockport, Deer Creek, East Canyon, Smith-Moorehouse, Smith-Moorehouse, Salt Lake..." Lepley and two friends even took their tiny, tippy boats to Lake Powell last year to row 120 miles in six days from Waweap to Height Marina, through occasional wind-whipped whitecaps. HDistimcitive pBit "It's a versatile sport good for day-to-day, complete body workouts, plus you have the opportunity oppor-tunity to go on trips and tour large bodies of water," says Lepley. Flaming Gorge is another body of water Lepley has set as a not-too-distant goal. Since the scull has no storage, he relies on a larger support boat to carry most of his gear on longer tours. The oarsman perches on a sliding seat facing the stern, with feet held in place at nearly hip level. The boat, barely wider than the oarsman, is very unstable when the locked oars are lifted from the water, but if both oars are extended to the sides and left on the water, the sleek, little boat seems relatively stable. A beginners boat is typically designed for stability rather than speed. Lepley recently outgrew his beginners boat and moved into a new, wobbly, 40 pound kevlar craft for about $2,300. A beginners boat will cost closer to $1,700. According to Lepley, open water sculling has seen a marked increase in popularity in the past 10 years. The Salt Lake Sculling Club has been active for three years, headed by Wendy ' McLaughlin. McLaughlin also has boats for rent and gives sculling instruction at East Canyon Reservoir. Lepley suggests that the best way to get started sculling in this area is to join the Salt Lake Sculling Club or take a lesson to see how you like it. Wendy McLaughlin can be reached at 583-6448 if you're interested. students to get scholarships to some very good schools. As a beginner, much of the training train-ing is skills rather than aerobic or power. That comes later, after balance and handling techniques improve. im-prove. "We try to row 2-3 times a week," says Lepley, although he admits they have resorted to using races as training. Recently returned from an annual regatta at Lake Tahoe, Lepley was happy to talk about his friend's performance. Reddick placed plac-ed 11th in a field of 60 competitors, and because the race was on the national na-tional circuit, competition was stiff. Reddick was only about three minutes off the fastest time of 1 hour, 18 minutes for the 10-mi!? (intermediate length) race. Lepley wasn't as willing to discuss his race, although he mentioned something about "typical beginner mistake... starting out too fast." The two local rowers plan to attend at-tend another regatta at Lake Taho in September (22 miles) and then a 32-mile race off the California coast near Catalina in October... just for training, of course. Note: The suffixes -men and -man were the author's choice not the rowers. The author hopes that women will consider themselves part of the group of hominids who call themselves "Mankind," thus making the suffix "man" applicable to them as well. It's a versatile sport-good sport-good for day-to-day, complete com-plete body workouts, plus you have the opportunity to go on trips and tour large bodies of water. Herb Lepley "I guess David and I are the Park City Sculling Club," Lepley says with a shrug when asked about sculling scull-ing in Park City. He and Reddick are eager to encourage others in the sport. Lepley has a vision of sculling as a Park City High School sport. Although he admits it's kind of a "yuppie" thing to do, he sees sculling scull-ing as a possible way for high school r" ' ' fggm ""Ul1""" ""' ""'" Herb Lepley V,' ' 1 ,h e -t: .... tft&'P . j Open water sculling has seen a marked increase in popularity in the past 10 years. |