Run to Win

This week last year was focused predominantly upon sports news. I wrote a very popular article about heart rate monitors and determining your maximum heart rate. If you are interested in that sort of thing, then a couple of weeks ago Complete Running had a series of articles on training with your heart rate.

• I wrote a very popular article about heart rate monitors and how to determine maximum heart rate.
• In running news, Kevin Collins won a 15 kilometer race off of casual training. I also went out and photographed the Hannaford Turkey Trot, which was won by my teammate, Devin Shaw. I didn’t know him last year, though, since I had not yet joined Dirigo. The teenagers had a great showing at that race after Devin came in.
• An ex-NFL player who often spoke out against steroid use, Steve Courson died. His reasons for speaking out on doping was because of a heart condition he came down with from his own use of steroids, but that is not what killed him. A tree fell on him.
• In baseball news, Bud Selig announced a new doping policy for MLB and A-Rod won the AL MVP. I thought that Ortiz was more important to the Red Sox than that A-Rod was to the Yankees, personally.
• A referree went to jail for fixing Germon soccer matches. In other soccer news, George Best was put on life support following a lung infection.
• I used a crunch machine for the first time last year. I never use it anymore, though.

Former Pittsburgh Steeler Steve Courson died last week after a tree fell on him while he was doing yard work. He played for Pittsburgh from 1978 until 1983, and he played for Tampa Bay for 1984 and 1985. He was an outspoken opponent of steroid use after coming down with a heart condition that he blames on his use of the drug in his college and NFL careers.

“It’s as much drug abuse to take steroids as heroin or cocaine,” Courson said in 1990. “When most people imagine drug abusers, their thoughts are of street people living in the gutter. Realistically, these people can’t afford drugs, but professional athletes and middle and upper class teenagers can.”