At the risk of sounding like a shameless self-promoter, which I suppose I am, there is an article in the Winter 2004 edition of Men's Health--Best Life magazine (the guy from CSI is on the cover) that I wrote about masters swimming. It's set at the Rutgers meet last summer and profiles a couple guys in my age group along with Bill Volckening, the editor of Swim and a super nice guy.
If you have any friends who are sitting on the fence about possibly returning to the water, the people I profiled might help inspire them to check out our sport's considerable benefits.
Best Life is a trial magazine of sorts that Rodale (publisher of Men's Health, Runners World, etc.) is currently selling only on the newsstand, four times a year, but is considering "launching" as a monthly. It goes against the current grain of men's magazines a la Maxim and its ilk, concentrating less on babes and beer than thoughtful analysis of subjects of interest to a somewhat older more reflective audience (40ish+) as opposed to youth oriented (18-34) demographics. I would sincerely appreciate anyone who has a bit of spare change grabbing a copy on the newstand near you!
For what it's worth, I do think you might enjoy my article--and lots of the other pieces in this issue. Thanks.
JIm,
Thought the article was great. It is nice to see a little swimming exposure in health and lifestyle related magazines. I think the article might appeal to the average rec. swimmer who is thinking about joining a master group. Nice job!
Dennis
Thanks, Dennis. Those guys I profiled--Jack Martin, Bill Volckening, and Arthur Wein--are all super fellows and really an inspiration.
One the guys I wrote up (but there wasn't room for him in the story, especially since he wasn't at Rutgers) was Paul Trevisan. Don't know if you know him or know of him, but talk about your legendary Lazarus type guy. From so screwed up from a bad back he could hardly walk, to a world record holder who, at 50ish, swim times most college kids would envy..
Anyhow, thanks for the kind words.
So, for those of us who don't end up getting the magazine...
Reprints later on? How do we get out hands on the article?
Maybe once the dust settles nd that issue is out of print?
Hi, Mark. The magazine is only sold on newsstands. It may even be at the newsstand at the airport where your plane lands. Or try the local newsstands in whatever NJ town you wind up at. If you don't have any luck--i.e., it's sold out or something, let me know and I will ask my editor if there's any other way to obtain a copy. Thanks for looking!
Jim, I think that in New Jersey you can find BEST LIFE in Borders book stores, CVS drug stores and WaWa convenience stores. It is a well written and thought provoking article. Although on one level it's about Masters Swimming and the competition and competitors at the Nationals at Rutgers, it's also about facing adversity and the choices people make in dealing with it. It will be interesting to see how it is received. Jack
Thanks, Jack. I wanted to correct an error I made in an earlier post. Bill Volckening is not the editor of SWIM, but I think he is the USMS editor --or something along these lines. Phil Whitten is the Editor-in-Chief and arguably the most knowledgable writer in the world on competitive swimming. In my article, I mention a study Phil did while at Harvard on masters swimming and the aging process.
Speaking about overcoming adversity, check out Phil's editor's note in one of the recent SWIM magazines. Very moving and inspirational.
Jim,
Just to let you (& anyone north of the border) that I managed to pick up a copy of Best Life with your article at a magazine shop in Montreal.
Interesting! If Jack Martin is the 1776 Jack Martin, he was in Montreal for the Canadian Nationals in May (along with Dan Rogacki, Larry Krauser & other US swimmers). I missed him. Had I known he was one of your nemeses, I would have searched him out.
Look forward to an article from you (in 'Swim' even?) on Paul Trevisan. I like to know how & how much these fast guys train. It always makes me feel better about what I do with my relaxed training.
Ian.
Ian and Jack, I actually wrote about Paul in my article, but he was trimmed out of the final cut for space purposes (plus the fact that he didn't make it to the Rutgers meet.)
Anyhow, I will paste in the Paul Trevisan excerpt below. I'm not sure exactly how much he works out, but it's pretty intense quality, from what I understand.
....Consider the nearly mythic case of Paul Trevisan, a 51-year-old suburban Philadelphian who made All-American as a high school sprinter. After a distinguished college swimming career--Trevisan was one of the nation's top sprinters during the Spitz era--he found himself heartily sick of training and gave up laps for links.
Flash forward a quarter century to 1997. While practicing his back swing on a local golf course, Paul heard a sickening crack in his spine and had to literally crawl to his car. Two days and one MRI later, his doctor informed him he had two herniated disks in his lower back. For the next year, Paul avoided the knife, attempting instead to quash his considerable pain with pills, cortisone injections, epidurals, and a smorgasbord of conventional and alternative therapies--all to no avail. His gait resembled that of an old man; he couldn't even bend over to tie his shoes. His weight ballooned from 200 to 240, and his energy level plummeted.
Nearing 50, Paul found himself snowballing fast down the back slope of life's Continental Divide.
It was at this point that his teenage daughter recommended he get back into the pool. His first forays into the water were hardly auspicious. "I couldn't even swim," he recalls, describing a back so painful and inflexible it was impossible to get horizontal. "I would walk some, then stand. I was just getting wet."
Nevertheless, he refused to give up, and after a year of daily 5:30 a.m. "workouts" he found both his energy and flexibility slowly coming back. A few of his fellow lap swimmers, impressed by his dedication, told him about an upcoming local masters meet. He entered this on a lark, and to his amazement, won both the 50 and 100 freestyle in his age group. The lure and thrill of competition would prove a fountain of youth for Paul, and since then, he's never looked back. Shortly after entering the 50-54 year old age group, he began setting world and national records in the freestyle sprints, accomplishments he hopes to better in the future.
"What started out as 'just trying to get healthy' has turned into a commitment to find out has fast I can swim," Paul recently told me. "I set goals each year, and this season I have set some aggressive ones. For instance, in the 50 yard free, I plan to do a 21.5, and a 47.5 in the 100. Is this sick or what? But it's a lot of fun, and I am so glad I was able to work my way through the difficult years."
Note: swimming has even allowed him to get back to golf painfree. Paul's now shooting in the mid-70s, playing better than before his injury. "But I play golf purely for entertainment," he says. "Unlike swimming, I don't plan to let it become a competitive situation."
For Senior Tour members, that's got to be a good news.
