She gave up on having a regular running partner after too many people gave excuses for not joining her for jogs, such as “I'm too tired” or “I came to work late.” She prefers running outside to running indoors on a treadmill, even in the wintertime. “The only problem in the wintertime is it gets darker sooner, so you're limited,” she said. “I don't like running by myself at night. I [use] a treadmill if I need to.”
On Tuesdays, Dr. Meikle's office hours start at 1 p.m., which affords her ample running time in the morning.
Her office hours on the other days of the week start at 10 a.m., “but if I have patients in the hospital, I have to see them earlier,” she said. “I try to start my days with a run.”
She emphasized that you always can find time for exercise. “You may not have a lot of time, but even that little bit helps,” she said, noting that all of her children are active in one sport or another. “Then you become more efficient. I have my gym bag. I always have my sneakers with me. I can run anywhere.”
Cross-Country for a Cause
A former All-American basketball player for Newman University in Wichita, Kan., Dr. Michael Bayer knows a thing or two about how to stay in good physical condition. But nothing could prepare him for a cross-country bicycle trip he made this spring from New York City to Newport Beach, Calif., to raise funds for the Free Wheelchair Mission, a not-for-profit charity that has delivered more than 200,000 low-cost wheelchairs to disadvantaged people in more than 54 countries (see
“I'm pretty tired. It's pretty exhausting,” Dr. Bayer said in a telephone interview from Wichita, an approximate halfway point after biking more than 1,700 miles. “It's harder than I thought it would be.”
Entitled the “Ride for Mobility” and sponsored by Reader's Digest, the journey began April 20 and ended June 16. The purpose of the ride was to raise $670,000, which is the cost of making and distributing 15,000 of the nonmotorized wheelchairs to physically challenged people in developing countries. As of June 13, they had raised about $380,000.
“There is a great need out there,” said Dr. Bayer, an orthopedic surgeon who cofounded Free Wheelchair Mission 6 years ago with former biomedical engineer Don Schoendorfer, Ph.D. “Twenty percent of the people we give wheelchairs to live on the ground. They either have to lie on the ground because they're too poor to afford a bed, or they actually crawl. Getting bitten by snakes is the No. 1 cause of death in Asia and Africa among the disabled populations that live on the ground.”
Dr. Schoendorfer designed the wheelchairs, which are made of plastic chairs, metal tubing, and mountain bike tires. At a cost of about $45, each chair is assembled in China, shipped to the receiving country, and personally delivered by a volunteer.
“That can change someone's life immediately from being bed-ridden, languishing, and hopeless to having a reason to get up in the morning and having mobility to do a number of things,” Dr. Bayer said.
He bought his bike just 2 months before the cross-county trek began, and prepared with intensive workouts that included lifting weights, core strengthening, and spin classes.
“For physicians who don't have a lot of time, those spin classes are really good,” he said.
To stay on schedule, Dr. Bayer and Dr. Schoendorfer biked about 5 hours nearly every day. The grueling routine “makes me want to say I'm never going to get on a bike again,” Dr. Bayer said. “When I'm riding this bicycle across the country I keep thinking, 'I wish I was playing basketball. It would be a lot more fun than riding this bicycle for 5 hours.' But there's also a certain addictive part to it. I think I'll probably always be a bike rider after this trip.”
Twelve Exercise Essentials
According to a survey of 36,000 fitness professionals conducted by the San Diego-based American Council on Exercise, the top 12 “exercise essentials” are:
1. Good shoes.
2. Fun or appropriate music.
3. Free weights.
4. A positive attitude.
5. Comfortable clothing.
6. Lots of water.
7. A supportive sports bra.
8. Safe, well-made equipment, such as cardio machines and heart rate monitors.
9. Weight-training gloves.
10. Enough time.
11. A workout partner.
12. Fresh, clean air and/or sunshine.
Source: American Council on Exercise