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Senior Olympics: Athletes Share a Commitment to Fitness and Fun By
Gary Rotstein
May 20, 2003
Charles
Brooks, 80, John Sturlese, 70, and Paul Plinta, 74 at the track at
Hempfield High School Wednesday for the Westmoreland County Senior Games. The 80 or so Western Pennsylvanians headed to the Virginia coast next week for the national Senior Olympics range in age from their 50s to 80s, but that's the least of their differences. Their athletic backgrounds are as varied as former collegiate football stars who find safer sports as they age, and late-blooming housewives who were denied competitive chances when growing up before Title IX. Some previously won gold medals in the Summer National Senior Games, as they are formally billed, and others are newcomers to national competition after qualifying in the 50-and-over Pennsylvania Senior Games last year in Shippensburg. More disparate than anything are the health backgrounds and fitness routines of the senior Olympians, whose national event is held every two years and will be in Pittsburgh in 2005. The National Senior Games Association is sponsoring the event in Hampton Roads May 25-June 9. John Sturlese, 70, of Monongahela, will be competing in the long jump and high jump three years after he collapsed from a heart attack at the end of a 5K race in Shippensburg. His heart had to be shocked back to life, and now he's back on the track of Ringgold High School many mornings to train with fellow Washington County Olympians. Horst Bernhardt, 66, a bicyclist from Bethel Park, will be in his first Senior Olympics 10 years after work stress, bad eating habits and a lack of exercise sent him a "wakeup call" -- heart bypass surgery. Last year, he was in 39 bicycle races in seven states. He's at a fitness center at 6 a.m. many days for more than an hour of aerobic exercise and weight training.
And there are triathlon participants who work out even more, complementing the exercise with high-octane herbal supplements and vitamins and rigid diet controls. At the spectrum's other end are softball players who drink beer after games and volleyball competitors in their 50s whose work and family obligations make exercise off the court a rarity. Interviews with 20 of this year's local Olympians made clear that rather than an elite group defying any hint of aging or excelling above all peers since childhood, they are a more ordinary cross-section of the older population. They share one distinct quality, however: They acknowledge the importance of exercise and healthy eating, even if their dedication to each varies from moderate to obsessive. Many sedentary folks their age hear that same diet-exercise drumbeat from physicians and the news media without paying it any heed. Walking and water "If the average senior really wants to take care of themselves, they can walk half an hour a day, watch what they eat and drink lots of purified water -- at least 70 ounces a day," according to the prescription of Bob Eazor, 75, of Murrysville. As a Senior Olympics qualifier in both the triathlon and bicycling, Eazor does much more than that. He's been in shape most of his life, starting with his days as an amateur boxer, when he would run five miles alongside railroad tracks each day. In his middle years, he played regularly in racquetball clubs he owned in Monroeville and Greensburg and later competed in the world championships of the Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii. Today he averages 2 to 2 1/2 hours of exercise a day by running, swimming, bicycling or weightlifting. He also avoids red meat, eats organic fruits and vegetables and takes all manner of vitamins and supplements, providing special doses of beta-carotene, amino and folic acids, vitamins C, E and more. That is Eazor's preparation for his June 1 competition in Virginia, which will combine a mile-long swim with a 25-mile bike ride and 10K run (6.2 miles) alongside other men in his 75-79 age group. The former trucking industry executive is a young man compared to some other local competitors. Elizabeth Prycl, 81, of Hempfield, travels to the Norfolk area hoping to match her Mark Spitz-like performance two years ago in the national competition in Baton Rouge, La., where she won three gold and five silver medals. The longtime swim instructor never competed during most of her life, aside from the games she organized with Troy Hill friends as ayoungster. But recreation department supervisors who knew her in Hempfield encouraged her in her 60s to enter some swim meets, which she won. That led Prycl to travel to Shippensburg, where she entered not only swimming but track and field competition. She's been bringing home ribbons ever since in the shot put, discus and javelin, in addition to multiple swimming events. She's one of the few Pennsylvanians to compete in all nine national Senior Olympics since 1987. "I don't know how I got started -- I just did it," she said of her natural ability in events that she'd never tried as a pre-senior. "I'm fairly strong and have always been real active." Prycl said she never smoked or drank, common prohibitions for most of those interviewed, but her health regimen is nothing extraordinary. She's in the water a lot giving instruction and teaching aerobics classes, walks regularly and takes a daily multi-vitamin. Overcoming obstacles Staying healthier than sedentary adults doesn't exempt the competitors from common age-related conditions. They just work to overcome them. Charles Brooks, 80, of Monongahela, has an arthritic leg and has lost lung capacity since a bout with pneumonia last year. But neither will keep him from the high jump, javelin and discus throw in his fourth national Olympics. He takes pain pills to keep the arthritis tolerable. Every morning at 7, he heads to the local Y to walk a mile indoors, work on the exercise machines and lift weights. Some days, after returning home for breakfast, he'll head back out at 9 for a workout at the Ringgold track with Sturlese and fellow Olympian Paul Plinta. "The wife keeps saying, 'Do you really want to go to the Y today?' and I say, 'Honey, it's discipline, discipline, discipline,' " Brooks said of his ritual. "You've just got to do it. Someday, I'll be up on the porch in a rocking chair, and until then, I've just got to keep moving." Even with the regular workouts, daily vitamins and careful diet, Brooks and others are moving a little slower or jumping a little lower each year. That's the unavoidable byproduct of aging, which reduces muscle mass and cardiovascular endurance. Brooks said he's "lucky" to jump 3 feet, 2 inches now, when he did 3-8 in his early 70s. His buddy Plinta, 74, won a silver medal in Shippensburg by finishing the 1,500-meter race walk in 12:08, when he used to be always under 12 minutes. "I lose probably 15 seconds every year," said Plinta, a retired Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corp. electrician who takes medication for high cholesterol. He also tore cartilage in the back of his leg recently and wears a brace to manage it. A team sport like softball isn't supposed to be as strenuous, but the men on a local age 60-64 team that qualified for the Senior Olympics play through plenty of injuries, said Jim Witsch, 61, of Richland. The former three-sport letterman at Pittsburgh's Perry High School has had arthroscopic sur-gery on both knees, and he said it's common among teammates to have their knees drained of fluid before competition. Worse than that, a teammate collapsed on the bench during a tournament two years ago, moments after making a running catch in the outfield. He was hospitalized with a stricken heart and died. That was an unusual case, and Witsch said the softball players demonstrate their fitness by playing multiple games in 100-degree weather on some days in Southern tournaments. "Overall, the people playing ball are in a lot better condition than those not playing ball," Witsch said. A former smoker Margaret Gardner, 56, of Baden, has her own health issues from quitting smoking a year and a half ago. She can breathe easier while running bases for the Pittsburgh Diamonds softball team, known as the Pennsylvania Diamonds for the Olympics, but she also put on 20 pounds from kicking the habit. Rather than any fancy gym workouts, the homemaker and free-lance artist stays in shape by taking brisk walks with two huge dogs, weighing from 75 to 100 pounds each. She's been playing competitive softball since age 45, an outlet she didn't have in high school. Intramural programs were all that were available to many female athletes. "Nowadays, girls get to have competition," Gardner said. "We didn't have that opportunity back with my age group. I'm just sort of catching up on what I missed as a child." A few of the local men were star athletes from a young age, but not many. One was Paul Blanda, 71, of Youngwood, who had brief stints in both professional football and baseball after playing for the University of Pittsburgh. He's given up team sports for golf, in which he has an 8 handicap, about 5 strokes worse than in his early 60s. He takes medication as a result of a mild heart attack he suffered at 64, but sees himself as well off. "When you're 71, you're in good shape if you're still looking down and not up. I think it comes if you've got good genes in the family," said Blanda, younger brother of NFL Hall of Fame quarterback George Blanda. The Senior Olympians compete against their peers in five-year age brackets. If they maintain their health and skills on a relative basis, they should always be able to qualify and compete nationally. Many are looking forward to the 2005 games, which will bring more than 10,000 people like them to Pittsburgh. It's part of the incentive for 83-year-old George H. Wagner of New Brighton to keep walking a couple of miles, three days a week. He's obtained two national gold medals in archery and wouldn't mind a third in two years. "If I'm still moving, I'll be there," he said. Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging |
