Saturday November 2- 2019, God's willing , I will be participating in my 18th Ironman competition in Panama City Beach ( Florida).
My number 17th was in Kona (Hawaii) the site of the yearly World Championship.
One has to qualify in order to be able to compete there.
And to quality one has to have done another ironman event and ranked first in the age groups.
The participants came from over eighty nations. It was fascinating to hear people communicating in so many different languages.
In every one of those Ironman, one or more of my family members would travel with me. Most of the time my lovely wife would volunteer. On October 2018, it was my daughter Eman's turn.
It is a long way to travel from Houston to Kona. Because there is no direct flight, we flew through San Francisco.
This was the fortieth anniversary of Ironman organization.
On Thursday October 11, there was a motivational dinner ; with Hawaiian dances and instructions on the competition itself.
It is customary that the organizers would present, on the stage, the youngest and the oldest participants. That evening, the youngest was an 18 years old German who came with his father who is a participant himself. They both came to compete together. It is a wonderful opportunity to have a son or a daughter competing together in a big event like an ironman.
The oldest competitor was an unbelievable 96 years old.
When asked about his workout routine he said that he does aerobic and anaerobic exercise every day. I wanted so much to talk and learn from that man. Unfortunately I was unable to find him among the multitude of people. In addition to the 2500 participants, the five thousands volunteer's, the families of the athletes and the organizers. It was an impossible task to locate him, even though I tried hard.
I any of these demanding arduous competitions, we all learn from one another.
That man inspired me and will inspire me for the rest of my life. He is in my mind whenever I am training as a reminder of what is possible.
To summarize ,for those of you who are not familiar with this triathlon; it starts with 2.4 miles swim followed with 112 miles bike and then end up with a marathon 26.2 miles run. All that in one day.
The start time is 7 am and the finish before midnight.
I am a very average swimmer. It takes me an hour and forty minutes to finish. All along way I am earnestly praying, to Almighty, to get me out of the water safely. When you have over two thousands people jumping in the water at the same time!! it is a struggle.
In Hawaii we face three challenges; the heat, humidity and the strong wind.
My wonderful daughter was following my progress up close, and giving me encouragement. To this day,I remember two very significant incidents took place during the competition.
With thirty miles left on my bike segment, my electronically shifting gears stopped functioning. Without being able to shift gears it is impossible to continue. I came to a complete stop thinking it was over. I stopped on the side of the road in the middle of no where. I was helplessly watching all the bikers go by me and lamenting my bad luck. Not to be able to finish was something that I have never experienced before. Thinking that all the training, hard work, and the expenses were for naught!!! I was on the verge of tears ,when two young men appeared asking what made me stop. After explaining the problem I uttered the word that it was over.
" don't think that way" one of them uttered while stooping examining my bike.
He stood back up and said that the electronic shifting battery is out. He then proceeded to manually shifting the chain to a middle gear. Then Each stood on one side holding the bike and helped me mount and pushed up the hill. While peddling I hollered my thanks.
Who were they ? Where did they come from? What were their names, and how was it possible that one of them discovered what was wrong?
And with that I was able to finish the last thirty miles.
The strange thing is that this happened in a rare isolated part of the road.
In the early evening an unexpected rain began to fall bringing a welcomed cooling of the unbearable heat. After a while my shoes and my socks became all soaked wet and heavy.
Not long after I felt as if my left sock had folded on itself causing pain every time I stepped on it. I stopped and took my left shoe off to discover that there were no folds, instead I had two large blisters at the bottom of my left foot. It became very painful to continue. The doubt slowly crept in.
- " the pain is unbearable"
-" There is no way to finish in time, why suffer?"
All of those dark thoughts added to my heavy legs and tiered body, It gave credence to the idea of quitting. It made perfect sense and very plausible logic and above all the desired justification.
- " I have done this before, I don't need to prove anything to anybody"
Suddenly the site of my daughter on the side of the road at night , standing in the rain and cheering me up, not only chased out all of the negativity and gave me the mental and physical strength to continue. "I am going to finish this thing" . I kept repeating in my head ; ten more miles only ten more miles to the finish line. I started visualizing in my mind's eyes crossing the finish line, I barely noticed that the rain had stopped.
As I got closer the I started hearing the announcer's voice greeting the finishers. Soon my name would be announced.
That voice got louder and louder. Then came a steep down hill that allowed me to increase my speed. I was flying, the adrenaline was flowing in my blood erasing any pain and the memories of the sixteen hours of struggle.
Now I smelled the finish line.
Over a stretch of half a mile the road was lined up with wooden barriers behind them thousands of screaming, applauding, pound barriers people calling my name in a deafening sounds. Then came announcer booming voice that filled the night air; " here comes number 130 from Houston Texas the seventy eight years young , Abdel Fustok you aaare an Iiironmaaan
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
How our nutrition evolved
Almost ten thousands years ago our specie went through a radical nutritional change. We evolved from "hunters and gatherers" into an "agricultural" society. In our specie's history this is a real drastic revolution.
Suddenly we started producing our own nutritional needs instead of running and walking looking to satisfy our constant daily hunger.
Before long we developed ways to preserve and store crops. This allowed the formation of agricultural settlements and the potential demographic increase.
The direct consequences of that shift are many to list but for the purpose of our topic;
-the wheat cultivation took place around major rivers; Nile in Egypt, Tigris Euphrates in Mesopotamia and rice in China, that is how organized societies and civilizations were born.
- this new and sudden change created a major dilemma for our mankind.
Our digestive system cannot adapt that fast. Ten thousands years is a blink of an eye. It took millions of years to produce our organism with its intricate enzymes, hormones, proteins, digestion, metabolism, and so on. All of these systems are extremely complex and very slow to adapt to a new environment.
In time, the staple of our food consumption was based on carbohydrates, wheat derivative in most of the world and rice in Asia.
Two elements became associated with survival, bread and salt.
Bread for caloric source and salt for survival when traveling in hot climate; on foot or on the back of animals ( camels and horses).
Romans legions walked across long distances carrying with them those two items as there pay. The word salt became the origin of salary.
The bread was not easy to produce. It took generations to master the art of making bread.
Milling the wheat kernels into flowers required the invention of "millstones", and that took a long time to master.
The idea of then mix it with water to create a " dough" and then another invention; baking it.
In time the bread and salt acquired cultural and spiritual dimension;
sharing them with a stranger became a of way of connecting with our follows human beings.
Yet from a nutritional point of view, food became plentiful. Our body is used to go for long stretch without food. Our genes are very thrifty. For millennia famine was around the corner. To survive ,our genes had to save every ounce of extra calories as fat. That led to our current struggle with weight. More to come....
Suddenly we started producing our own nutritional needs instead of running and walking looking to satisfy our constant daily hunger.
Before long we developed ways to preserve and store crops. This allowed the formation of agricultural settlements and the potential demographic increase.
The direct consequences of that shift are many to list but for the purpose of our topic;
-the wheat cultivation took place around major rivers; Nile in Egypt, Tigris Euphrates in Mesopotamia and rice in China, that is how organized societies and civilizations were born.
- this new and sudden change created a major dilemma for our mankind.
Our digestive system cannot adapt that fast. Ten thousands years is a blink of an eye. It took millions of years to produce our organism with its intricate enzymes, hormones, proteins, digestion, metabolism, and so on. All of these systems are extremely complex and very slow to adapt to a new environment.
In time, the staple of our food consumption was based on carbohydrates, wheat derivative in most of the world and rice in Asia.
Two elements became associated with survival, bread and salt.
Bread for caloric source and salt for survival when traveling in hot climate; on foot or on the back of animals ( camels and horses).
Romans legions walked across long distances carrying with them those two items as there pay. The word salt became the origin of salary.
The bread was not easy to produce. It took generations to master the art of making bread.
Milling the wheat kernels into flowers required the invention of "millstones", and that took a long time to master.
The idea of then mix it with water to create a " dough" and then another invention; baking it.
In time the bread and salt acquired cultural and spiritual dimension;
sharing them with a stranger became a of way of connecting with our follows human beings.
Yet from a nutritional point of view, food became plentiful. Our body is used to go for long stretch without food. Our genes are very thrifty. For millennia famine was around the corner. To survive ,our genes had to save every ounce of extra calories as fat. That led to our current struggle with weight. More to come....
Monday, August 19, 2019
Almost ten thousands years ago our specie went through a radical nutritional change. We evolved from "hunters and gatherers" into an "agricultural" society. In our specie's history this is a real drastic revolution.
Suddenly we started producing our own nutritional needs instead of running and walking looking to satisfy our constant daily hunger.
Before long we developed ways to preserve and store crops. This allowed the formation of agricultural settlements and the potential demographic increase.
The direct consequences of that shift are many to list but for the purpose of our topic;
-the wheat cultivation took place around major rivers; Nile in Egypt, Tigris Euphrates in Mesopotamia and rice in China, that is how organized societies and civilizations were born.
- this new and sudden change created a major dilemma for our mankind.
Our digestive system cannot adapt that fast. Ten thousands years is a blink of an eye. It took millions of years to produce our organism with its intricate enzymes, hormones, proteins, digestion, metabolism, and so on. All of these systems are extremely complex and very slow to adapt to a new environment.
In time, the staple of our food consumption was based on carbohydrates, wheat derivative in most of the world and rice in Asia.
Two elements became associated with survival, bread and salt.
Bread for caloric source and salt for survival when traveling in hot climate; on foot or on the back of animals ( camels and horses).
Romans legions walked across long distances carrying with them those two items as there pay. The word salt became the origin of salary.
The bread was not easy to produce. It took generations to master the art of making bread.
Milling the wheat kernels into flowers required the invention of "millstones", and that took a long time to master.
The idea of then mix it with water to create a " dough" and then another invention; baking it.
In time the bread and salt acquired cultural and spiritual dimension;
sharing them with a stranger became a of way of connecting with our follows human beings.
Yet from a nutritional point of view, food became plentiful. Our body is used to go for long stretch without food. Our genes are very thrifty. For millennia famine was around the corner. To survive ,our genes had to save every ounce of extra calories as fat. That led to our current struggle with weight. More to come....
Suddenly we started producing our own nutritional needs instead of running and walking looking to satisfy our constant daily hunger.
Before long we developed ways to preserve and store crops. This allowed the formation of agricultural settlements and the potential demographic increase.
The direct consequences of that shift are many to list but for the purpose of our topic;
-the wheat cultivation took place around major rivers; Nile in Egypt, Tigris Euphrates in Mesopotamia and rice in China, that is how organized societies and civilizations were born.
- this new and sudden change created a major dilemma for our mankind.
Our digestive system cannot adapt that fast. Ten thousands years is a blink of an eye. It took millions of years to produce our organism with its intricate enzymes, hormones, proteins, digestion, metabolism, and so on. All of these systems are extremely complex and very slow to adapt to a new environment.
In time, the staple of our food consumption was based on carbohydrates, wheat derivative in most of the world and rice in Asia.
Two elements became associated with survival, bread and salt.
Bread for caloric source and salt for survival when traveling in hot climate; on foot or on the back of animals ( camels and horses).
Romans legions walked across long distances carrying with them those two items as there pay. The word salt became the origin of salary.
The bread was not easy to produce. It took generations to master the art of making bread.
Milling the wheat kernels into flowers required the invention of "millstones", and that took a long time to master.
The idea of then mix it with water to create a " dough" and then another invention; baking it.
In time the bread and salt acquired cultural and spiritual dimension;
sharing them with a stranger became a of way of connecting with our follows human beings.
Yet from a nutritional point of view, food became plentiful. Our body is used to go for long stretch without food. Our genes are very thrifty. For millennia famine was around the corner. To survive ,our genes had to save every ounce of extra calories as fat. That led to our current struggle with weight. More to come....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)