A great irony occured just as I was leaving. The instructor mentioned a 72 year old (my age), as though he were really old, who rode the Snow Canyon hill in 12 minutes. Actually, the instructor looked far older than 72 and his mentioning this “older” gentleman suggested that he may have been well under 72. He looked older than that to me in a sort of death-warmed-over aerobicizer way. The irony is that this the same hill where a popular 52 year old local doctor died when he sat down to rest after his climb to the top. He had a massive heart attack that killed him instantly. His death surprised everyone, but me, because he looked so “healthy” and was so “fit” according to the newpaper.
While the media looks for reasons in Jesse Marunde's training and diet (and even speculate about what it means to be a man), they say nothing like that in the death of Brian Maxwell, the marathoner. It seems few journalists question the health benefits of marathoning, when it kills far more people than the bizarre lifting and eating that Jesse Marunde did. Of course, neither are worth the cost or the risk.
