jasonatwood.com

Please update your bookmarks… My blog has moved to www.jasonatwood.com and trailplay.blogspot.com.

A quick update to Bottled H2Uh-Oh… The bottled-water industry, feeling shell-shocked from some of the negative publicity that it has been receiving lately, is responding by saying, essentially, that all water — tap or the fancy bottled kind — is the same. Yup.

The issue has never been whether bottled water is healthier than beer or coffee or soda. Nor is the bottled-water debate fundamentally rooted in revealing or defending America’s conspicuous consumption. Rather, there is an environmental — and therefore ethical, if not moral — point to be made about consuming bottled water. See a few posts below for further commentary.

On another note — and this one more curious — also offered to us by the good folks at Newsweek, Americans, who used to be “the tallest in the world since Colonial times,” are now among “the shortest and fattest in the industrialized world.”

The Dutch, with the average man and woman standing at 6′ and 5′7″ respectively, are an average of two inches taller than the average American. Less than 150 years ago — a blink in the eye of evolutionary biology — Americans towered over the average man or woman from the Netherlands by two inches. A four-inch swing since 1850?! What does it all mean?

The authors of the research report, published in Social Sciences Quarterly, comment on the correlation between a nation’s wealth and its height. “Prenatal care, nutrition and the way childhood diseases are treated are usually better in nations with higher per capita incomes—and all these factors can affect height.”

The United States leads the world in scientific advances and technological breakthroughs, but our healthcare system is severely fractured and results in a disproportionate distribution of both the quantity and quality of health services. Plus, we eat a lot. So much so that by 2015, more than 3 out of every 4 Americans is projected to be overweight or obese.

Americans — until recently the proudest and the tallest in the world! — now “don’t even break the top 10 in terms of tallest nations.” Nor do we break the top 10 in terms of child well-being.

In 2007, UNICF surveyed the 21 wealthiest countries in the world for child well-being. “The report looked at material well-bing, health and safety, educational well being, family and peer relationships, behaviors and risks. The United States was No. 20—behind countries like Poland (No. 14) and France (No. 16) and ahead only of kids in the United Kingdom.” The country with the best child well-being was the Netherlands. Remember–also now the tallest people in the world.

We are stunting our children.

Wandering and wondering,
J.R. Atwood

An Academy Award winner for staring in one of the most profitable and impactful documentaries ever made. A front-runner for the Nobel Peace Prize. A darling of the progressive political blogosphere. Advisor to Google and boardmember at Apple. Chairman and cofounder of a profitable cable network, Current TV, with 38 million subscribers. Chairman and cofounder of Generation Investment Management. One of the most sought-after speakers on the lecture circuit, commanding $175,000 per appearance. An environmental sage and technological prophet. Author of nine books, including the bestselling The Assault on Reason. In sum, a larger-than-life business and political brand with a net worth of over $100 million.

And all this since retiring from politics where, in a land far far away, he received the most number of votes for President of the United States in 2000.

Uh, “Lockbox” anyone?

Read the incredible story of “how an epic loser engineered what may be the greatest brand makeover of our time.”

J.R. Atwood

An interesting study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine reveals that a drunk, overweight and short man running on two legs of different lengths at midnight has less of chance of suffering a leg injury than a tall and lean athlete running at midday. Well, not entirely. But almost.

The New York Times publishes a great monthly sports magazine called PLAY. You can sign-up for a weekly email update of news and commentary from the sports world. From this week’s e-blast:

A Leg Up on Running Injuries

By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS

 

As the rush of fall road-running races nears, one challenge is to reach the starting line without first joining the large majority of runners — as many as 80 percent — who suffer a leg injury each year. A review of injury studies about lower-body injuries among runners, published in the current issue of The British Journal of Sports Medicine, provides some explanation for what causes so many injuries. It might not be everything you’d expect. Those most likely to be injured, the review found, include people who’ve been injured before; are too obsessive, running for a year or more without a break; or are men taller than 5-foot-6. (No study in the review looked at the issue of women’s height.) Runners with a relatively high body mass appear to somehow avoid foot injury — perhaps, the authors speculated, because Clydesdales, in general, run less. Surprisingly, some factors didn’t contribute to injury risk, including having legs of different length, using alcohol, or running after dark, when people may be more prone to misstep. The one element that was found to prevent running injuries most consistently was increasing mileage gradually, to a maximum of about 40 miles per week.

“Our experience is that many people can run forever,” says Kevin Stone, an orthopedic surgeon and the founder of the Stone Clinic in San Francisco. But if someone does get hurt, he adds, “we counsel them to fix what’s injured and cross-train, balancing less but higher quality running with other training techniques.” And, if at all possible, stop growing at the 5-foot-6 mark.

And when done perusing the BJSM article, read about “When It’s O.K. to Run Hurt.” The (surprising) takeaway: When you get hurt, keep on movin’!

Run With It!
J.R. Atwood

“Message in a Bottle,” authored by Charles Fishman and published by Fast Company, is one of the most interesting business articles and social commentaries I have read.

Read the whole article. Forward it to your friends. Discuss over the dinner table. In the meantime, some noteworthy stats and quotes:

• The number-one selling item at Whole Foods, by unit, is bottled water.

• Americans spent more money on bottled water — $15 billion — last year than we did on iPods of movie tickets.

• “One out of six people in the world has no dependable, safe drinking water.”

• Re Fiji Water: “More than half the people in Fiji do not have safe, reliable drinking water. Which means it is easier for the typical American in Beverly Hills or Baltimore to get a drink of safe, pure, refreshing Fiji water than it is for most people in Fiji.”

• Speaking of Fiji Water… Yes, it really comes from Fiji. Sounds nice. But then you realize that, “From New York, for instance, it is an 18-hour plane ride west and south (via Los Angeles) almost to Australia, and then a four-hour drive along Fiji’s two-lane King’s Highway. Every bottle of Fiji Water goes on its own version of this trip, in reverse, although by truck and ship. In fact, since the plastic for the bottles is shipped to Fiji first, the bottles trip is even longer. The water may come from ‘one of the last pristine ecosystems on earth,’ as some of the labels say, but out back of the bottling plant is a less pristine ecosystem veiled with a diesel haze.”

• “We’re moving 1 billion bottles of water around a week in ships, trains, and trucks in the United States alone. That’s a weekly convoy equivalent to 37,800 18-wheelers delivering water. (Water weighs 8 1/3 pounds a gallon. It’s so heavy you can’t fill an 18-wheeler with bottled water — you have to leave empty space.)” Note, “Pelligrino’s 1-liter glass bottles weigh five times what plastic bottles weigh, dramatically adding to freight costs and energy consumption.”

• Speaking of Pellegrino… For every one liter that goes into the fancy glass bottles for market, the Italian company “uses up 2 liters of water to prepare the bottles we buy” by washing and rinsing them in mineral water.

• “In 1976, the average American drank 1.6 gallons of bottled water a year. Last year we drank 28.3 gallons of bottled water — 18 half-liter bottles a month. We drink more bottled water than milk, or coffee, or beer.”

• “If you break out the single-serve plastic bottle as its own category, our consumption of bottled water grew a thousand fold between 1984 and 2005.”

• “Americans went through 50 billion plastic bottles last year, 167 for each person. Our recycling rate for PET [the totally recyclable polyethylene terephthalate plastic water bottles are made from] is only 23%, which means we pitch into landfills 38 billion water bottles a year — more than $1 billion worth of plastic.”

• “Bottled water isn’t healthier, or safer, than tap water [in the United States.]“

• You can buy a half-liter of Evian for $1.35 — 17 ounces of water imported from France for pocket change. That water seems cheap, but only because we aren’t paying attention. In San Francisco, the municipal water comes from inside Yosemite National Park. It’s so good the EPA doesn’t require San Francisco to filter it. If you bought and drank a bottle of Evian, you could refill that bottle once a day for 10 years, 5 months, and 21 days with San Francisco tap water before that water would cost $1.35. Put another way, if the water we use at home cost what even cheap bottled water costs, our monthly water bills would run $9,000.”

• “Pepsi has the nation’s number-one-selling bottled water, Aquafina, with 13% of the market. Coke’s Dasani is number two, with 11% of the market. Both are simply purified municipal water — so 24% of the bottled water we buy is tap water repackaged by Coke and Pepsi for our convenience. The water they are purifying is ready to drink — they are recleaning perfectly clean tap water.”

• Re the economics of the bottled water business: “Half the price of a typical $1.29 bottle foes to the retailer. As much as a third goes to the distributor and transport. Another 12 to 15 cents is the cost of the water itself, the bottle and the cap. That leaves roughly a dime for profit. On multipacks, that profit is more like 2 cents a bottle.”

So what does all of this mean? Americans like convenience and are willing to pay for something we can get for free — and that’s just as safe and healthy and good. Even if we fall victim to marketing and branding, so what? It’s our money, after all.

Certainly, “Bottled water is not a sin. But it is a choice… And in a world in which 1 billion people have no reliable source of drinking water, and 3,000 children a day die from diseases caught from tainted water…it’s fair to ask whether it’s always a good choice.”

And we should consider the environmental impact: manufacturing plastic bottles, shipping plastic bottles, industrializing the bottling process, transporting full bottles of water for market… Does the value of convenience — the ability to drop a buck or two for a plastic bottle of water — equal the impact we leave behind as a result of our conspicuous consumption?

Wandering and wondering,
J.R. Atwood

One of my favorite movies is Breaking Away, an earnest tale of a group of recent high school graduates in the university town of Bloomington, Indiana learning to manage both their own and society’s expectations. It is a sincere and humorous coming-of-age story–and winner of an Academy Award for Best Screenplay.

The movie’s protagonist is Dave Stoller, played by Dennis Christopher, who dreams of being Italian and a world-class cyclist. Part-way through the movie, after months of training, Dave receives some of the biggest news of his life: the Italian national cycling team will be coming to Bloomington–to Bloomington!–for an exhibition bike race.

This is Dave’s opportunity to meet and ride next to his idolized heroes. And on race day, Dave is in prime form. He is a strong rider and almost giddy with excitement when he finds himself the only non-Italian in the lead pack during the race.

The Italians, however, are not flattered or amused. They want to drop the skinny kid from the peleton. But Dave is a fast rider, good enough to keep pace with the world champions… Until the Italians sabotage his bike and put a stick through his front tire in mid-race, sending Dave flying over his handlebars and into the trees. The Italians ride on, laughing.

Dave cries. But not because of the physical pain. Rather, his tears are for an emotional pain. It is dangerous to have heroes. “Everybody cheats,” he says, almost entirely to himself, when his mother asks him what is wrong.

There is a heart-breaking sadness in his voice, a resignation of hope. No more heroes for Dave. Innocence is lost.

Everyone cheats.

A couple years ago I felt like Dave Stoller trying to keep pace with the Italians. In Tyler Hamilton I had found if not a hero, certainly someone to admire. He was a soft-spoken, quietly intense man, but hardworking to the point of being almost dogmatic. Stoic. One of the toughest athletes of all-time. And faithful.

For six years he was a journeyman on the USPS racing team, the last four as the dedicated chief lieutenant of Lance Armstrong. During the 2002 Giro d’Italia, a three-week bike race, Tyler fell and broke his collarbone. And continued to ride. And took second overall in the Giro.

At the end of the race, Tyler had to have 12 molars capped. So intense was the pain from his broken collarbone that he had ground his teeth to the roots while riding.

In 2003, Tyler broke his collarbone during the first stage of the Tour de France. Again, he stayed in the race. During the 16th stage, he surmounted what can only be called a magical and inspirational 143km breakaway to win the stage. When all the riders returned to Paris at the end of the Tour, Tyler was in fourth place overall.

Tyler continued to emerge from Lance’s shadow to become one of America’s most talented and successful cyclists. At the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Tyler won a gold medal in the individual time trial.

And then he failed a test for blood doping.

A few months later, at the Vuelta a Espana, Tyler again failed a blood doping test.

And I felt sucker-punched. Blindsided. Tyler Hamilton?! In all the interviews I saw of him, in all the articles I read of him, he seemed like such a good guy.

Well, he may be a good guy to his wife and buddies. But to the world of cycling, to an endurance sport fan like me who found in Tyler a rare hero-athlete, he is a cheat. And a liar.

Tyler has maintained an impressively consistent story that tries to explain-away just how his blood samples came back positive for blood doping. But all evidence is to the contrary. He was handed a two-year suspension from cycling, the most extreme punishment for a first-time offense. Tyler bitterly tried to protest.

And now, with all the drug-drama of this year’s Tour, I am reminded that professional athletes are little more than physically gifted people. They have massive VO2 capacity, and sometimes massive character flaws. They certainly are not heroes.

Too many pro athletes cheats. What a terrible thing to have to recognize.

Instead of watching this year’s coverage of the Tour de Farce on the Outdoor Life Network, I am going to watch Breaking Away with my real heroes–my dad, my mom, and my brother.

Run With It!
J.R. Atwood

Some websites to peruse during those long Monday morning meetings at work…

• All you wanted to know about the Tour de France but were afraid to ask.
• One of the most frequently asked questions about the Tour, and cycling in general, is “What do riders do when nature calls?“
• A growing list of recipes for homemade energy bars.
• The official website (in beta form) for The North Face San Francisco Endurance Running Club. (Check-out the “Resources” tab. Great stuff.)
• A New York Times article on a couple of guys training for the Badwater 135-mile ultramarathon.

Run With It!
J.R. Atwood

A new 60 minute spin mix is posted at spinningmixes.wordpress.com.

Run With It!
J.R. Atwood

The French have the English beat when it comes to food. But when it comes to sport…? Or common sense…?

Boris Johnson is a member of Parliament in the U.K. In a recent commentary in The London Telegraph, he provides a humorous and critical review of the rising tide of anger among French intellectuals aimed at the new French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, for participating in that most Right-wing leisure activity of jogging. (?!)

By trotting around the Elysée Palace with naked knees and in a sweat-drenched “Lake Havasu Spring Break 1992!” t-shirt, President Sarkozy, fellow Frenchmen claim, is committing cultural suicide. And the French, according to Johnson, so bothered that President Sarkozy is a jogger, become indistinguishable from their cartoonish caricatures that fill the editorial pages of the WSJ.

Would the beret-adorned instead prefer that their state leader sport Spandex and shaved legs atop le bicycle…?

Run With It!
J.R. Atwood

A new 60 minute spin mix is posted at spinningmixes.wordpress.com.

Run With It!
J.R. Atwood