Blue Zones

The rain continued all day Sunday, off and on.  Remarkably, we were able to find another little window of light drizzle early in the morning and were able to run and walk.  My recovery continues to go well; it has now been four weeks since surgery, and I will go back to see my surgeon a week from now.  I can walk three or four miles at a faster and faster pace with no discomfort, and I can do some exercises with light weights.  So I am preparing to tie on that new pair of running shoes soon. 

This was the afternoon we had scheduled for our annual Highlands Roadrunners Club Spring party, hoping that we could have it out of doors as we had last year.  That did not prove possible, but a dozen or so of us gathered indoors and had a fun time anyway.  I know that some of those who had RSVPd had opted to stay home on such an afternoon rather than brave the elements.  But most of us are runners, and have run for hours in conditions worse than this.

"What's the longest you have been out from running?" I asked Fred, our 80-year-old veteran runner and true inspiration.  He said that he had once been out for several months, and more than once for periods as long (or, to his mind, I suppose, as short) as mine (two months), and he had returned to running relatively easily.  That made me feel a little more confident. 

Our Mayor came to the party, too, with his wife Sallie, and the conversation turned to the event that Sallie had organized at the Performing Arts Center for this evening, a lecture by Tony Buettner, brother of author Dan Buettner who wrote the book Blue Zones, which we both read with great interest last year.
 

I had already watched the TED talk on this topic before I read the book,  It examines regions of the world - so-called "blue zones" - where there are extraordinarily long-lived communities, and theorizes why they live such long and healthy lives. Some of the common factors are reducing stress, eating more vegetables and less meat, having friends who support them, belonging to faith-based communities, and simply moving.  These sound like they could be principles of our running club, and indeed of the lifestyle to which Martha and I have been striving to adhere for most of our lives.

Reflecting on these long-lived communities, the runners gathered at the part agreed that there are many of these individuals here in our midst, not just Fred and Jim Askew (who passed away last year), both running in their 80s, but the many centenarians in the Highlands area.  Our town shares the same factors as these far-flung communities around the world, with its strong churches, many opportunities for walking and hiking and running, and stress-reducing environment.  That is exactly why the Mayor and his wife would like our Town to become a "Blue Zones" community.

Martha and I also realized that there are many "Blues Zones" people in our own family, especially the women who are ageing so gracefully, like Martha's aunt Angela who is 91, and her aunt Lizette who is 90; both have been physically active all their lives and have strong church and social connections, and Lizette has been a life-long member of Weight Watchers.  Until this summer, Martha's mother enjoyed mowing the lawn on her riding lawn-mower . . . at the age of 83.

So in an hour or two we will brave the last of the diminishing rain and hear more about Blue Zones.  Yes, it is still raining, off and on, but it is finally moving out of the area, with sunshine and dry conditions predicted for the next few days.  We will be glad to see the green and yellow and orange zones on the doppler radar finally move out of the area!