Good Sports

by Budd Glassberg

Reprinted with permission from the Zionsville Times Sentinel on December 20, 2006

“Y” I am Proud to be a Geezer

A community center can be a very influential place that can perform a vital function to the community. The size of the community and the size and location of the center is fundamental to the success the center has in touching the community. For example, Indianapolis is too large to have just one community center. It has several social service centers as well as a number of YMCAs that serve different neighborhoods throughout the city. Zionsville is small enough to have a community center, but affluent enough to have several facilities both close and far away to meet individual needs of our populace. I recently had the opportunity to spend nine weeks in Bloomington, Indiana. The size of the city, the needs of the citizens and the location of the facility combine to allow the Monroe County YMCA to strike a chord that resonates throughout Bloomington.

Given free use of the facilities, I gravitated to the indoor track at the “Y”. Three lanes made of hardwood ring the facility; the outermost one is restricted to runners and consists of 6.6 laps to the mile. The inside lane at 7 laps to the mile is restricted to walkers and carries the most traffic. The middle lane is supposed to be used for jogging, but is most used for walking along side those using the inside lane. Each day the direction of the movement miraculously switches between clockwise and counterclockwise. Inside the track is; an exercise machine room with many treadmills, exercise bikes, elliptical trainers, stair steppers, weight machines as well as several televisions to watch while exercising, a free weight room, several rooms for stair stepping, yoga, jazzercise and other group led classes, several racket ball courts, two full court basketball courts, several small rooms for light exercise and rehab classes and a hallway with more exercise machines. On the outside of the track there is a large swimming pool, several meeting rooms, offices, a room for bicycle spinning classes and two large locker rooms with showers. The facility is clean, well staffed, and most importantly well used.

While running multiple rings around the facility, windows to the different areas gave me a glimpse into the demographics of the patrons as well as the programs provided by the staff. For example, the exercise machine room was favored by those in their thirties and forties while the silver haired set seemed to prefer the exercise bicycles in the hallways. The pool attracted a great diversity from toddlers to octogenarians. The indoor track, my venue, was overwhelmingly populated with the elderly. Sure, there were a few youngsters like myself and occasionally someone running a few laps even younger than me, but for the most part, the track was frequented by the old. If I had to guess, I would say the average age on the track would be seventy. For that matter, the overwhelming majority of patrons at the YMCA were past retirement age.

In an age where we are bombarded by the media (including this column) about how out of condition we are in as a society, it was encouraging to witness the older generation doing what they can do to keep themselves healthy. The facility opened at 5 AM each weekday and stayed open until 10 at night. The morning hours were shortened on the weekends. No matter what time of day I arrived, the place was buzzing with people exercising. The instructor led programs were all well attended. Two of these I found extremely important are; 1) the W.I.S.E. Program which provides a supportive environment in which cancer patients and survivors in all phases of treatment and recovery work to improve their functional capacity and quality of life through physical activity and multidisciplinary educational programs and 2) Hearteam Cardiac Rehabilitation paired with the Bloomington Hospital to help people with heart disease recover faster and return to full and productive lives.

The YMCA schedule of classes is a 40 page book including a myriad of classes and helps explain why the facility remains buzzing with people every day.

After returning to Zionsville, I found that I missed the community aspect of the YMCA in Bloomington. Several years ago, I tried to get something going here with an adult education program called Learn Something New. It lasted only two years. It seems a lifetime ago, I ran a cardiac program through the Community Hospital of Santa Cruz and found the work to be very rewarding, but left the program to begin a career in accounting. Last year, I attempted to involve the Zionsville Community Schools in the very effective PE for Life program to no avail. Perhaps it is not my calling to spark community action on health and fitness. Maybe it is time to just appreciate and admire places like the YMCA in Bloomington. I guess we all come to decisions about our own health and fitness and cannot be pushed into action. As I admire the generation that came before me, exercising at the “Y”, there is probably some of the younger athletes there who link me, a baby boomer, with those older folks. Yeah, we are rapidly merging with those older folks. Makes me proud to be a geezer.

Budd Glassberg is a resident of Zionsville who is active in the local running community. Visit www.runz.com for reprints of all his columns. You can reach him by email at budd@runz.com.