My Billion Dollar Charity Run

In the June 19, 2002 edition of the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association, Drs. Robert H. Fletcher and Kathleen M. Fairfield broke a long-standing silence on the benefits of supplementation. The Clinical Application article recommends all doctors review vitamin and mineral deficiencies with each of their patients to reduce the risk of disease. The authors state that, “Pending strong evidence of effectiveness from randomized trials, it appears prudent for all adults to take vitamin supplements.”

Read more at the JAMA site. http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/287/23/3127

For more information on USANA Health Sciences please click on this link... http://duanespears.com

I Won the contest at the Miami County Family YMCA.

Below is the schedule for September 6th 2007 workout. I start my workout at 4 AM when I walk the 7 blocks to our YMCA. Then I warm up on a spinning bike for 45 minutes. Then I take a step class followed by 60 minutes on the spinning bike. After a short 30 minute break, I take a 55 minute circuit training class, then a 45 minute spinning class followed by a 25 minute torso class which finishes at 10:30 AM. I catch a ride home and take a break until 3 PM. I walked back to the Y and take two more classes, another circuit training class and a Hi/Lo class. The last class ends at 6 PM then I walk home. The reason for this schedule is for general conditioning for my run, plus our YMCA is having a contest during the month of September to see which member of the 17 Y’s in the Kansas City area works out the most. I want to win that contest.

The Y uses a system they call motivation where each member enters their respective active. Their program creates the below tables and I took screen shots of them for my blog.

My Total Caloriesfor Sept 6, 07

My Total Pointsfor Sept 6, 07

While performing at the USANA convention opening reception on Wednesday, August 22. “It was an incredible experience to play a part in USANA’s international convention this year,” Newton said. “After learning about USANA’s exceptional products and opportunity as well as their strong commitment to the community, I felt compelled to be a part of this company.” Check out more on Juice Newton by accessing her MySpace page.

Increased consumption of omega-3 fatty acids in the diet is associated with lower levels of inflammation and endothelial activation, according to results from a study at Harvard. Dysfunction of the endothelium, which is the inner lining of the blood vessel wall, is an early event in the development of atherosclerosis and subsequent heart disease. Food frequency questionnaires completed in1986 and 1990 by 727 participants in the Nurses’ Health study were evaluated for levels of the omega-3 fatty acids alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). Alpha-linolenic acid consumption was found to be inversely associated with several plasma markers of inflammation, while EPA and DHA intake was inversely related to platelet aggregration. Results of this study indicate that in addition to reducing triglycerides, platelet aggregation and heart arrhythmias, omega-3 fatty acids may also reduce the body’s production of hydrogen peroxide, which is involved in the inflammatory process. J Nutr 2004 Jul;134(7):1806-11

I enjoy reading, especially older books. I’m currently reading In Tune With The Infinite by Ralph Waldo Trine and he wrote, “Sufficient to know that the way we live our today determines our tomorrow” and then he penned the below poem which I thought I would share with you. If by chance you have not read In Tune With The Infinite I would encourage you to find a copy. It was first written in 1897. Well, here’s the poem.

“Every day is a fresh beginning,
Every morn is the world made new;
You who are weary of sorrow and sinning,
Here is a beautiful hope for your,
A hope for me and a hope for you.

“All the past things are past and over,
The tasks are done, and the tears are shed.
Yesterday’s errors let yesterday cover;
Yesterday’s wounds, which smarted and bled,
Are healed with the healing which night has shed.

“Let them go, since we cannot relieve them,
Cannot undo and cannot atone.
God in His mercy receive, forgive them!
Only the new days are our own.
Today is ours, and today alone.

“Here are the skies all burnished brightly;
Here is the spent earth all reborn;
Here are the tired limbs springing lightly
To face the sun and to share with the morn
In the chrism of dew and the cool of dawn.

“Every day is a fresh beginning,
Listen, my soul, to the glad refrain,
And, spite of old sorrow and older sinning,
And puzzles forecasted, and possible pain,
Take heart with the day and begin again.”

Steve Scott said that everyone who teaches people to set goals does it all wrong. What does he mean?

We are taught to set reasonable goals that are just out of our reach. Well, Steve says that is all wrong. We need to set unreasonable goals, we need to shoot for the moon. He uses the example of his infomercial for the Total Gym with Chuck Norris and Christi Brinkley. That infomercial has made him millions and millions of dollars and it is the first time that a major star agreed to do an infomercial.

When I was planning my charity run I thought about calling it the Million Dollar Charity Run, but I thought, “What’s a Million?”, not much in the big picture. So I decided it should be the Billion Dollar Charity Run and if one million people world-wide pledged $4 to their favorite charity and I ran the 800 meters in 1:57 we would raise One Billion Dollars for Charity. And that would be really cool, wouldn’t you agree?

I’m not just shooting for the Moon, I’m shooting for the Sun.

Have a great day.

Back in 1996 when I decided to create a fund raiser out of my run I had planned on raising money for just a couple of charities. Then I learned that one of charities I had chosen had billions of dollars.

That’s when I came up with the idea of allowing people to pledge money to their favorite charity and then tie their pledge to my 800 meter time. I thought this would be a fun thing to do.

The way the pledge works is if I break my record of 1 minute and 58 seconds by less than 1/8 of a second the pledge will double and then for every 1/8 of a second faster the pledge will double again. The pledge can not double more than 8 times. My goal is to run the 800 meters in 1 minute and 57 seconds. This of course will be a new world record for my age group. That record is currently 2:10:42.

A $4 pledge could become a gift of $1024 to your favorite charity. Click here to go to my web site where you can make a pledge. There is a calculator on that page which will calculate the amount of your gift based on your initial pledge and my time for the 800 meters.