Shape Up Cape

August 15

The Fit to Print team earned 724 points. St. Andrew's Fit for Eternity earned 802 points while the public library's team earned 343 points.

Fit to Print point totals:

Andrea Buchanan: 42

Sam Blackwell: 126

Spencer Cramer: 90

Heidi Hall: 69

Jamie Hall: 57

Gabe Hartwig: 72

Laura Johnston: 68

Heather Kronmueller: 78

Bob Miller: 48

Joe Sullivan: 74

Total 724

Average 72.4

OUR UPDATES

Next week you'll hear from the other members of our team. HEIDI HALL

Thank you, Laura Johnston, for turning me on to "Caribbean Workout" on The Health Network at 11 p.m. weeknights.

It airs at the perfect time -- if I can't get to the gym well before the 10 p.m. closing time, I can count on "The Caribbean Workout." It's a 30 minute aerobic workout, which translates into 12 Shape Up Cape points. The blond instructor, Dave, is pretty easy on the eyes. But there's something for the fellas, too: two scantily clad female co-instructors. And one of them doesn't speak English!

Yes, I have to modify the movements for now. I can't bounce around like a lunatic or lunge too deeply. Even if I could get off the ground, my knees and feet wouldn't take the pounding.

But thanks to Shape Up Cape, I'll be caught up with Dave and the bimbos in no time.JAMIE HALL

The fact is that the easier and more convenient I can make any workout, the more likely I am to do it. The best intentions don't always matter.

For example, inconvenient: Driving to the gym, strapping on a sport CD player, looking around the building for the correct weight and a bench, then listening to my gymmates grunt and groan while they sling around 100-pound dumbbells.

Convenient: Spending a few bucks on weights and a bench and working out at home.

Inconvenient: Trying to run along a blacktop outdoor trail at high noon when the heat index is 110, dodging speeding bicycles and trying to keep sweat from washing the contacts out of my eyes.

Convenient: Using a three-dollar jump rope for about 20 minutes under the ceiling fan in the guest bedroom.BOB MILLER

Pay no attention to the point total at the bottom of this article.

For the past couple of weeks, my social life has gotten in the way of my workouts. So what? That's the reason I started working out in the first place.

I have squeezed in two or three good workouts per week, which should be allow me to maintain a decent level of fitness. But finding time for daily workouts is becoming more difficult. I still do my abdominal workout daily, but my friends at Main Street Fitness see me less frequently.

I'm feeling particularly good today (Tuesday). Just a few hours before I wrote this update, I finally beat my buddy Matt in a game of racquetball. Down 14-10, I rallied to claim a 16-14 win. It was a classic. Of course Matt won the other three games, making our series something like 20-1.JOE SULLIVAN

The stereotype of runners is that they are wiry and unusually short with toothpick legs and no chest. So why is it, everywhere I go, that I see runners who look like ... well, like me?

Shape Up Cape. That's the answer.

As I've noted before, more and more people who used to think lifting a bowl of potato chips was a form of calisthenics are, thanks to this communitywide fitness spree, actually doing something good for themselves.

At 5 a.m., you don't expect to see a lot of jogging competition on the streets of Cape Girardeau, but there they are: guys with lumberjack builds who look like they'd handily win a pancake-eating competition. They're running.

Actually, running might be a little over the top. I call it jogging. Others might call it shuffling while sweating profusely.

Whatever, it's better than scarfing potato chips. That's what Shape Up Cape has taught me.