Body Protection Filmed At Movenpick Resort and Spa at The Dead Sea

It was a long journey in a short period of time and my lead videographer is still probably cursing me today that I decided to shoot Body Protection in Jordan, but it was worth it. Our crew did a great job working endlessly to capture what we needed in four days of filming. We are excited, but also exhausted…

The Movenpick Resort and Spa at the Dead Sea in Jordan showed us wonderful hospitality and support during our demanding video shoot. They went above and beyond to assist the filming.

With the Dead Sea and the West Bank of Israel as the DVD’s backdrop, it made for a picturesque setting. Now the editing begins. Body Protection will be released in January 2012. We look forward to sharing with you the training secrets to keep you injury-free.

We have a lot going on before the end of the year as BodyProtection.com will be launched in December. It is now time to spend a couple of months at home after being on the road since May with “5 Wonders Under 25 Minutes” and now the filming of Body Protection.

Returning to the Dead Sea

We have had a busy schedule since returning from our “5 Wonders Under 25 Minutes” tour. After a clinic in Martha’s Vineyard and then a trip to Atlanta this past weekend, we are now traveling back to Jordan to shoot the new “Body Protection” DVD. Sekyen and I and our film crew team will be leaving Thursday to travel to Amman, Jordan via Dubai. We start shooting at the beautiful Movenpick Resort and Spa at the Dead Sea on Sunday morning. We have five mornings to shoot the entire training program. So I hope we all know our roles and are able to complete the shoot in the allotted time slot.

We will be returning to the USA on October 15th. We will be editing and putting the DVD together in November and December and have it ready for sale by the end of the year. We are excited to share all this information with you and give you the opportunity to be injury-free with Body Protection.

“Body Protection” DVD Will Be Filmed At Dead Sea

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We will be returning to Jordan in the second week of October to film our new fitness DVD at the Movenpick Resort at the Dead Sea. The www.OneMileRunner.com film crew will be boarding the plane for the 14 hour plane ride to Dubai followed by a 3 hour plane ride to Amman, Jordan. After completing 4 different and unique one-mile events over the last 4 years, it is now time to share the reasons why I have not been injured during these trying tours. “Body Protection” will be broken down into three levels – beginner, intermediate, and advanced and is for athletes of all ages.

We are spending this week on the beautiful island of Martha’s Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts leading a tennis and fitness clinic. I will spend a week in Sarasota preparing for our upcoming DVD. Then we are off to the lowest place on earth, the Dead Sea, to create a DVD for you all to utilize in order to stay injury-free in your chosen sport.

Running At Petra, Jordan

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Our final leg of our 2011 tour “5 Wonders Under 25 Minutes” took place in Petra, Jordan. Petra is an incredible old city found in the red rocks at almost 3000 feet above sea level. Petra fittingly means “rock” in Greek and inhabited in 600 B.C. by the Nabataeans. Petra was chosen on the 2007 list of The New 7 Wonders of the World and a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1985. With their importance of “after-life,” the Nabataeans created many tombs by hand. 80% of original Petra has been destroyed over time and two earthquakes, but what remains is absolutely breathtaking.

This is where the Petra Marathon and Half Marathon took place on Saturday September 10th calling the event – “run back in time” www.petra-marathon.com. After our time at the Dead Sea, we took a taxi for about 45 minutes to meet our our organizers and the marathon participants in Amman, the capital city of Jordan, on Wednesday afternoon. We spent the night in Amman and then all boarded a bus on Thursday morning to start our journey south to Petra stopping off at the Crusader fortress of Kerak. On Friday, we had an hour-long race meeting in the morning and toured Petra until lunch. Then on early Saturday morning, marathon and half-marathon participants walked down to the Treasury for the start of their adventure marathon and half marathon races.

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Two race organizers, Tomas Thomsen and Erling Nielsen, measured out the last mile of the route for me to race. Due to the extreme mountain conditions, the beginning of my mile was my slowest 1/2 mile on tour at 2:36, then after a bit of a panic I kicked in the last half mile in 2:17 finishing the mile in 4:53.15. I want to thank all the organizers at Albatros Travel who put on a great event for us. With their array of “adventure marathons” around the world, it made sense to team up with Albatros Travel to finish our tour of “adventure miles” in 2011. Below with me is Hanna, Lars, and race doctor.

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And thanks to all our www.OneMileRunner.com supporters who helped us complete our 4th event in 4 years. We completed “5 Wonders Under 25 Minutes” in a total time of 24 minutes and 31 seconds. We now look forward to shooting our new “Body Protection” video in October sharing the exercises in my training that kept me injury-free after these years of mile events.

In Jordan – First Stop The Dead Sea

We arrived in Jordan after a few days in New Delhi. We came immediately from the airport to the Dead Sea as it was a dream of mine for the last 25 years to come and float in the salt waters of the famed Dead Sea. The Dead Sea has a long heritage for many thousands of years from Herod the Great to King David. It is really a lake not a “sea,” bordering Jordan and Israel. It is the lowest spot on earth as it is around 1200 feet below sea level. You have plenty of oxygen for running here.

Due to its super salinity, no sea life can live in waters that are almost 34% salt. So they call it the Dead Sea, but I feel that it is the opposite: a fountain of youth because it cures so many common ailments known to man. I cannot float in any water, but I do here. You just lie on your back and float, then smear this incredible mud that they get a few meters below the bottom all over your body. You let it bake in the sun and viola – your skin, joints, etc feel better. It is a natural therapy that is so rejuvenating.

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We travel to Amman the busy capital city of Jordan to meet up with our tour group. Then we travel 4 hours south to Petra where I will race a mile of the Petra Marathon on Saturday. It will be an exciting place to finish the 2011 www.OneMileRunner.com tour of “5 Wonders Under 25 Minutes.” I hope my few days at the Dead Sea has rejuvenated my body after our time in India so I can finish strongly in the last race.

Running At The Taj Mahal

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For all of us at www.OneMileRunner.com, it has been one of our most interesting weeks on tour. Overcoming my sickness, arranging a difficult race under strange conditions, and finding the courage to conquer my fears, it has been a week in India that we will always remember. Delaying the race until Friday worked out great as the road to the East Gate of the Taj Mahal was more free as The Taj is closed on Fridays. We had two bicycle rickshaws surround and protect me as I raced down the road to the East Gate. I lost one of the bicycle rickshaws after the first minute as he underestimated the speed required. The other driver, Bobby, did a wonderful job and stayed with me for the entire race keeping out of harms way of numerous wayward dogs and the wild monkeys that surround the walls around the Taj.

I managed to run a 4:55.62 mile. I had a great start in the heat of the morning, but I relaxed too much in the third quarter, and then panicked and dug deep to sprint in the last quarter mile. It is the best I could do under the conditions that we were presented with this week. We tried to capture the event the best we could in the video below:

The Taj Mahal is even more beautiful than I remember 24 years ago when I came here for the first time when I coached the Junior Davis Cup Team in Chennai. Sekyen and I both agree that it is the most magnificent building we have seen. The Taj Mahal meaning “crown palace” is a 400 year old mausoleum in Agra, India. Mughal emperor Shah Jahan took 22 years to build the Taj Mahal in loving memory of his third and most beautiful wife, Muntaz Mahal. Muntaz Mahal died after the birth of her 14th child. The intricate details within the Taj Mahal’s walls are simply amazing. If you have not been to see this incredible Wonder of the World, it is indeed worth the trip.

We finally are traveling back to New Delhi to catch a flight to Dubai. We will stay there for a day and fly to Amman, Jordan on Saturday. We hope to spend a couple of days training at the Dead Sea before we meet up with the marathon group for the Petra Marathon on September 7th. Thanks to all our readers that have wished and prayed for me this week for a speedy recovery, your support was much appreciated and effective.

O2 Health Studio Clinic In Chennai, India

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We have been spending the week in my old “hometown” of Chennai, India where I lived for 5 years from 1986-91. We have been the guests of O2 Health Studios as we led a “Body Protection” fitness clinic to all their trainers and physiotherapists. Tomorrow we finish with a “Creating Amazement” seminar with the managers of O2. From Hyderabad to Chennai, it has been great to spend this time in southern India sharing our fitness concepts.

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I went over some of the basic movements of my “Body Protection” program and then showed some of the resistance moves. The O2 trainers participated in learning the moves in order to protect their bodies from injury and prepare their bodies for speed and power. We went over some of the fitness myths that need to broken in order to take our athletic performances to the next level. We will address these fitness myths in our upcoming “Body Protection” video.

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We fly north to New Delhi on Sunday morning. Take a train to Agra and get ready to race at the Taj Mahal on August 30th. At the moment in India, there is a non-violent revolution going on. Anna Hazare is undergoing a supervised fast in opposition to the government. Anna is the symbol of the anti-corruption movement taking place throughout India since we arrived a couple of weeks ago. It is, indeed, an amazing time of transition in India.

Hyderabad Clinic

Here’s a view from the Charminar, built in 1591 and still a major landmark in old Hyderabad. We had the opportunity to visit Charminar and the Golkonda Fort, an incredible fortress on the outskirts of the city, the day before we started our clinic.

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Sekyen and I made it to Hyderabad, India this past weekend on our first stop in this remarkable country. I am leading a tennis and fitness clinic at the NVK Sports Complex with 20 wonderful students ranging in ages from 11-21. It is indeed a pleasure to be working with these young, upcoming star athletes. It feels like I am coming home in many ways after all my years being based in Chennai.

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I am sharing with these athletes many of the new movements of my “Body Protection” program that we will be shooting the video for in October on our return to the US. I wish I had learned this program when I was a young aspiring athlete in order to keep strong, fast, and injury-free with proper technique and explosive exercises.

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We will finish in Hyderabad this weekend and travel to another week-long fitness clinic in Chennai. After Chennai, we will be traveling to Agra (via Delhi) for race #4 at the Taj Mahal on August 30th. Then, we make our way into Jordan for the big finish of the www.OneMileRunner.com 2011 tour “5 Wonders Under 25 Minutes” in the majestic city of Petra.

From Sea to Shining Sea

After race #3 in San Francisco, we traveled to Salt Lake for a day then onto Jackson Hole, WY to visit a friend of ours, Jo Ann DeMartini, who is spending the summer at the base of the magnificent Teton Mountains. We enjoyed a few days seeing the area and meeting up with friends from Sarsota. Here is a photo after our dinner at the Blue Lion (L to R – Sekyen, Vicky, Jo Ann, and Kevin). Vicky and Kevin are getting married in Jackson Hole this weekend.

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Sekyen and I had a great time training in the high altitude and clean, crisp air of Jackson Hole. Our morning runs were followed by some wonderful hikes at Yellowstone National Park and Jenny Lake. Here is a view from Jo Ann’s backyard:

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We then traveled to the east coast to Cape Elizabeth, ME to visit my elder brother’s family and train on the roads of Maine up and down the course of the upcoming 10K race (that was part of my tour in 2009), The Beach to Beacon. It is a beautiful time of year to visit the shores of Maine. I stopped into my youngest brother’s place for a couple of days in Massachusetts on my return to Sarasota. Now I am packing for the long trip to India and then onto the conclusion of “The 5 Wonders Under 25 Minutes” in Petra, Jordan.

The purity of the Jackson Hole and Cape Elizabeth air quality will be in stark contrast to our upcoming race #4 in one of the world’s worst cities for air quality – New Delhi, India. We leave on Sunday to race at the Taj Mahal located a few hours south of New Delhi in Agra, India. The Taj Mahal is on the New Wonders of the World list and should make for a challenging “adventure mile.” I hope my lungs are ready for the shock.

Down But Not Out at The Golden Gate Bridge

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Running “adventure miles” in our 2011 event brings us to The Golden Gate Bridge for race #3.
It was a brutal day of weather on the Golden Gate Bridge as the rain and wind made it difficult to run fast. It was more of a “go” then “slow” type of race as I had spots where I could open up the speed followed by spots where I had to shuffle or scrape my feet on the ground in order to just stand up on the course (you can check this out in the video as I had to go around the first tower 180 degrees shuffling my feet so I would not fall).

When I came off the bridge and tried to turn for the last 300 yards to the finish line, I slipped badly and fell backwards. I am glad that I did my balance reaches in the warm-up as I put my hand behind me and slid on the rain soaked surface for a few feet before I pushed with my right hand and lifted my body back up to standing position. My butt did not hit the ground, but it was close (laughing spectators said I looked a like Apolo Ohno, the speed skater). My timer and protector behind me on the bicycle said afterwards that he would have also crashed into me as well if I had fully landed on the ground. So I finally finished the race in 5:04.72 standing upright with no injuries. It might have been my slowest mile race of the year, but it was also the most fun. I had a blast.

I travel to Jackson Hole for a few days visiting friends, then Detroit for a night, then to Maine to train before returning to Florida for 5 days before we take the long trip to India (via Dubai) to race #4 in Agra, India at the Taj Mahal.