Thursday, March 01, 2007
Kaine urges students to get with it, shape up
The governor came to Roanoke to tout a bill that would require state officials to team up to battle childhood obesity.
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roanoke.com/politics
Gov. Tim Kaine traveled to Roanoke on Wednesday to talk to a fifth-grade classroom at Raleigh Court Elementary about exercise.
He told them about a 117-mile bike ride he took last year from Richmond to Washington, D.C. He told them about a teacher he had once who challenged students to run 100 miles in a year. Kaine took him up on the challenge in seventh grade and has been running ever since.
Kaine came to Roanoke to tout a bill that came out of the just-completed General Assembly session that would require the state's school superintendent and the state's health commissioner to team up to battle childhood obesity.
He chose Kevin Spencer's Raleigh Court classroom because he was impressed with a running program Spencer has started at the school.
Every Thursday morning, about 40 students join Spencer for a run before class. So far this year, the running club has covered a total of 600 miles. Spencer also requires that his fifth-grade students run a quarter-mile before going to recess.
"Why do you do it?" Kaine asked the students, prompting a torrent of answers.
"It's fun."
"Sometimes I run to school from my house."
"You get to run with your friends and have a great time, and you feel great after you run."
Later, as the students took laps around a grassy field to show off their running program, Kaine stood in the warm sunshine in the middle of the field and expounded some more for a pack of reporters on his exercise routine, which has him on treadmills five or six days a week.
The governor's travels around the state have introduced him to gyms across Virginia for early-morning workouts, including the Family Center YMCA on Orange Avenue, he said.
In the five years after he first started running for lieutenant governor and through the 2005 gubernatorial race, "I was living on coffee and Dr Peppers and fast food and adrenaline," he said.
Then, he shaped up.
"All I have is my judgment," he added. "If you're not eating and exercising and sleeping well, it's not going to be at its peak."
With child obesity affecting almost 19 percent of American 6- to 11-year-olds, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it's almost become a requirement for lawmakers and politicians to adopt a healthy lifestyle and tout its benefits to their audiences.
With Kaine at the school Wednesday were Sen. John Edwards, D-Roanoke, and Del. Ward Armstrong, D-Henry County, the new House minority party leader who last year shed 30 pounds over four months.
"I got my heart rate down and my cholesterol down and I feel really good," Armstrong told the fifth-graders.
Spencer said he first started running about five years ago, after his wife had an operation. He would get up early in the morning, before his two sons woke up, and take walks around the neighborhood.
The walks turned to runs.
In 2004, Spencer started running with his students, some of whom have now completed short races.
Now Spencer still gets up at 4:30 or 5 every morning for long runs before the school day starts. He gets in a little more running on Thursdays with his morning running group at the school.
The group has become quite popular.
"One time it was like 11 degrees, and I still had 20 kids show up to run," he said.
