Way to go (and run) Cupertino!

A quick post to tell you that I am very impressed with my fellow Cupertinians, at least some of them exercising. This Saturday morning, I went to Rancho San Antonio with Max and Alex. Max and Alex were joining their Cupertino High School cross-country teammates as part of the pre-season summer conditioning led by their coach, Paul Armstrong (Happy Birthday, Coach!). The team should be strong this year with the arrival of quite a few Freshmen, especially on the girls side (yes, Fresh(wo)men...). First competitions in September, last year in high school for Max, stay tuned!

While I was running on the PG&E loop, starting at 7 am, I was amazed by the number of people on the trail and not just near the parking lots and the farm, but all the way up to the top of the PG&E trail, this despite the early hour. The parking lots are full as early as 6:45 am on Saturdays! Most of the people I saw initially was walkers with more runners showing up around 8 am. I passed and crossed probably more than 100 persons on the trail, more than what I see on bank holidays. I did not do a formal census but I would say that 70 to 80% had Indian origins (not the Native Indian, I did not see any Tarahumara this weekend, or I missed them!), 10% from the rest of Asia, less than 10% Caucasian and 2% African-American. Of course, this reflects the fact that the majority of Cupertino originates from Asia, yet there are still more than 40% Caucasian in the Cupertino population according to the latest census. Maybe they exercise at home or at fitness clubs, not leveraging the amazing outdoors opportunities available around!
Here is for the good news, more people exercising. Now, and this is not specially related to Cupertino, here is one bad news, on the cover of Time magazine this week: Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin. The common belief is that we spend a lot of energy by exercising, which we need to compensate for by eating more (The Compensation Problem). Eating more, or eating food richer in sugar. It is interesting to note for instance that eating slow carb like pasta may make you hungry faster because of the short term drop in your blood sugar. Look at this photo story to see how our appetite is so sensitive to external factors such as time of day, sight, smell, type of carbs, food variety, ...

With that, all from Cupertino and elsewhere, exercise and... eat wisely!
PS: first picture is at the start of Cupertino's annual Big Bunny Fun Run 5K (April 2006)