Exercise junkies use social networking to cheer on and to challenge

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TweetTommy Johnson connects with other triathletes while training for competitions.
"It will get your heart rate waaaay up there, so be careful!" To which Jones, 30, replied: "Oh, I didn't know that! Thanks! I'll wear my heart-rate monitor and keep an eye on it!" The days Blanca Gonzales doesn't log onto dailymile.com and record her runs, she hears from people who read her updates on Facebook regularly.

"Where's your workout?" they ask. "Where's your report?"

"It motivates me to go out and do it," says Gonzales, 46, who lives in Arlington. "When I don't feel like working out, I see friends online who did and I say, 'I should be able to do that.' "

After earning his MBA in 2003, Tommy Johnson had time to ride his bike again. He went online in search of upcoming races and found beginnertriathlete.com. Next thing you know, he's connecting with strangers, recording his workouts and doing seven to 10 triathlons a year. It's even led him into coaching for Texas Triple Threat, a triathlon training club.

Exercise is something we do for ourselves. It's also often better shared. In these days of social networking, that means a lot more than telling a friend at work about a good training run or grousing to a sister about hot your tennis match was. Instead, it means doing a little perusing, a little clicking, a little sharing. Feeling competitive? Then compare your workout to someone else's, ask for advice, offer it.You can register for any number of websites, usually at no cost for the basic level, or just update your friends on Facebook or Twitter. You can use the Nike+, which goes into your shoe and, through your iPod, tracks your pace, distance, time and calories burned. Later, you share the information online.

"In some ways," Jones says, "it feels so nerdy or geeky, like a futuristic society where we're so dependent on our computers, with all these social media destroying the framework of social interactions. That's so ridiculous. It's completely the other way. It's bringing you together with people you never get to see."

Keeping connections

During her two years as president of the Dallas Running Club, Jones spent many hours and many miles at White Rock Lake with fellow runners. When her term ended, traveling 45 minutes each way from her home in Allen didn't make as much sense. She began staying connected through dailymile.com, Twitter, and her blog. She kept readers up-to-date on her running streak of 63 days. Without their encouragement, she says, she would have stopped.

When she became pregnant with her second child, and her doctor warned her about getting her heart rate too high, Jones began recording other workouts.

"It's been so good for me," she says. "If I put that elliptical workout or Zumba class, I might get feedback or ideas for another workout."

A time or two, she admits, she's posted her workout before she actually did it. That way, she knew she'd have to follow through.

"It's the ultimate accountability," Jones says. "You've published it, and you can't lie."

Sample post: Finished another Zumba class tonight. Okay, the Zumba thing is growing on me. It's helped by the fact that this instructor didn't insist on you shaking everything your momma did or didn't give you the entire hour. I liked these dance/cardio moves better.

Blanca Gonzales uses her account on dailymile.com to keep track of her own workouts, as well as to see what friends across the country are doing with theirs.

"I have a friend from Oklahoma who's running a marathon in Michigan or Minnesota," says Gonzales, mother of three sons. "We comment on each other's workouts. I have about 20 friends on it, and we push each other. A couple of them will say, 'You're doing good, but you need to do this... .' "

She found out about the site by reading friends' posts on Facebook.

"It's free, that's the cool thing," says Gonzales, mother of three boys. "You can do biking, running, whatever, and it keeps track of your miles and tells you how many calories you burn."

As of early June, it told her that in 87 workouts totaling 106.33 hours, she had run 749.74 miles – enough to burn 408.15 doughnuts and power 1,473 television sets.

Sample post: IT WAS SO HOT!! This run was so hard to do, from the start I couldn't catch my breath, sweating at the first 1/2 mile Oh well, it's done – an easy run before tomorrow's 12 miler, I hope the weather gets better by the morning!! Happy Friday!!

Making connections

When Tommy Johnson was training for the Ironman Louisville in Kentucky last August, he was corresponding on beginnertriathlete.com with a variety of fellow participants. One decided to order T-shirts so everyone in the group would recognize each other.

"We got to the athletes' dinner before the race, and we all have these fluorescent, lime-green T-shirts," says Johnson, 49. "About 20 of us showed up, and we all sat together."

Without social networking, he says, he would never have met many of the people who are in his life these days. Some he knows only through shared posts; others, he actually meets. On the "Texas forum" spot on the site, he posts a workout: "Saturday I plan to do a 50-mile bike ride; who wants to come? I'll be leaving from Starbucks in Frisco at 7 a.m."

He hears back: "I'll be there; don't leave me!" Or, "How fast do you ride?"

"The first Beginner Triathlete person I met was at a race in Lubbock," Johnson says. "We didn't arrange to meet, but I saw her bike rack and her standing by it. I must have seen a picture of her online, so I went up and started talking."

Turns out she's in the U.S. Air Force and often posts from Iraq. Other U.S. troops do so as well, then follow through with reports stateside of the triathlons for which they were training while overseas.

"Pretty inspiring," Johnson says. "So are others: People who've lost 100 pounds and are doing their first triathlon, or others who trained all year but didn't finish. They say, 'I'll be back next year.' "

Sample post: "Went to RBM (Richardson Bike Mart) and had Tom look at my bike fit. He changed it fairly significantly. I was pedaling on the trainer, and he said my cadence was higher. I looked at my bike computer and the cadence said 100. I was pedaling the same effort as when I started but was pedaling faster. I didn't even realize it. Interesting. I'm anxious to see how it feels on the road."

[Source: Dallas Morning News]

[daved150]

Tweetsee there? facebook is good for SOMETHING, lol. anything to get people off there ass to workout is good wiht me