A new race sends bikers on slippery business
Five years ago, Dan Des Rosiers created the Jay Challenge, a three-day July race that makes other triathlons look like games of tiddlywinks. Unlike the standard 26.2-mile course on paved roads and paths, where winners are done in two hours and change, this marathon is a 30.5-mile, off-road mountain assault with river crossings and top finishing times of about five hours.
A Burlington clinic takes a mind-body approach to managing pain
Vermont psychiatrist Magdalena Naylor says it was an "aha!" experience 10 years ago that put her on a pioneering path of pain management. Her epiphany arrived via a 1997 New York Times story on research indicating that patients who suffered from depression were more likely to develop cardiovascular disease. For Naylor, 56, the study offered crowning proof that "the mind and body are one, and that we can use the mind to treat the physical symptoms of the body.
A former donor rolls up her sleeve once again
I have a six-gallon pin, the six gallons meaning blood. That's how much I donated over some 20 years. I started giving when I was a graduate student at the University of Vermont - my building was right next door to the American Red Cross, a constant reminder. It made me feel good and virtuous, even vaguely patriotic, to endure the prick of a needle, to watch my blood stream into a little plastic bag.
Vermont's new health plan: good for the uninsured, expensive for some businesses
Comprehensive health care for all Vermonters has long been the Holy Grail of reform-minded policy-makers - and at or near the top of the public's list of most-desired government programs. Most Americans who went to the polls last November said they did so to express their dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq.
Traditional Chinese Medicine finds a home at UVM
Ann Ramsay pokes a splinter-thin, stainless steel needle into her patient's right hand in the fleshy "V" between the thumb and forefinger. She twiddles the needle slightly. "I want you to feel something," she says. The patient gives a small start, and says, "There." It's not pain, exactly, but . . . something. Satisfied, Ramsay sticks another needle into a corollary spot in the patient's left foot.
Clarendon Health Officer Roxanne Phelps goes to bat for her town
Roxanne Phelps laughs when people compare her to Erin Brockovich, though she's flattered by the comparison. "I get that a lot," admits the 39-year-old public health officer for the town of Clarendon. Actually, the similarities are remarkable -- even if Phelps hasn't been the subject of a movie starring Julia Roberts. Brockovich is the now-famous legal crusader who helped the cancer-plagued residents of Hinckley, California, win the largest-ever class-action settlement against a U.
Can new metabolic measuring tools curb calorie consumption?
The formula for losing weight is second-grade arithmetic: Calories in must be less than calories out. But the burn rate of these calories is graduate-school chemistry, the result of a complicated interaction between cells and compounds. The mystery of metabolism helps sell fad diet books and fuel excuses for fatties and skinnies alike.
Confessions of a loser
I'm a lot lighter than I was last April -- a dramatic enough difference to get comments from people who haven't seen me for a while. Only one friend -- a nurse -- has thought to ask if I lost the weight on purpose. I did. So when everyone else goes straight to congratulations, I smile and say thank you. But there's more to the story of my new, slimmer self than simply feeling proud that my perseverance has paid off.
A skier-come-lately gets down
It's a blue and gold Saturday morning on Spruce Peak, and a handful of adults are clomping uneasily in rental boots, getting ready to ski for the very first time. "Where're you from?" asks Chuck, a bluff, grizzled guy in a red Stowe Mountain Resort parka, who seems to be a kind of emcee.
The middle-aged couple is from Ludlow, Massachusetts. The girl who looks like a model, complete with stunningly white teeth, is from Manhattan -- her handsome, experienced-skier boyfriend stands nearby to cheer her on.
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Ever wake up in the morning feeling like you're spinning your wheels but not going anywhere? The folks at the Howard Center for Human Services know a thing or two about that, and they're hoping you'll come out February 7 to put some of that energy to good use. The Burlington nonprofit agency is sponsoring its second annual "Howard Center Sunrise Spin," an instructor-led cycling challenge to raise money for mental-health services.
