Sharon Stewart: staying fit
Sharon Stewart’s “cover was blown” almost immediately by telling me that she just returned from a Ukiah-hopland-ukiah bike ride with Mike Cannon, Mari Rodin, Howie Hawkes, Jim Persky and others. Now, to some, that might sound like a likely group of older wheelers. However, this is quite the esteemed group of 60+ folks who have incredible credentials in most any outdoor endeavor.
To my concern about traffic on this beautiful country road: Sharon: “It’s kinda safe on Old River Road, but a lot of trash,” reports Stewart of her little jaunt for a cup of coffee in Hopland.
Stewart painstakingly avoids “blowing her own horn” but she aligns with these folks in many ways as you will see in her story that follows.
Sharon grew up on the Peninsula in South Bay not as a sports’ person, but was always active. She was in lane 6 (slow) as a club swimmer, but excelled more in kick-the-can, ballet, tumbling, tap and early back-packing with Liz Black.
She matriculated at UC Davis, but opted for a gap year to ski in Vail, Colorado. “I took a break and just wanted to go play.” She began to run 5 and 10 K’s and hanging with Walter Bortz who was an ultra runner; he even mastered Squaw Valley to Auburn (100 miler) and routinely would run from Portola Valley to the Coast. For those of you who follow such stuff, Lardog Goodman touts the same run.
In college, Sharon studied nutrition and applied physiology, with an ambition to be a sports’ nutritionist. “I’d read Adelle Davis, Francis Moore Lapez,” adds our featured athlete.
Off to Ivy League Columbia to complete a masters in Nutrition, where she picked up the theoretical framework for best training and nutrition for the athlete. “I worked at Stanford at the Center for Disease Prevention in research that focused on the role of lipids in weight loss programs,” explains Sharon.
At Tufts University (Human Research Nutrition Center on Aging), Sharon rose to the highlight of her career. “We measured the effects of exercising on aging, which really became my calling,” relates Sharon. “I worked with Gene Mayer and Erwin Rosenberg in exercise physiology. We were looking at the relationship between strength training and bone density in postmenopausal women. These women were sedentary, and we began with: ‘how long does it take to get out of a chair?’”
“At these ages, there is a 1 percent loss of bone mass a year, so with the intervention group we had them work out with weights twice a week for a year and found that that group actually gained bone mass.”
Stewart found running
at this junction of her life as a young mother, with hubby Walter doing a medical school residency at North Carolina University. “I used the jogging stroller; first a single and then a double as Eddie joined Emily in the family. Running was simple, cheap and go! I met a lot of like-minded people and ran with them.”
The New England Patriots and the Boston Bruins invited the researchers on Sharon’s team to test their athletes. “We’d bring a stationary bike and measure their heart rates as we cranked it up. Moving on to New York, Sharon ran the Bonnie Belle 10K for women, finishing in the top third or so.
Returning to the Bay Area again, Stewart ran the SF marathon in 1987, 1988. 1989. She especially loved trail running in Woodside and Portola Valley. With Liz Black lobbying for a move to Ukiah, Sharon and Walter moved to the North Bay to raise their kids and begin his practice. “I was running out Robinson Creek, Low Gap Road, and participating in the Russian River half marathons; then served a stint as president
of the North Coast Striders.”
Then they settled into a cool routine in the past 10 years running the Trinidad to Clam Beach Run. The noisy Ukiah contingent would take over a B&B and enjoy the festivities.
Sharon was watching spiritual cinema and consumed Martin Sheen’s “The Way” over and over. And presto! Opportunity knocked as a friend dropped out of the Camino de Santiago cross-spain experience and Stewart jumped at the invitation to replace her. A friend joined her and she flew to Madrid; then Pamplona to set up for the trek’s 400-mile hiking experience.
First trudging through the Pyrenees, they went the distance all the way to Santiago de Compostela.
“We started through Basque country and immediately felt safe, staying mostly in Albergues, not in the woods. My running paid off for training as I averaged 15-18 miles a day on the well-worn Pilgrimage. The key was the right kind of equipment, especially shoes. I got REI’S Solomon boots
which fit my feet well and a small day pack carrying just 13 pounds daily. You reach this rhythm and it just flows,” explains Sharon Stewart.
After the first day out, SS declared that she couldn’t do this day after day. But, she toughened up with a routine that fit her well: Get up very early and hike until 8 a.m., about four miles out. “At that point, I had my coffee and breakfast and the rest of the day hiked at a (fast) but relaxed pace.” She added miles to her effort by continuing out to the coast; the final destination Finisterre.
The best experiences were meeting people along the way and having minireunions after not seeing them for several hiking days. Our long lost friends! “And arriving in Santiago was a knee dropping experience. When you get there, there is a road with a stone bridge that you traverse to reach the front of the cathedral. There was a guy with bagpipes who awakened them to the sudden realization that the pinnacle of their trek had arrived.
“There’s this giant incense thing that swings
in a huge arc inside the church, filling the space with pungent magic.” Sharon located others she knew joining hands and crying in the amazing climax.
There were “interesting experiences” as well for the Ukiahan. “I was alone walking on a path when a gypsy woman approached me indicating she was deaf: “we’re raising money for this school of deaf children.” Sharon succumbed to the scam and realized later the reality.
Stewart is often spontaneous in jumping into an adventure; “they sort of pop-up into my lap.” “Liz Black organized a Rim to Rim experience in the Grand Canyon where they needed a fill-in. I pushed to get ready but after doing Cow Mountain a few times realized that I was going to ‘eat it’ on this one. One of us had heat exhaustion, and we had to camp along the trail. Ellie, Liz, Tracy, and husband got through it.”
“My dad was an Army brat and lived on Alcatraz five years with his dad, who was the last army
warden (before it became a federal prison). So, I just had to do the Bay to Alcatraz swim.”
As to the present, Sharon is swimming at Blue Lakes, sometimes with the infamous Lardog, who insists on very lengthy pursuits—he’s always in training! “I’m really grateful for my very active group of friends who value fitness and funfunfun!”
Sharon’s words of wisdom for women of her era: “being fit isn’t something about showing other people. It’s about showing yourself — about you! All shapes and forms of us can find something enjoyable. If you don’t enjoy it, then you won’t stick with it. It’s never too late to start with body movement. For me, dance is a wonderful outlet; I like music a lot. Bodies are made to move and it gets more important as we get older.”