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Docs' Testimonials Kick Off Town and Trail Coalition:
Back in high school, Paul K. Simpson, M.D., had two great loves: his car and fast food. By senior year, those penchants had left him paunchy, tipping the scales at 250 pounds. "The year I started high school was the year the first McDonald's opened in my town," Simpson told 260 cyclists gathered in Pottstown for the Pennsylvania Greenway Sojourn, organized by RTC, in late July. "Every day the school newspaper had a coupon for a free drink and fries, and every day I took advantage of it."
Simpson told an inspiring story of how, as a teen, he took up cycling and went from being overweight and unhealthy to trim and buff in one year. His was one of several speeches given by doctors who, dubbing themselves "Docs on a Roll," donned white coats and bicycled into Pottstown with the Sojourners along a freshly constructed section of the Schuylkill River Trail.
While Simpson participated in the entire Sojourn (as he has for the previous four years) as a volunteer physician, many other Docs on a Roll health professionals came out simply to ride the new section of trail. They did so for two reasons. One was to kick off a new coalition, Town and Trail: Partnership for a Healthier Pottstown, which will develop a plan to increase local awareness and use of the rail-trail. RTC's Northeast Office is facilitating this coalition of Pottstown organizations and borough officials, funded by Pottstown Area Health and Wellness Foundation.
The doctors' other aim was to send a message about their own dedication to physical fitness. Simpson's compelling tale was a highlight of the event. He admitted he was overweight when he entered high school. Then he got a car and began indulging daily in fast food. Over the next few years he put on 70 pounds until, as a not-quite 6-foot-tall senior, he weighed in at 250 pounds.
His aha-moment came one day when a much heavier friend showed up at school with a new ten-speed bike. "I thought, 'Here's a guy who weighs 100 pounds more than I do. If he can ride a bike, so can I,'" Simpson recalled.
For his next birthday, he asked for and received a bike. Very quickly he discovered that he loved cycling the flat Texas roads near his home. It wasn't long before he was leaving his car in the garage and riding to school every day. Within a year, he'd dropped 90 pounds.
"Had I not started biking and lost that weight, I believe I would not be alive today," he said. Now the internal medicine practitioner, 53 and fit at 190 pounds, still rides daily. In fact, he bikes 35 miles to work four times a week from his home in State College, Pa.
"Docs on a Roll" was organized with the help of orthopedic surgeon Richard Whittaker, M.D., of Pottstown, also a long-time Sojourn medical volunteer. He demonstrated to all present, and especially other practitioners, how to write an "exercise prescription" to encourage patients to get out on the trail. He also emphasized the importance of exercise for good health and well-being.
Any doubts about that were put to rest during the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new trailhead pavilion: the Sojourn's oldest rider, 86-year-old Bill Grun, of Warrington, Pa., snipped the ribbon.
Pennsylvania Greenway Sojourn 2006 was a mostly off-road bicycle ride from White Haven to Philadelphia that promoted the region's growing network of rail-trails—multi-use trails created from former rail corridors. Organized by RTC's Northeast Regional Office, the Sojourn celebrates newly opened rail-trails and promotes the completion of gaps in the larger regional trail system.
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