Check out Barack Obama’s workout info here …

A serious runner since 1972. George Bush has a treadmill on Air Force One and uses it for hour-long jaunts on overseas trips.

In January, 1993, he finished the Houston Marathon in 3:44:52 (that’s about an 8:30 pace); he’s the only president ever to complete that distance.

Bush appeared on the cover of  Runner’s World October, 2002 In an interview interview Runner’s World, reported his normal routine is to run five or six times a week. “When I run,” he said, “I run hard. On Sundays if I’m at Camp David, I’ll go for a hard, morning run — these days about 20:30 to 20:45 for three miles on a tough course.” In June, 2002, he ran a three-mile road race in an official time of 20:29 at age 55-years-old.

Bush also mountain bikes at the Crawford, Texas, ranch, pushing hard for four-hour rides. According to AP reporter Scott Lindlaw, who rode with Bush on a mountain bike, “He (Bush) watches his heart rate very, very closely. He was reporting to me regularly what his heart rate was. … He likes to exercise in the zone.”

He believes physical training is necessary to maintain physical and emotional balance.

He even enjoys 100-plus-degree summer heat during training.

” I learned that running can make you feel 10 years younger the day of the race and 10 years older the day after the race. I also learned not to be so compulsive.”

Injuries have reduced his running during his presidency.

Sources:
ESPN Page 2 (ESPN.COM) 8/30/2004
Runner’s World
Timestobeat.com

Cover image at right from Runner’s World October 2002.

Hilary Swank trained intensely for her role as  female boxer Maggie Fitzgerald in Million Dollar Baby.

Reportedly Swank’s training included 2.5 hours of boxing and  1.5-2 hours lifting weights every day, six days a week for three months. Training was under the supervision of Hector Roca at Gleason’s Gym in New York.  Producers asked for a 10-pound muscle gain. Swank gained 19 pounds of muscle (110 and went to 129) by working out and eating  210 grams of protein a day and 4000 kcal of total food consumption per day. Eating was scheduled every hour-and-a-half. She drank egg whites (hopefully not raw) because she couldn’t eat 8 to 12 egg whites in one sitting.  Sources close to Swank said she drank flax oil and that flax is a really important oil for your brain and that it also keeps everything moving when eating that much protein.

She even had to wake up in the middle of her nightly nine-hour sleeps and drink protein shakes to keep the protein process from running empty. She needed nine hours sleep in order for her muscles to rest, Hilary claims that was the only way they could build.

“I couldn’t exactly eat my favorite foods,” she recalled with a wry smile. “There was a point where I could only eat 50 grams of carbs a day. Just to give you an example of that, an 8-ounce glass of apple juice has 30 grams of carbs in it.

Swank: “It was weird,” she continued. “It’s not like I really changed sizes, but none of my jackets fit my shoulders. My shoulders got too broad, my arms got too big for my shirts, my jeans were really tight on my thighs. I lost a breast size because I lost body fat — it was just muscle I was gaining. But it was great because you realize that your body is a machine. It can adapt to whatever you need it to.”

Swank, “But the actual changes I went through physically were so interesting because I learned so much about my body and my mind.”

Sources:
Boston Globe Boston.com 1/2/2005
LA Times 1/3/2005
MSNBC.MSN.COM 12/16/2004
Philadelphia Daily News (Philly.com) 1/7/2005
San Francisco Chronicle (SFGate.com) 1/2/2005
FilmFORCE (ign.com)
About.com