Exercise changes lives for the better

At age 62, Phil Franssen’s major motivation is to grow old gracefully. After a series of setbacks at an early age, he’s doing everything in his power at this point in his life to maintain a healthy routine, and also to help others who wish to do the same.

For his efforts, Franssen was chosen as a runner-up for the 2008 Healthy Heroes Award.

His success story begins in the late 1970s, when Franssen came down with Hyperactive Thyroid Disease, a condition in which the thyroid gland grows at an uncontrollable rate, and in turn puts massive pressure on the windpipe. He sought out help from doctors to correct the problem, and in the process began to find his love for exercise.

“I connected with an absolutely brilliant surgeon who was able to do some real fancy cutting, and I’ve got the scar on my collarbone to prove it,” Franssen said. “He did a wonderful job because all these years later, still no thyroid medication. The only thing I have left over is an irregular heartbeat, which is not an issue at this point in my life, so it’s worked out real well.”

Franssen’s present doctor commended him, saying that it’s the maintenance he has kept over the years and the continuous physical activity and exercise that has made all of the difference.

Shortly after recovering from the surgery, Franssen, at the time a police officer in Suffolk County, N.Y., was injured in the line of duty as he was called to the scene of an angry mob causing trouble at a bar. He sustained a broken jaw, fractured cheek bone, cracked eye socket, and for about six months he wasn’t sure if he was ever going to see out of his left eye ever again, and if so, how well it would work. As it turned out, he healed from all of those injuries and in his recovery, discovered a new passion.

“I was very fortunate, and that’s when I actually started to run because I had so much time on my hands,” he said. “I was on disability from the police force and I had to do something or I would surely lose my mind, so I decided to start running.”

He also took up weightlifting, and along the way, helped a friend lose almost 100 pounds. That started his desire to help other people bounce back from injuries, surgeries, or any other medical issues and begin the healing process in a positive manner.

“The guy many years ago that actually picked me up and insisted that I go to the gym with him. That’s how he handled me,” Franssen explained. “He was a fellow police officer and he worked with me, and he just said ‘You’re out of the hospital, you’re healing up, let’s get you moving,’ and it’s been going on ever since.”

Franssen and his wife Jane, who nominated him, relocated to Fluvanna County about 10 years ago, wanting to escape the city life in their latter years and settle in a more peaceful environment. When they left the hustle and bustle of New York and moved to rural Virginia, Phil made yet another discovery — his love for bicycling.

“The bicycling actually started on Long Island, but I didn’t like it because it was so crowded because of the traffic,” he said. “When I got out here to Virginia, there’s just endless back country roads, and as soon as I discovered that, I started riding and totally gave up doing anything on foot. It’s a great activity — as you get older, you’re looking for things that have little or no impact because of knees and feet and hips and all. With a bicycle, unless you take a fall, is a great way to go, so I’ve been doing that ever since.

“Just getting out of a car is an issue for some folks, and I’m going to do everything in my power not to have that happen. There’s no guarantee of a longevity, but you can definitely have a better life while you’re here if you’re stronger.”

Franssen once biked 50 miles at a Rails and Trails site, where anyone can go bicycle or horseback riding. He hopes to continue the trend whenever he gets a chance in the future, and also plans to take part in a hundred-mile bicycle trip in one day through the five boroughs of Manhattan next summer.

Currently, Franssen is helping a recently retired police officer from Fluvanna recover from a heart attack he suffered not long ago by losing weight and getting fit. The two have started a strength training program, and Franssen began inviting his friend to go riding with him. Nowadays, it’s his friend who calls him to find out when they’re going out pedalling again.

Whorley transforms her life through running

Pam Whorley was a married mother of one who was overweight and approaching the age of 40 when she took it upon herself to make a change. At close to 300 pounds, she decided to enroll herself in Weight Watchers, and it was there where she heard about the Women’s Four Miler Training Program.

At the time, Whorley was on medications for high blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol and depression. She was sleeping with a CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) machine to combat sleep apnea. Whorley knew that she had to start taking steps to improve her health, with the hopes that she could set a strong example for those close to her in the process.

“I thought if I can be healthy then it’s just going to trickle down to my family,” said Whorley, “and if I can be healthy then I’m going to live to see my family grow up. Those were the big things that finally pushed me over the edge.”

Over the past year, Whorley has lost over 130 pounds and continues to influence others to strive for better health for themselves through exercise and diet. As a result, she has been selected as a runner-up for this year’s Healthy Heroes Awards.

It all began in 2007 when Whorley’s daughter was 12 years old, knowing that was the age when young women really start to pay attention to their own body image, and that of those around them. Growing up a little on the heavy side, Whorley was determined to start dropping weight and though she was never one to run, she had overheard some friends at Weight Watchers talk about the success of the Four Miler Training Program.

“They were like, ‘Oh, we’ve done this four miler training program, it’s a lot of fun, it’s a lot of hoorah,’” Whorley explained. “I was thinking, I don’t run, never did run during high school or middle school when you did the president’s challenge. I actually would go into the bathrom and hide. But then my best friend said I’m going to pay and we’re both going to do this, even if we end up having to walk it. So we started going and it was so much fun.”

Despite the fact that several of the women who started the program with her stopped showing up, Whorley stuck with it, gained confidence in herself, and was making new friends in the process. Little by little, she was able to go a little further each time she came out, and was motivated by the program’s ‘Pink Ladies,’ a group of women who organize everything from getting the word out to being there to give encouragement during training all the way up to the Labor Day weekend race.

“There was never negativity, no matter if you had to end up walking or whatever,” said Whorley. “There was just never that pressure to make you run, there was never a bad influence, it was just always ‘You are doing your best, you’re doing great, you can do this.’”

Each week, the participants would make strides, and Whorley remembers acheiving her first real milestone.

“Slowly but surely, I actually started running,” she recalls. “It was not pretty, and it was not fast, but I was able to do it, and I was just thrilled that I was able to do it. Just to actually run in that first mile that they had timed us on, which is fairly early in the program, I was thinking if I can run a mile, then I know by the end of the summer I’ll be able to [run four].”

The ladies were encouraged to set goals for themselves. Two of Whorley’s were to get across the finish line without any assistance and to be able to run the whole four miles without stopping. The time had come to put her hard work to the test as she and the other participants lined up on Garth Road to begin the Four Miler. Sure enough, Whorley acheived each of her goals.

“I was like okay, that’s it, I had done it,” she said. “Major goal in my life, something I never thought that I would be able to do. I felt ecstatic, empowered. It gave me the knowledge that I could believe in myself that I could do anything that I wanted to do, and that along with the new friends I have made have kept me running. You see what the big difference is when you can move because you feel so much better, and mentally your clarity is so much better, and your stress is so far down and you just start to crave it.”

So back in January, Whorley decided that she was going to do for others what the Pink Ladies had done for her, and became a Pink Lady herself.

With this year’s race less than a week away, Whorley has been working with fellow Pink Lady Theresa Bullock as heads of the intermediate running group. She has returned the favor of working with the new wave of aspiring runners to convince them that they can do it. Nell Hibbits nominated Whorley for the award and desribed her as “very positive and upbeat, and an inspiration to many women in the program.”

When asked if she agreed, Whorley was humble, explaining that she doesn’t see herself as anything special, but rather simply wants to do for others what was done for her. She believes that anyone could do what she did, but does admit, however, that she is the biggest cheerleader that the women in her group could ever have.

In fact, Whorley did not enter herself in this year’s race for the fact that if she did, it would take away a spot for someone else that needs it more than she does. She said that there are other races for her to run, and that she will be there right by her ladies’ sides, cheering them on and assuring them that they can do it. Her advice to others is that you have to take care of yourself before you can take care of others, even the smallest or shortest step.

“I will wholeheartedly agree that I am their biggest cheerleader and I know they can do it,” she said. “I’ve seen them sweat, and I’ve seen them cry, and I’ve seen them come back just ecstatic that they ran their first mile, or that they ran three miles in a row, and if I can help one person then hopefully they’re going to go on to help the next person.”

Whorley, an employee of Ivy Publications, has since competed in the Charlottesville Ten Miler in the spring, and will be running in the inaugural 13.1-mile Richmond Half-Marathon in November. Two months later in January, she will run in her biggest race yet — the 26.2-mile Disney Marathon in Florida.