Thousands Walking Towards Better Health Through the "Conchathons" Fitness Program

ARCHIVED 2002–2016: Originally distributed via the eWire press wire service. Preserved as historical record.

Thousands Walking Towards Better Health

Through the "Conchathons" Fitness Program

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Thousands Walking Towards Better Health

Through the "Conchathons" Fitness Program

NEW YORK, NEW YORK, Apr. 10 -/E-Wire/-- In February, columnist and consumer advocate, Remar Sutton, asked everybody to start walking - just fifteen minutes a day - and promised a dolphin or at least a tropical sunset at the end of the walk.

Eight weeks later, almost three thousand people have heard Sutton's cry to get walking. Walkers from all over America are following his training schedule outlined on his new Web site, http://www.walkwithremar.com, which is cookie-free and advertising-free. Later this year, six hundred people are expected to join Sutton on Tortola for a "Conchathon," involving swimming, biking, running, hiking, and kayaking.

The site, http://www.walkwithremar.com, went live in February 2002 to allow people around the country to join in training. "The Web is filled with snake oil salespersons, especially when it comes to health," says Remar Sutton, a long-time columnist for The Washington Post. "We've tried to put together a consumer site - not a commercial site - that leads people to solid health information and a sense of shared misery in the exercise realm."

The site features consumer-oriented health information and links, enticing pictures of the British Virgin Islands and, probably most importantly, the online journals of four other BVI residents - from 22 to 35 - who are training in Tortola with Sutton.

"J.C. Pierce, the 35-year-old, in one year has gone from a care-free bachelor surfer to a man with a wife, a baby, a dog, a spreading waistline, and a receding hairline." Sutton concludes, "I just love to see people fall apart like me."

Sutton's Body Worry chronicles in The Post fifteen years ago became the subject of a widely read syndicated column, books, and a movie deal. "I was - and am - a non-athlete, and I still don't like exercise," Sutton says from his cliffside home in the British Virgin Islands, "and I knew most people were like me. So, I tried to come up with an exercise regime that would sneak people into fitness."

Training for Sutton's "Conchathons" became the ploy. Named after the Conch, which barely moves, Conchathons are completely non-competitive but serious athletic events. "Even though preparation for our events all starts with a simple fifteen-minute walk, they inch a person along to pretty dramatic training programs," Sutton says. "For instance, one of our calendars in twenty-three weeks leads you from a fifteen-minute walk to swimming a mile, biking ten, and running or walking five."

"Some people finish our five-mile walk/run in ten minutes, some in a day." He continues, "Some use a paddleboard rather than swim. We don't care. The idea is to go at your pace and your comfort level."

Conchathons became a big deal in the Washington, D.C. area for a number of years. Thousands of people trained for the four Conch events held between 1988 and 1991. Then, in 1998 Sutton revived Conchathons with an event on Tortola in the British Virgin Islands.

Now Sutton has turned sixty. He's been revisited by his paunch and become acquainted with mortality (three deaths in his family in a four-month period). He's decided to bring Conchdum back in a big way. The Washington Post launched his new series, "Walk with Remar" on Monday, February 11th, 2002. The carrot at the end of the walk is a Conchathon in the British Virgin Islands which allows individuals or teams to swim, bike, run, hike, kayak, in any combination, and at any pace.

"There's honestly no location more dramatic and beautiful than our little Territory." Sutton declares, "If you've got to suffer in any athletic event, why not suffer where at least your visual senses are having fun?" You can follow "Walk With Remar" and even become prey to Sutton's fifteen-minute walk by going to http://www.walkwithremar.com. Sutton's columns can also be read at http://www.washingtonpost.com. For further information, contact Catherine van Kampen at the BVI Press Office at FCB NY via e-mail at [REDACTED-EMAIL] or [REDACTED-PHONE].

British Virgin Islands Press Office

Catherine van Kampen, Esq.,

British Virgin Islands Press Office, FCB NY,

http://www.bvitouristboard.com

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