Dean Greg Crawford’s Blog

This morning I had my last Wednesday workout session at Knollwood with my early morning workout buddies and Kellie the instructor.  I started to take it easy this week and not push as hard as I have been for the last several weeks. I need to rest up a bit but still need to exercise to keep my body strong.

The group came out and signed the van when we finished this morning!  The van looks terrific.  Brittany and Tim at AgencyND did a fabulous job with the design. My buddies were all impressed and had lots of wonderful things to say about the van. And of course, Marty and Facilities have been very generous to let us use the van for this great cause.

This year my biking helmet is gold – it looks really cool and has a great Notre Dame look to it. The helmet was painted the same way the old football helmets have been painted.

Well, I’d better go get busy –  I will start packing up the van for the trip tonight!

Well, I am on my last leg of heavy workouts. Yesterday, Kellie trained me with this 100-90-80….10 reps exercise – 100 squat jumps, 90 sit ups, 80 squats with weights, 70 pull ups (brutal), and so on.  I had some trouble waking up today, as I could not lift my arms from all of the pull-ups.

Bright and early this morning, Tom trained me.  I was in bungee cords running up a hill while he pulled me back – pretty intense.  I started off the morning with a run, 2 hours of spinning, 30 minutes of intense training with Tom, and then Piloxing with Jessica.  I am not sure what Piloxing is, exactly – some combination of Pilates and boxing – but I am pretty sure I am not doing it right.  It involves aerobics, boxing and dance, and I am not a very gracious dancer, as everyone saw last year when I danced to a cowboy song at “Dancing with Our Stars” for the Center for the Homeless. So although this Pilo stuff is interesting, it is one of those exercises outside my comfort zone. Well, as I like to tell people, it is good to get outside your comfort zone every now and then.  Thank you, Knollwood!

At the end of my ride we are hosting a golf fundraiser, the Parseghian Classic for NPC Research, June 22-24 in Pebble Beach, California. The Parseghian Classic is a three-night event with dinners, receptions and rounds of golf on The Links at Spanish Bay and Pebble Beach Golf Links.

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My workouts at Knollwood Country Club with Kellie have been pretty strenuous. I know I’ll be grateful for them when I head up the really difficult leg of this summer’s trip, the Rocky Mountains. Usually I start workouts at 4:30 or 5:00 a.m. – carrying weights up a hill, running down, sprinting up, and so forth. Some days, it does not seem to end.

Other workouts involve weights and step-ups – and step-ups – and more step-ups. To top it off, we do the exercises in the pool area, which simulates the hot, humid summer days we will face when we bike across Utah and Nevada.  It’s always tough. Some days, I’d call it brutal. But in a few weeks, I’ll probably be remembering it as easy, and I will be grateful for the preparation as I bike the real road.

The week before graduation, we’ll switch to lighter workouts with more stretching and resting so I’m ready to start this cross-country adventure on May 21, the day after graduation, from Boston, Massachusetts.

Today at Knollwood Country Club (KCC), I worked on indoor spinning with a big group that showed up bright and early in the morning.  The instructor, Greg, had us do different types of interval training on the bike.  We always watch Tour de France movies to help motivate us during class – climbing, speed trails, and fast downhills often make being on a stationary bike more bearable.  It is great to have such supportive friends at KCC.

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As in years past, I have been getting in shape for the ride physically at Knollwood Country Club (KCC).  I have been taking some individual training sessions with Kellie for the most part and some with Kim. I must say that after the past few weeks of personalized training, I can’t wait to get on my bike!  It has been pretty tough, but they provide great training to help prepare for my ride.

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It’s worth having to workout when you get to do it with the wonderful Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps here at the University of Notre Dame. Today I had the honor of running and working out with some of them – about 35 Navy and Marine Corps midshipmen and unit staff – in the Medal of Honor Run.   Captain Earl Carter, the Commanding Officer of the NROTC, was leading the group, along with Major Jackie Schiller, the Marine Officer Instructor (MOI);  Gunnery Sergeant Blake Kennington, the Assistant Marine Officer Instructor; and Sergeant Ben Leichty, the sole member of the Marine Corps Enlisted Commissioning Education Program (MECEP) assigned to Notre Dame.

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During Junior Parents Weekend last February, I had the honor of speaking to the thousands of parents and students about our Niemann-Pick work and the Parseghian story, which to me is a story about the greatness of the Notre Dame family. We had a slide show of faces from Notre Dame’s past and present, including the beautiful children of Mike and Cindy who suffered from NPC and who left us the legacy to fight for the cure. Here’s what I told the families:  Read more »