If your idea of retirement is a day at the beach, Dr. Herbert McCoy just might be the surf-and-sandman of your dreams.
JOHN GIBBINS / Union-Tribune
Dr. Herbert McCoy's workouts include running on the beach with his dog Sushi. He wears arm weights and sometimes leg weights.
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Consider his seaside regimen: two-mile jog along the shore, one-mile swim at the La Jolla Beach & Tennis Club, followed by a series of push-ups, stretches and twists.
When he finally hits the shower, he'll add a few deep knee bends and neck rotations for good measure, the better to keep his 85-year-old body supple and strong.
“Being a physician, I know it's good for you,” he said. “Besides, I rather enjoy it.”
Although he officially retired 20 years ago from his internal medicine practice in La Jolla, he's no closer to hanging up his stethoscope than he is to abandoning his wet suit or scuba-diving gear.
McCoy travels as a ship's doctor to far-ranging destinations, including six-to-eight-week expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic, and devotes several hours a week to medical literature and conferences. He recently took on a new gig: serving as a physician on international trips with fellow scuba divers.
“Compared to when I was in private practice – 28 hours a day, eight days a week – this is a breeze,” he says.
Meanwhile, he keeps writing exercise prescriptions for himself, devoting each morning to preventing his compact, 5-foot-71/2-inch, 150-pound body from showing its age.
A multiple age-group winner in the La Jolla Roughwater Swim, in which he won his first medal as a visitor from the East Coast in 1940, McCoy regards swimming as the core of his program. “There's nothing better for you physiologically,” he said.
In his two-mile jog from the La Jolla Beach & Tennis Club to Scripps Pier and back, a warm-up for his swim, he's usually accompanied by Sushi, his 8-year-old Cavalier King Charles spaniel. “I ran barefoot for 25 or 30 years,” he said. “But occasionally I would be stung on the bottom of the foot by a bee. So now I usually wear light sneakers.”
One thing you won't see McCoy doing is carrying stones as simulated hand weights on his route. He did that back in 1975 on a day that Japanese Emperor Hirohito visited Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
“Hirohito was at Scripps Pier, out on the deck, and I was running with two black oval stones,” McCoy recalled. “His security people were afraid they were hand grenades.
“The next thing I know, police came zooming at me with full sirens, and helicopters that were in the air for his protection were blowing sand in my eyes.
“I couldn't even see the chap with a machine gun trained on me.”
Lately, the biggest risk McCoy has taken is submerging his body in the subfreezing waters of the North Pole on a trip in a Russian icebreaker.
“It was the coldest thing you could ever imagine,” said McCoy, who took the rest of the day to thaw out.
Brunch break: After his morning exercise regimen, which begins with a 7:30 jog, McCoy treats himself to an 11:30 a.m. brunch. Typically, he'll have a mango, an orange or a banana, a homemade bean burrito, coffee and a glass of buttermilk, topped off with a bagel. He'll snack on fruit in the afternoon. Dinner features a bountiful salad, with either chicken or fish, vegetables and rice or a potato. “I like yogurt with fruit for dessert,” he said, “and I may have a little granola before I turn in at midnight.” His only supplement: a daily multiple vitamin.
Balancing act: Years of treating patients who fell and broke bones convinced McCoy to make balance a priority. “I walk on a curb to practice balance, even if just from the car to the locker room,” he said. “It may look silly, but it's important.”
Role model: McCoy must be setting a good example. His grandson, Austin Polonitza, recently wrote an essay on the person he most admired. It was about McCoy. Submitted in a contest, the essay won first place and earned Polonitza a $1,000 grant from Florida Gulf Coast University.
Do you have a personal health and fitness success story to share? Do you know someone who does? Let us know how you've achieved your goals or overcome physical or psychological obstacles. E-mail:
jack.williams@uniontrib.com.
