[Pics & Vids] The Chira Circuit on bike

All the pictures are courtesy by Mario Arias.

 

Just in front of Sullana City and next to Chira River, bikers have discovered an entire circuit going by roads of silt and clay among banana plantations. It’s about an estimated area of 309 sq mi, a variable altitude of 197 to 2231 feet, including Districts Marcavelica and Querecotillo, Piura department central-northern.

 

The area is not officially delimited, but despite the lack of a clear policy about outdoor competition sports promotion, bikers themselves have decided to become it worthy, even organizing tournaments. Actually, the place is also available for you to visit and run with their companion.

 

This is not the only place across Piura Department presenting ideal conditions for mountain biking. The territory, more than 13,500 sq mi, is from sea level to 12,800 feet altitude at its Andean zone, and every space is virtually right for many adventure sports. There are two airports, so your connection toward here is guaranteed. If you need more information or you need to plan your route, contact us on our Twitter account or write us at chulucanasgym@gmail.com

  

Clean as water, strong as metal

Guillermo Checa – a muscled activist

One of his favorite places to work out is at the mountains. (All photographs provided by Guillermo Checa)

 

Passion, knowledge, clear plans.  But an excellent physical condition too. Many activists think it’s only necessary to know speaking well and creating. That’s important. But, where they do think they can get the whole vitality that job requires from?

 

Guillermo Checa commits a good part of his free time to forest every empty lot in Piura City, Peru.  “The job of planting is heavy, it requires much physical effort,” he affirms. That’s why he also commits part of his time to build muscle.

“When I go out to plant, I have to work with a shovel, to move sand, to carry up big bags, and ddealing with the Sun too.” That’s when building muscle helps him to have power, flexibility, and  a better response to the so hard weather conditions like Piura, where the highs can rise until 100ºF temperature.

 

Checa leads a volunteers team called Ksembrando Vidas. As its name in Spanish says it, its job is the forestation and the reforestation by using native species of Piura Department.

 

Also, Guillermo is an avid reader, an art-pieces collector, and he’s considered as one of the new leaders of his community. He thinks this is just the beginning of his public life. Oh, he also has time to work as a model, like we see in those photographs.

 

Support Sembrando Vidas | Contact Guillermo Checa | Follow us on X | chulucanasgym@gmail.com

  

Dive, then save lives

A swimming school and some female volunteers have joined in Piura City, Peru, for raising funds against cancer. They’re Berenson Academy and the Association of Ladies Supporting the Patient with Cancer.

The idea is gathering much money as possible to help patients with cancer but without resources. Also, it looks for educating on prevention of this disease, and sports are one of the most effective, cheapest methods to achieve it.

The procedure is simple – every 100 meters or 330 feet you swim, you have to donate 10 soles (about US$ 2.70). If you don’t know to swim, the promoters look for a swimmer who represents you for swimming the equivalent distance to your donation. The participation can be individual or in group.

The activity began in 2019 but it had to pause because of Covid-19 pandemic. 300 people in Piura, Chiclayo, and Trujillo swam that year, covering about 200 km or 150 miles in total. For 2022, the activity was called for May 28^th from 10:00 in the morning to 7:00 at night.

Peru’s National Institute of Neoplastic Diseases detected about 17,000 new cases of cancer across that nation in 2021. Only in piura Department, Regional Direction of Health counted 2930 new cases of cancer in 2019.

Do you use sports to support social campaigns? Tell us on our Twitter account or at chulucanasgym@gmail.com

  

The right weight

Grandma was reasonable in everything but this.

 

It’s not a game. Obesity has begun to charge very expense bills to our communities. Only in Piura Department, the medical statistics establish it is the first cause of heart diseases (stroke, arteriosclerosis) and diabetes. In fact, it occupies the second place across Peru in this condition prevalence, that treated out of time can be mortal.

 

The diet and the lack of physical activity are the recurrent causes, according to specialists. The usual food is ever made of rice, tubers, and fried or boiled meat and much spices, and beverages with much sugar and colorants that have replaced to the natural juices and refreshes.

 

Growing besides

In the other hand, the new lifestyle consists in spending long hours in front of the TV or the PC, many times interacting with other pairs virtually but forbidding spaces and moments of physical encounter. This frame is not supposed.

 

The medical doctors coincide that during the teenage, instead growing upside, we are growing besides. Also, they point out that the problem gets worse if we have haven a bad or deficient nutrition during our childhood, so we don’t gain enough height and the body trends to accumulate fat instead of mass.

 

The most optimistic medical forecast is that before 40 years old, many of us already will experience our first stroke or, at least, will have blood stream problems. And the problem is in rural and urban ccommunities, as well.

 

The lifeguard plan

There are actually ways to reverse the frame, and everything depends on a strong personal commitment with your health. Here we present you some useful ideas:

1. Eat according to your real energy requirement: Not all the people need the same wear, so a nutritionist (or specialist in nutriology) can advise us what we have to eat, how much quantity, what time, why and how to combine it in a healthy way.
2. Do exercise: World Health Organization suggests that, at least, 30 daily minutes at home, a park, or the gym, are ideal to improve all the body functions including the slow down of the cell aging.
3. Set your mind free: encourage yourself creatively to take out the stress by doing an activity that take your brain out of the routine, but that enriches it.
4. No vices: If you don’t find a way (or even if you have it clear), don’t run to the alcohol, the tobacco, the drugs, or something that generates you damages for your remaining lifetime. If you think it convenient, visit a mental health specialist for having a guide.
5. Try not to stick to the technology: It’s actually possible to live without it. It seems hard but what the advertising doesn’t say us is the continuous dependence to the electronic devices causes us sedentarism, so problems with our weight. The other part that the advertising doesn’t say us is that a kind of techno-addiction is developed.
6. Appreciate yourself: The key to be happy is loving because of who you are, not who you look like. But this doesn’t mean you uncare of yourself.
7. Choose a medical consultation: If the physical body has problems, or it doesn’t respond like it should, the best is looking for a medical doctor. The friends and relatives –unless they have a diploma in Medicine and be competent—can give ideas but not a professional opinion that can save our live. However, ever look for second and third recommendations to go to the right place.
8. Research and share: On the Internet, there is everything, and especially the information that will open you up a positive perspective to care your health. If you access those contents, study them, file them, discuss them, and share them with your people. Who knows – the fact that can improve the life of somebody else could come from you.

 

The model featured on this entry is André Verona and the photographs are © Marco Mejía.