30 October,2022 08:43 AM IST | Berlin | A Correspondent
Russell Winwood’s lungs work at less than 30 per cent of their capacity
Russell Winwood has earned the nickname COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) Athlete because of his incredible ability to run entire marathons despite his lungs working below 30 per cent of their capacity. COPD is an incurable and progressive condition.
Winwood was diagnosed in 2011; but by then, the Brisbane native had already turned his life around after a stroke at age 36. He gave up smoking, cut down on alcohol, and took up sports. Over the years, he competed in various triathlons - from sprint (750 m swim, 20 km bike ride and 5 km run) to Half Ironman (2 km swim, 90 km bike ride, and 21 km run) - and even a few ultra-marathons (over 50 km).
Everything was great, until Winwood noticed that his usual training felt harder and he found it difficult to breathe. A visit to the physician presented a COPD diagnosis, along with the warning that his lungs were operating at less than 30 percent capacity.
Six months after hearing the bad news, Winwood completed his first full Ironman triathlon (3.9 km-swim, 180.2 km bicycle ride and 42.2 km run). He read about his condition, and increased his cardiorespiratory fitness level. "I could have let this disease slowly suffocate the life out of me," he says.
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At 56, the COPD Athlete completed Chicago Marathon in six hours, 28 minutes and 33 seconds. Given his condition, he had to run 400m and then walk for 100m to keep his lungs from hyper inflating. He has signed up for the 2023 Tokyo Marathon and hopes to compete in Berlin in the next couple of years.
Russian company offers to bury you for an hour to revive your "will to live" and give stress therapy
Curious about what it feels like to be six feet under? Here's a way to find out. A Russian company offers customers to experience being buried alive for 3.5 million roubles (about Rs 47 lakh).
You get two choices of funeral: An online one, or the Full Immersion
Company founder Yakaterina Preobrazhenskaya announced the new venture earlier this week, which promises to help patrons discover new talents, "psychic abilities", and deal with their "fears and anxieties" after the funeral. Preobrazhenskaya described the morbid offering as a "true symbol of fighting for yourself and your own happy future," in an Instagram post announcing the venture.
The Full Immersion will give you the experience of being buried for up to an hour. It includes a full religious ceremony and a "mandatory revival with an all-around revived awareness of their mission" which is supposed to renew a person's "desire to live."
Science Co. Ltd, a Japanese technology company specialising in bathroom and kitchen innovation, recently unveiled plans to make a washing machine for humans and promised to deliver it by 2025. The goal of Project Usoyaro is not to thoroughly clean the body, but also provide a healing space to relax and unwind to the sound of soothing music.
An 87-year-old is social media's hottest groom thanks to a viral video of him tying the knot with his dead ex-wife's best friend in an over-the-top wedding celebration. "Third time's a charm at 87, I guess," joked the unnamed man's granddaughter, 22-year-old Sophia Angeletakis in the caption of her TikTok post with 6.6 million views.
The Mumm Cordon Rouge Stellar is the first champagne designed specifically for space travel. The bottle is half glass and features a finger-controlled valve which releases globules of champagne spheres from which the astronaut can scoop the drink out of air.
Hanna Faustino, a 36-year-old Canadian woman, felt like she was "climaxing" during labour, and didn't want the experience to end. She entered the orgasmic state while giving birth to her daughter, Kaiya, and credits prenatal yoga classes with the pleasurable, pain-free process. "It was really natural to push, and didn't feel as painful."
A fiery TikToker and mom-of-two, Maresa Friedman, uploaded a video defending her decision to stay put in her first-class seat, despite another family's pleas to exchange seats with her. While she says she's not a villain, the video has ignited a furious debate online about the need to accommodate fellow air travellers - particularly those with children. She said she chose those seats specifically and well in advance, so that her family could sit together. "I'm sorry moms and families, but as a fellow mom I'm not a villain for not giving up my seat," she captioned the clip, which has been viewed more than 1.4 million times.
Questionable footage showing the "nasty" process of creating McDonald's McRib burger, has many customers vowing to never order the item again. A video shared on Twitter showed frozen blocks of the "rib" product slapped onto the grill. Once thawed, the items, which had been preformed into rib like shapes, were taken from the grill and placed into pull-out containers filled with thick brown sauce. The person who uploaded the video, which has been viewed more than 1.2 million times, suggested the ribs could barely be considered food. The slabs were then placed on top of onion and pickles on a lightly toasted bun before being closed into a box and sent down a chute to fulfil an order.
