Bonkfighter: The Jeff Clark Interview

Jeff Clark is a truck driver. As of this month, he’s been a truck driver for twenty years, as a matter of fact, averaging over 140,000 miles annually. He lives in Kewaunee, WI with his wife, Roxanne, in a log home on the Kewuanee River they built, and together they have a blended family of four children and five grandchildren and they’re prone to taking off on long motorcycle trips when time allows.

In 2005, Clark decided to join a YMCA fitness center with the goal of getting into good enough shape to unload his own truck. Towards the end of that year, he ran a half-marathon. Then, he began working to educate fellow truck drivers about the health risks associated with the position. He was featured earlier this year in the Jan/Feb issue of Road King magazine (“No Spare Tires”), and is author of the book, Hey We’re Dying Out Here: The Truth Behind The Trucker Shortage. To his colleagues, he writes:

As a group of workers we are in deep trouble. Not economically, but physically. Over the road truckers die about 15 years younger than the average American. Statistics say that if an over the road trucker has a heart attack 75% of the time they will die. No second chance, no warning sign, you are dead.

I am not a gifted athlete. I am not some skinny freak. I am a trucker. It hurts to know that many of the hardest working Americans will never enjoy retirement. I want my co-workers to be healthy. We need to exercise the most important muscle in our bodies, our hearts. Let’s get moving.

Bonkless: How did your book, Hey We’re Dying Out Here: The Truth Behind The Trucker Shortage, come about? Is it true you got some encouragemet from Amby Burfoot himself?

Jeff Clark: I read Amby Burfoot’s Runners Guide To The Meaning Of Life. He said that many people gain confidence after finishing a marathon. They do things like write a book. That is when I wrote mine. Amby was very helpful and encouraging. He kind of inspired the book… I emailed John Bingham, my back-of-the-pack hero, about how to encourage other truckers to run. I quoted him the life expectancy stat. He passed it along to Amby. Amby emailed back that it was probably because of all the exhaust fumes and stuff. I thought, “Boy if someone as worldly as Amby has no idea (of the situation and statistics facing the trucking industry), then I should get on my soap box.” He encouraged me when I did my first interview for the January edition of “Road King” magazine. Amby’s great.

B: How do you train while on the road? Where do you find healthy food? Do you follow any particular diet?

JC: I just run. Up to now, I have not done any interval training. I have some places where I like to run, but basically I run wherever I can. I actually have a favorite run in Gary, Indiana… off of exit 9. There is a bike path that heads east out of the truck stops. About a mile later there is a municipal golf course with a sidewalk around it. That is the exercise place for the locals. They all answer when I greet them. Running has become escapism for me on the road. It satisfies the explorer in me too. If a sign says no trucks, that’s the way that I am going. Sure sometimes my run is less than ideal. Every once in a while I find a gem of a route.

There is healthy food every where. The trick is to make the right choices.

B: What do most people probably not know about the trucking industry but should?

JC: How hard we really work. Basically all you do is work and sleep and wait to work. We spend a lot of time at work and not getting paid. The vast majority of truckers drive carefully and care about safety. We would like to get the bad drivers off the road. If we could get some of the worst drivers off the road we might have the leverage to make the roads safer. It is where we work and we want our workplace safe. One thing that most people don’t know is that interstate truck drivers are not subject to fair labor laws. What that means is that drivers may spend up to 7 or  8 hours at work without getting paid. It’s just nuts. What I really try to do is attack the problem from every angle.

B: What is the one piece of gear you can’t live without (iPod, etc)? What brand of shoes do you prefer?

JC: I hate iPods. I like to hear what is going on around me when I run. It would be hard to give back my satellite radio. I have been using Asics 1100 series shoes for a couple of years. At my last marathon 9/21 I developed serious foot pain about 14 miles in and limped it in. It turned out that I have Morton’s Neuroma. It is inflamed nerve endings between the ball of your foot and your toes. It’s more likely to happen to a woman, usually from wearing high-heeled shoes that are too tight. The cause is probably a combination of things. My foot may have swelled a little during the run causing the shoe to tighten. In turn pinching the frontr of my foot together. I think that it has been coming on all year. As a runner I denied the injury and thought that maybe my foot was slightly bruised or something. New Balance makes a shoe to help with that problem. I hope that the shoes solve the prob. They were good today!

B: Ah, excellent. I’m a New Balance devotee myself. What advice would you give to other people in your industry who are looking to make healthy changes?

JC: Start! The human body is incredible in its ability to rebound from years of mistreatment. I’ve always loved sports; I’ve always had really good eye-hand coordination. Basketball and softball were my favorite sports to play and I ran track and cross country at Glenbard West High School. At 5′ 9″ I was just not very tall or fast. I still love to play, but with my schedule playing in a league is impossible.  Really though, by the time I was 16, cars, beer or whatever, and girls became a higher priority. When I started running again in 2005 it just seemed more a part of me. I really enjoy it now. I wanted to be fit, I just never wanted to work at it. I have become more of a student of running. The warm-ups and cool-downs seem to keep me from getting stiff in the truck. After a marathon or half-marathon, I can get pretty stiff; (Jeff) Galloway’s idea of walking at least a half mile after you run works, though.

Clark, determined to spread a message of health and well-being to others in his industry also wrote the following, which he makes available to his fellow truckers, a fine message for beginners, but also an excellent reminder for the veteran marathoner in any industry, as well. He writes:

The best way to start an exercise program is slowly. All of us have started an exercise program and failed. I have. I failed because I overdid it at first. Start slowly. Walk. If, you can only walk for five minutes the first day that is alright. Maybe tomorrow you can walk for 5 ½ minutes. Do not try to increase your distance more than 10 % a week. If you are rubbing ointment on sore muscles, you are doing more than you are capable of.  If this happens, rest for a day. Take it easy. Soreness does not mean that you have to quit. It means that you need to back off. Your body is sending you a message.  It is not ready for the work load that you are giving it, yet.

Relax, you are not preparing for a specific date. You do not have the Olympic trials coming up. Think long term. Short term goals are fine, but long term ones should always take precedence. My goal is to run a marathon when I am 70. I am 49. Yeah, sometimes I don’t always focus on that long term goal. One time I entered a marathon with a badly bruised heel. I pulled up lame after sixteen miles. Every muscle in my body ached because of my limp. I lost sight of that long term goal and the short term one, finishing a marathon, took priority. It was a mistake that took months to recover from.

He continues:

Increase your workload gradually. Do not try to jog until you can walk for half an hour. Once you can walk for half an hour you can mix in a little light jogging. Try to jog for a minute every five or ten minutes.  Steadily increase the amount of time spent jogging. Eventually you will be able to jog for the entire 30 minutes. Don’t push too hard. Once you can run the entire 30 minutes you can increase the length of time that you run. You might want to run every other day.  I walk on my non-running days. You might want to ride a bike if you can carry one with you.

Do some stretching every day. Nothing major, just some simple stretches for your hamstrings, quads and Achilles…. Vary your routine. Run away from truck stops. Many truck stops are a mile or two from small towns. Run towards town and then back. Vary your courses by running in different places. You will find some favorite places to run. Unfortunately time constraints are a constant in our industry so we can’t always run where and when we want. I run when I can. A customer may say that it will take at least an hour to load or unload your freight. That may be the only time you get to run. So do it. There is no shower there.  Yeah, that’s a problem. Here is how I deal with it. Diaper wipes and baby powder. Yes, showers are better but these simple clean up tools work until you can get to a shower. (Plus nothing gets a woman’s attention more than a clean baby. I am married to a grandma, I know!)

So get moving. Every person is different. This program has worked for me. I finished my fourth marathon (26.2 miles) this spring and ran another one this September. So it works.

Jeff Clark, thank you for stopping by Bonkless! Come back and say hello anytime, and keep fighting the bonk!