BODIES IN MOTION, CLEAN AND SOBER

WHEN Todd Crandell competes in the Ironman World Championship in
Hawaii this month, it will mark his 12th Ironman in seven years. The
remarkable is no longer remarkable, of course. Tens of thousands of
people have completed one.

But Mr. Crandell's path to the starting line was unconventional. He
first learned of the endurance showcase while smoking crack cocaine.

Now sober, Mr. Crandell, 39, recalls how at 21 he watched television
coverage of the triathlon (2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bicycle ride and
26.2-mile run) in awe while struggling with alcohol and cocaine
addictions. In a memoir, "Racing For Recovery: From Addict to
Ironman," he describes his path of self-destruction as marked by drug
dealing, arrests and living out of a Buick filled with gin and Motley
Crue posters.

Today he runs Racing for Recovery, a five-year-old foundation based
in Sylvania, Ohio, that encourages people battling dependency to
exercise as a way to create much-needed structure in their lives.
More than 2,000 people have run in 5-kilometer races organized by the
foundation around the country.

Strenuous exercise has not been a part of traditional recovery
programs like Alcoholics Anonymous or the Betty Ford Center, which
emphasize abstinence above all else. But a few treatment centers, and
former addicts like Mr. Crandell, are coming to see the value of road
running and other fitness regimens in building confidence and
managing stress for those battling alcohol and drugs.

Mr. Crandell said he and other addicts he knows embrace regular
conditioning as a way to help them stay sober and to pursue goals.
And for those who are competitive, preparing for a race not only eats
up time and distracts them from temptations, it also can help them
establish goals and make clean-living new friends.

Odyssey House, a treatment program in New York City, shares that
view. On Sept. 23, 1,000 walkers and runners, many of them
ex-addicts, participated in a 5-kilometer race organized by the
program. It also now has 15 residents preparing for next month's New
York City Marathon.

"We're turning people who were heroin addicts, cocaine addicts, crack
addicts into marathon runners," said Peter Provet, the president of
Odyssey House. "I really believe it's a model for other treatment centers."

A new study seems to back up the idea that exercise can play a role
in addiction recovery. Butler Hospital, affiliated with Brown
University in Providence, R.I., recently completed a study that
tracked 44 alcoholics and found that outpatient treatment and 12
weeks of aerobic conditioning increased the likelihood of their
remaining sober.

Research also has found that aerobic exercise improves symptoms of
mild to moderate depression. Considering that depression is a risk
factor for relapse for substance abusers, alleviating some of the
disease's burden may help addicts stay sober.

Dr. Provet, a clinical psychologist, calls physical activity "the
perfect antidote to addiction." Ordinary hobbies don't suffice, he
said. "Knitting is good, but knitting does not address the negative
breakdown of the human spirit and human body. Running does."

Odyssey House, with over 1,000 low-income patients in its nine
centers, encourages clients to run. Activity counselors lead
residents on group treks three to four times a week; athletic
clothing and footwear are provided when needed.

Nancy Waite-O'Brien, the vice president for clinical services at the
Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, Calif., said she thinks that
helping addicts train for a race is a "terrific idea."

But helping patients accomplish their training goals is not always
feasible for short-stay centers like Betty Ford, she said. Patients
tend to stay three to four weeks at the Betty Ford Center compared
with state-financed centers like Odyssey House, where patients reside
an average of nine months to a year.

The Betty Ford Center does not reject the benefits of exercise; it
has a gym and offers some personal training, which the able-bodied
can take advantage of, Dr. Waite-O'Brien said. But, she said:
"Sometimes people are physically sick when they arrive. What we're
doing is mostly helping them get moving."

The Butler Hospital study suggests that incorporating exercise into
recovery programs may be beneficial. Richard A. Brown, Butler's
director of addiction research, said their randomized controlled
trial is in the final stages, but has already noted the impact that
moderate exercise has had on previously sedentary alcoholics in
outpatient treatment.

The study used a control group, which was given only brief advice on
the benefits of activity. The intervention group, though, received a
weekly gym session, with instruction, on cardiovascular machines. The
exercise group also attended discussions about overcoming barriers to
activity, and were instructed to do two or three workouts on their own.

Two months into the intervention, the group that participated in
structured exercise sessions was two and a half times more likely to
be abstinent from alcohol than those in the control group, according
to preliminary results. Dr. Brown also reported that the more
moderate exercise the alcoholics did, the higher the rates of their abstinence.

"What we showed was when people are actively engaged in exercise they
are doing better," Dr. Brown said. "The question is how to keep them
engaged." After six months, Dr. Brown found, his charges ran into the
same problem many of us do: their training dwindled.

Jean Ferlesch, 54, who has been sober for two decades, wouldn't dream
of giving up her running and weight lifting routine. She recalls how
the toil of exercise helped her manage emotions wrought by her
divorce that at one time would have caused her to drink. "I started
going to the gym and I was so sad and so angry," she said. As she
built up endurance, she imagined herself emotionally strong. "I ran
through my pain."

Being able to persevere was novel, said Ms. Ferlesch, a store
designer living in Brooklyn. "Years ago when something hurt, I would
do anything to get away from that feeling," she said. "It's a more
sophisticated understanding of pain now. I can sit with it and go
through it, be it physical or emotional."

Other ex-addicts are drawn to competition for the exhilaration it
offers. When Glen Caulkins, 53, of Dana Point, Calif., took up
freestyle snowboarding four years after he kicked heroin, the
intensity of his new sport felt familiar. Doing 60-foot aerial stunts
was "the edge, and I was used to the edge," said Mr. Caulkins, the
owner of Glenhaven Sober Living Homes, a drug-free residence in San
Clemente, Calif. He went on to become a three-time national
snowboarding champion. "It was a fix for about 10 years," said Mr.
Caulkins, who now prefers inline skating and practicing yoga.

Besides stimulation, Mr. Caulkins said, snowboarding gave him
something far more mundane, a new social identity. "It gave me a
whole group of friends who didn't know my past," he said.

Exercise can also add structure to lives that once revolved around
using. "When you're drinking four, five, six hours a day, that in
itself is an activity," said Steve Vallender, 38, a recovering
alcoholic and financial planner from Las Vegas who has set up a
chapter of Racing for Recovery in his hometown. "I found myself with
three, four hours of idle time every night and that's when I started
working out."

Ex-addicts looking to reinvent themselves commonly look to the sport
of triathlon, said Alan Ley, the coaching education manager for USA
Triathlon. "We've got a lot of people in triathlon training who are
trying to change old habits, whether they be related to drugs,
alcohol or living a poor lifestyle," he said. "It's sort of like
trading a negative addiction for a positive one."

Melissa Ellefson Huray, 33, a freelance writer and disc jockey in
Duluth, Minn., sees her marathon training as a way to manage
emotions, even if it can feel like a dependency. "I have a schedule
and I do it six days a week," said Ms. Huray, who was walking on a
treadmill at 8:30 p.m. as she took part in a telephone interview.

"I don't like to deviate from my schedule," she said. "If I didn't
run, I don't think I would drink, but I might be on anxiety drugs or
drugs for depression." She added: "I have to be vigilant. I can never
let my guard down with drinking or running."

Training consistently offers recovering addicts a way to regularly
finish tasks. "There's a mentality of, 'Oh, someday I'll do it,' that
alcohol perpetuates," said Heidi Stone, 34, a mortgage broker and
recovering alcoholic living in Brooklyn. But through weight lifting
three times a week, she not only has arms strong enough to do a
military push-up, but also a sense of accomplishment.

And that, experts say, is crucial to an ex-addict's growth. "Whether
it is a 5K or a marathon, the closure of accomplishment is powerful,"
Dr. Provet said.

Racking up Ironman finishes is a way for Mr. Crandell to feel good
but also to send a message to other addicts that they, too, can start
over. He added: "There's more to life than saying 'I'm powerless over
alcohol' and 'I've got to come to support-group meetings.' "