2008.10.15
Burcham throws her weight around, at the Y
When you deal with data all day long, you start to look for it everywhere - and find it.
So, Tuesday I'm at the Kirk Family YMCA in downtown Roanoke for my lunch-time workout, and during a break, I scan the bulletin board. There are lists there, lists with names and numbers. Ah. Data.
It's there that I spot it, on the list of the top females for September in terms of weight lifted as tracked by the Y's FitLinxx system.
No. 2 on the list: Darlene Burcham.
Yup, the 63-year-old Roanoke City Manager pushed, pulled, hoisted and hauled a total of 535,445 pounds during September.
Now, Burcham has been accused of throwing her weight around as city manager before, but a half million pounds?
I called her. She was gracious, but not thrilled by more attention from the press, even for something like her athletic prowess. But she indulged me.
"I was startled to see that myself," she said. And she was skeptical. "I don't believe it. I think it's fake," she said of the number. The FitLinxx system must add wrong. FitLinxx users create an account they log into before a workout, and it tracks your workouts on the assorted fitness machines at the Y.
Burcham said she started working out at the Y back in June, mainly walking around the track at the inhuman hour of 5 a.m. She's had two different foot surgeries in recent years, is overly careful when traversing stairs now, and realized because of fear of injury, she just wasn't getting as much exercise as she used to. Her daughter Ann Kreft, a Roanoke City Schools principal, joins her often. (She's No. 14 on the list, by the way.)
After a couple of months of walking, Burcham started working out on 10 different fitness machines, too.
"I do not have any kinship with those machines," she said. "I think this is something you do because it's good for you."
And when she thinks about it, and how the weight can add up during a workout, she thinks maybe that number could be right after all.
But she found the number meaningless as a motivator. Nor did she take any satisfaction from the fact that anyone had noticed.
"The last thing I need," she said, "is more publicity."
