Unconventional Athletes Issue 11
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Discovering a mass behind his ear, Durbin<br />
was told he needed to have it surgically<br />
removed. To his surprise the procedure<br />
was suddenly cancelled when<br />
the anesthesiologist, after checking<br />
his lungs, walked out of the operating<br />
room.<br />
“I got up from the table and had to<br />
catch her down the hallway to ask her<br />
what was going on,” said Durbin. She<br />
told me: “I don’t want to be responsible<br />
for your death.””<br />
“That scared the daylights out of me<br />
and I quit smoking cold turkey. That was<br />
back in 2003.” Weeks later the mass was<br />
removed, but a saddle block procedure<br />
was necessary as his lungs needed a<br />
lot longer to clear. While the growth<br />
was benign, it triggered a life-changing<br />
journey which started with him joining<br />
his local YMCA.<br />
Never having been in a gym in his<br />
lifetime, Durbin was ready to call it quits<br />
after three months of steady effort. “I<br />
gained 9 pounds…and I told them I could<br />
do this much at home.” But concerned<br />
staff members, explaining it was muscle<br />
mass, encouraged him to continue.<br />
“The first year at the gym all I did was<br />
cardio and a little bit of weight on the<br />
machines. It took me 45 minutes to get<br />
a mile on the treadmill. But I increased<br />
over time until I didn’t need my cane and<br />
then my boots came off and I got tennis<br />
shoes. Finally, my braces came off.”<br />
Durbin’s persistence has paid off<br />
handsomely. His impressively ripped<br />
66-year-old body now resembles that<br />
of a 20-something athlete - which is to<br />
say absolutely nothing like his former<br />
self. His days have taken on a whole<br />
new shape, too.<br />
Waking at 3:30 am after about 5 hours<br />
of sleep, Durbin begins his workout<br />
with a 30 minute ab routine – planks,<br />
crunches and the like - followed by<br />
about 100 push-ups and 15 minutes on<br />
his Gazelle for cardio. He then spends<br />
2 hours at the gym, 7 days a week,<br />
starting with cardio and warm-ups<br />
for 45 minutes then moves onto free<br />
weight work rather than the machines.<br />
Each day is dedicated to a specific area<br />
of the body. Thursdays is his push-up<br />
only day where he’ll do up to 600 pushups<br />
with a lot of variations – incline,<br />
decline, one-arm, etc. In the evening he<br />
repeats his morning home routine.<br />
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The first year at the gym<br />
all I did was cardio and a<br />
little bit of weight on the<br />
machines. It took me 45<br />
minutes to get a mile on<br />
the treadmill.<br />
If that isn’t impressive enough, factor in<br />
that Durbin has been in a hard battle<br />
with cancer since February 2014 when<br />
a 6” section of his colon was surgically<br />
removed. Seemingly cleared of the Big C,<br />
in January 2016 it returned showing up<br />
in lymph nodes, making chemotherapy<br />
his only treatment option. Two days<br />
each month Durbin forfeits his workout<br />
routine for a required 8-hour treatment<br />
at the hospital. Upon leaving, he wears<br />
an IV pump attached to a pole for<br />
2 days. “I work out those days,” says<br />
Durbin. “I just have to be careful of the<br />
[IV] line. I have to rest a bit between<br />
sets now and I lost a lot of weight, but I<br />
still do just about everything.”<br />
Five days a week after finishing his<br />
gym routine, Durbin stops for 30 to 45<br />
minutes at one of the parks or Walmart<br />
for extra calisthenics work. “I use one<br />
of the cart racks in the parking lot to<br />
do all my flags, my dips and levers.<br />
They’ve been pretty lenient with me.
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