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Evan Solomon, co-host of CBC News: Sunday and host of Hot Type

MY GOAL

“I’m going on an Arctic hike in July for two weeks. It’s going to be 20 to 25 kilometres a day, and we are carrying very heavy packs. My goal is to survive this psychotic adventure.”

MY WORKOUT

Evan Solomon jogs eight to 10 kilometres four times a week. But he’d rather by playing basketball. (Tim Fraser for The Globe and Mail)

Jogs four times a week, for eight to 10 kilometres, and takes one long hike with a heavy pack each week.

Also plays tennis weekly with his brother and joins the occasional hockey game.

Does poradic sit-ups and push-ups (two sets of 25 each).

MY LIFESTYLE

“When I’m on the road, I run with a couple of my producers and cameramen in some interesting places. I don’t love jogging; I do it because it’s efficient. I would rather play hockey or basketball or tennis. My weekly tennis game is great because I see my brother. My wife is a heavy-duty yoga person. I tried it extensively and I loved the feeling afterward, but I hate it. Also, I ride my bike to work if I can.”

MY MOTIVATION

“If I’m anxious or moody and I have a jog, I will feel a thousand times better. I’ve never had a big weight issue. I’m 39 and I’m not the way I was at 29, but I wear the same pants.”

MY WORKOUT ANTHEM

“I love listening to talk radio - or a baseball game, if one’s on - because it’s like jogging with someone else. I listen to an old-fashioned Walkman, because it’s got AM [radio]. People think I’m jogging with a museum piece.”

MY CHALLENGES

“My life doesn’t allow for a firm routine right now. I travel almost every week, and with two young kids, the first thing to go is your exercise.”

THE CRITIQUE

For Steve Ramsbottom, owner of Vancouver’s Performance Institute, Mr. Solomon’s routine raises a few red flags.

The most serious problem, according to Mr. Ramsbottom, is Mr. Solomon’s lack of strength training. The television host should work on his core, back and legs - specifically, glutes, hamstrings and hips - to prepare for his adventure. And he should build up to about 50 repetitions of each exercise.

“He’s got to train like a marathon runner,” he says.

A hike of this intensity “is not something the body’s really designed to do.”

However, “for a short period of time, it’s relatively safe as long as he’s prepared.”

Mr. Solomon should incorporate some interval training, sprinting for about 100 metres throughout his jog in order to add an anaerobic component to his routine.

In the long run, however, the high impact of jogging could lead to injury. “I’d encourage him to do different types of cross-training,” Mr. Ramsbottom says. “Biking is a great way to develop endurance and strength in the legs.”

And though yoga would be a great supplement to Mr. Solomon’s training, maybe he should just stretch instead.

“If he doesn’t like yoga, he’s not going to do it.”

St Helens’ ominous return to form continues. With their Australian centre Matt Gidley producing his best display yet for the club, finishing with a hat-trick, Daniel Anderson’s side proved too strong for Warrington and moved top of the table.

Gidley has made a slow start to the task of filling Jamie Lyon’s boots, but here he looked like the player that has terrorised NRL defences for a decade. With Leon Pryce and Keiron Cunningham causing endless problems in the middle of the field, early defeats to Harlequins and Wakefield are becoming a distant memory.

Warrington had won one of the teams’ previous 27 Super League meetings, and had not beaten St Helens for six years. The Wolves hardly helped their cause in the opening exchanges, with Lee Briers conceding a penalty for dissent while in possession attacking the line. Martin Gleeson also had a try ruled out by the video referee for a double movement.

The more contentious decision came at the opposite end two minutes later. Gidley got the faintest of touches to a Sean Long grubber to the in-goal area, and the video referee ruled that he had sufficient control to award the try after several viewings.

The home support were further angered by St Helens’ second score soon after, as Briers appeared to be pushed Cunningham as he played the ball. But the referee, Ashley Klein, waved play on, and moments later Nick Fozzard and Gidley sent Ade Gardner over. The visitors were soon 16 points to the good courtesy of Gidley’s second try.

It took two moments of quick thinking from Briers to haul Warrington back into the contest before half-time. First he gained a penalty by holding the ball at the back of the scrum, and then tapped the ball quickly to dummy his way over. Then Briers kicked perfectly for the prolific Henry Fa’afili to finish. Briers’ touchline conversion made it 12-16 at the break.

But Saints re-established control with three tries in the third quarter, with Francis Meli forcing his way over from close range, Gidley completing his hat-trick from a Cunningham pass, and Mike Bennett strolling over.

Pryce then scored two tries and created another for Paul Wellens to complete the second-half procession, and the Wolves’ mood was hardly helped when their halfbacks Briers and Chris Bridge both limped off near the end.

Warrington Wolves Reardon; Fa’afili, Martin Gleeson, Johnson, Grose; Bridge, Briers; Rauhihi, Clarke, Wood, Westwood, Wainwright, Anderson. Interchange Sullivan, Mark Gleeson, Parker, Leikvoll.

St Helens Wellens; Gardner, Gidley, Talau, Meli; Pryce, Long; Fozzard, Cunningham, Cayless, Gilmour, Bennett, Wilkin. Interchange Roby, Graham, Fa’asavalu, Bannister.

Referee A Klein (Silsden)

As editor of http://www.morningstar.com/Products/Store_StocksMGI.html and manager of the Growth Portfolio, I rely on Morningstar’s equity analysts to bring their best ideas to my attention. Morningstar’s 1,900-stock coverage universe is divided into industry groups. I recently asked our industrials analysts, who are responsible for sectors ranging from airlines to defense contractors, one question: What company on your coverage list would you most like to own if it was available at the right price? (Of course, Morningstar analysts are prohibited from owning an interest in the stocks they cover, so this question is purely hypothetical.)

Adam Fleck
Mine would have to be http://quicktake.morningstar.com/StockNet/MorningstarAnalysis.aspx?Country=USA&Symbol=PAC http://quote.morningstar.com/Switch.html?ticker=PAC . It’s one of three publicly traded Mexican-airport operators (and has a wide moat like the others), but is the only one with an average risk rating (versus above-average ratings for the others). Much like http://quicktake.morningstar.com/StockNet/MorningstarAnalysis.aspx?Country=USA&Symbol=ASR http://quote.morningstar.com/Switch.html?ticker=ASR and Grupo Aeroportuario Centro Norte http://quote.morningstar.com/Switch.html?ticker=OMAB , Pacifico operates its airports in local monopolies and is free to manage its unregulated commercial revenue. Pacifico operates six of Mexico’s 10 busiest airports, and its domestic/international passenger levels are more evenly split (61% domestic, 39% international) than those of either ASR or OMAB. As a result, both the influx of low-cost carriers and the U.S.-Mexico bilateral flying agreement strongly benefit Pacifico.

Chris Lozier
http://quicktake.morningstar.com/StockNet/MorningstarAnalysis.aspx?Country=USA&Symbol=GD http://quote.morningstar.com/Switch.html?ticker=GD gets more out of its people and its assets than any other defense contractor. It was the first to break the mold of “large government contractor = pseudo-governmental agency” in which inefficiencies are gross and employees punch out precisely at 5 o’clock, and it has maintained a sizable lead in its ability to generate economic profits. In fact, we only recently awarded our second wide moat to a defense contractor, http://quicktake.morningstar.com/StockNet/MorningstarAnalysis.aspx?Country=USA&Symbol=LMT http://quote.morningstar.com/Switch.html?ticker=LMT . And while Lockheed is generating enormous wealth for its shareholders, it’s still not quite able to deliver the same returns on invested capital as General Dynamics.

Ben Johnson
I like to think of http://quicktake.morningstar.com/StockNet/MorningstarAnalysis.aspx?Country=USA&Symbol=ECL http://quote.morningstar.com/Switch.html?ticker=ECL as the http://quicktake.morningstar.com/StockNet/MorningstarAnalysis.aspx?Country=USA&Symbol=CTAS http://quote.morningstar.com/Switch.html?ticker=CTAS of soap. The firm has a large distribution network through which it provides a slew of cleaning and sanitizing products and services to major restaurant chains, hotel chains, hospitals, and retail outlets. It is the sole player in this space with sufficient scale to serve its customers on a global basis. It is also now the only large player to have a direct distribution model, as its next largest competitor, Johnson Diversey, withdrew from the direct-distribution market in mid-2006.

Brian Nelson
http://quicktake.morningstar.com/StockNet/MorningstarAnalysis.aspx?Country=USA&Symbol=PCP http://quote.morningstar.com/Switch.html?ticker=PCP would be the one. Aircraft orders remain robust, with Precision executing nicely. Its recent acquisition of SMC continues to outperform expectations, with operating margins in the division now expected to rise to 20% by fiscal 2008 from the midsingle-digit range when the acquisition was announced in August 2005 (it closed in May 2006). The 20% level would be above companywide operating margins, which are in the high teens, so this is impressive.

Marisa Thompson
http://quicktake.morningstar.com/StockNet/MorningstarAnalysis.aspx?Country=USA&Symbol=COL http://quote.morningstar.com/Switch.html?ticker=COL makes avionics suites that span the gamut of platforms, including military helicopters, fighter planes, Boeing commercial planes, regional jets, and even business jets. The firms incumbent status as the electronics provider of choice gives it an advantage over competitors as plane manufacturers and pilots are loath to switch based on the costs and training involved. Rockwell is continuing to extend its advantage by investing in next-generation solutions, and some of this research and development is supported by the government, which commissions the firm to produce sophisticated military avionics.

Once Rockwell has developed a system for military use, it leverages that technological expertise to build similar commercial systems. In addition, the firms products are often used by competing aircraft manufacturers so Rockwell is often agnostic in regard to shifts in market share, benefiting from the long-term growth in overall air travel. Returns on invested capital, averaging more than 16% the last six fiscal years, well exceed Rockwells cost of capital, and the firm is a cash-generating machine, with free cash-flow yields in the 10%-13% range.

Scott Burns
http://quicktake.morningstar.com/StockNet/MorningstarAnalysis.aspx?Country=USA&Symbol=CRS http://quote.morningstar.com/Switch.html?ticker=CRS is great little niche player in the fast growing specialty metals sector. The company has exposure to the aerospace, energy and health-care markets; all are expected to be highfliers over the next 5-7 years, and it has been raising prices seemingly at will over the past few years. Over the past three years, operating income has grown annually by 150% on average, and although we expect that growth to slow, we still expect pretty strong performance.

Matthew Warren
The longer I cover the aggregate guys, the more impressed I am by http://quicktake.morningstar.com/stocknet/MorningstarAnalysis.aspx?Country=USA&sktab=analysis&Symbol=VMC http://quote.morningstar.com/Switch.html?ticker=VMC business model. Half of sales go to government-supported infrastructure. One fourth is residential construction and one fourth is nonresidential construction. There is a high-fixed-cost portion of the business that helps on the upside. Even when volumes are down year over year, pricing is very rational due to local oligopolies. Pricing has been absolutely tremendous over the past three years, and yet the cost of stone is still a very small portion of total construction costs. There are no economically viable substitutes.

Aggregate firms find land on the outskirts of a city, feed construction projects with stone as the building comes toward the quarry, and sell the real estate for very nice profits after they’re done mining and have filled the quarry with water. Stone is too inexpensive relative to weight to support much in the way of overseas imports. U.S. infrastructure is dated and crimping the economy in many areas, and funds are starting to flow to fix this problem, especially in California, which benefits Vulcan. Until we invent mass-market hovercraft, the moats around these companies will last for a long time.