LONG BEACH, Calif. -- Fitness fiend Jack LaLanne, saying he felt 'as cold as a witch's heart,' beamed as he stepped from the chilly harbor waters after matching his 70 years by pulling 70 rowboats with his hands and feet shackled.

LaLanne Tuesday towed the flotilla behind him as he swam a mile through Long Beach Harbor past the Queen Mary.


He was shackled hand and foot.

'I feel as cold as a witch's heart,' he said. 'I can't believe this has happened. It was a big dream.'

LaLanne, who turned 70 Tuesday, called the 2 -hour swim 'the dream of a lifetime.'

About 200 people gathered to watch, singing choruses of 'Row, Row, Row Your Boat.'

'The older you get, the more you should exercise to avoid the aging process,' LaLanne told onlookers before he entered the 59-degree water. 'The only way you can hurt your body is if you sit on your rear end and do nothing.'

LaLanne, a pioneer in the health fitness industry, towed 13 boats with 76 people aboard to welcome the country's bicentennial. In 1979, he hauled 65 boats loaded with 6,500 pounds of wood in Japan.

He founded America's first modern health spa in Oakland, Calif., in 1936.

LaLanne set a record by doing 1,033 pushups in 23 minutes on television in the mid-1950s.