At the start of every training year, I commit to doing one more thing to make myself fitter, stronger, faster. Last year I overhauled just about everything in a bid to get in the best shape of my life after 50, for my book Older, Faster, Stronger (coming out in October with Rodale Books).
So what was left to tackle?
Continue Reading →
Admit it. You’d love to have the experience and wisdom of fifty, but packaged in the body of a twenty something.
Whoa, I discovered it’s actually possible.
Last Wednesday, a month before I turn 50, I stepped on a set of whoop tee do scales at my personal trainer’s. It calculates a whole whack of things — bone and muscle density, water percentage, weight — including health age.
My health age, thanks to marathon running, is 26 and that’s a super-fit 26 year old.
Most runners have a time goal for the marathon. In training for Boston this April, a week after my 50th birthday, I set a goal of being in the best shape of my life — and finishing the marathon happy.
No question, I’ve already achieved goal one. Late for my annual physical last week, I jumped off a streetcar stalled in rush-hour traffic and ran the last four kilometres to my doctor’s office, arrived barely breaking a sweat and registered a heart rate of 68 and low blood pressure. Doctor pronounced me in excellent health.
Proud? Damn right I am. Determined? Even more so.
Certainly, I love the aesthetic benefits of being super fit. In three years of marathon training, I shed about 20 pounds and got rid of sags, saddle bags, chins, cheeks and even thigh bulges I’ve had since I was a kid and I thought would never disappear without plastic surgery (were I so inclined, which I’m not). Running has, as many of my running buddies have told me, literally transformed my body.
I love being strong. Physical challenges don’t daunt me (climb Kilimanjaro, as I did last year? No problem. Run a half marathon right after that? Bring it on). My body is a vehicle that carries me around the city — running, walking, cycling — with sweet joy and little effort.
Best of all, I love the healthy productive decades that being fit will give me to make big dreams come true.
Hitting 50 is about going after the thing you’ve always wanted to do — start that business/dream career/volunteer/ political work that allows the highest expression of your values; commit to deep learning (in books, adventure, psychological horizons); end the negative relationships; grow the positive ones; start the farm/art form to feed the world organic goodness.
As a writer, I feel I’m just hitting my stride. For whatever reason, I’ve explored virtually every genre a writer can, run down the path of poetry, playwriting, screenwriting, journalism, fiction. Now all that experience is coming together as I tackle big projects this year, and I want decades more work time for creative pursuits.
How much would it suck if my body were giving out at this glorious moment?
But what does it take to turn the age calendar backwards?
Here’s a look at this week’s training schedule — a peak week leading into Boston.
Sunday: 35 kilometre long run with about 10 major hills.
Monday: Stretching out those tight leg muscles.
Tuesday: 18 kilometres.
Wednesday: 8 kilometres and a one-hour personal training session with leg-strength training and ab work.
Thursday: 16 kilometres with fast tempo, hills.
Friday: 15 kilometre run.
Saturday: One-hour ab workout (equivalent of 500 sit-ups) and weight training.
Total Kilometres: 92
Total Hours of training: 12 to 14.
I didn’t get there over night. It took me three years to build up from three 6-kilometre runs a week to Boston qualifier. Put another way, it only took three years.
And it’s a true anti-aging formula. No B.S. No snake oil.
Where were you in ’62? That tagline question of George Lucas’ rock-and-roll romp, American Graffiti, is easy to answer for those of us who popped out of the womb that year, blinking against the bright glare (America will put a man on the moon, declares JFK!), suckled by end-of-world despair (Russian missile buildup in Cuba threatens global nuclear war, warns JFK).
The tougher question — with no rhyming jingle to soften the blow — is where are you in 2012? That’s the big fat question facing the tail-end-of-the-baby-boomers generation that has been wagged by that beat-you-first-to-everything oppressive lot our whole lives.
Trying to answer it will be the likes of Jon Stewart, Jim Carrey, Jodie Foster, Steve Carell, Ralph Fiennes, Jann Arden, Sheryl Crow, The Breakfast Club (Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy), The Outsiders (Tom Cruise), and who the hell are you (which would include me), all turning 50 this year.
So ’62 seems like a vintage year for entertainers, not so good for us writers (perhaps the most notable, David Foster Wallace, checked out early).
Admittedly, I’ve experienced plenty of bright glare and despair — I was born into it, after all. But I’m hanging in there, a whole lot astonished that this moment rolled around so fast but eager to explore what it means (and feels like) to hit the half-century mark and get really serious about this business of living, when there is, undeniably, less than half of it left.
I can say now that I know exactly where I will be one week after I turn 50 this April (if all goes well, that is) — toeing the start line of the Boston marathon.
In the meantime, I guess you could say I’m in training to turn 50.
With some months of practice, perhaps I will get it right.
If you have suggestions, comments and thoughts for 50 Thoughts, please do share!