I’ve been marking and naming decades for awhile now.
My thirties were for family, obviously. My kids were born in 92, 96, and 98.
I decided that after that time with small children that my forties were for fun. I even had a blog partly about that that’s disappeared into the ether. It was on Friendster. Remember Friendster? When it went away without warning I lost my blog and only the posts that I’d written in another program and saved as drafts were available to me. Here’s one from 2006 on why I decided to quit Goodlife.
And this blog got its start when Tracy and I planned to be the fittest we’d ever been in our lives when we turned fifty. This blog and our fifties were about fitness.
But even then for Tracy and me it was mostly triathlon, rowing, and riding bikes. Yes we did other stuff. We both did strength training. However, it was–for me at least–mostly in support of other activities. I’ve never had goals attached to strength training. It’s never been my main thing, my focus.
My knee surgeries might have changed that for me. See A real life lesson in muscle loss and aging. Ever since that hospital stay I’ve been thinking about strength. I’ve also been thinking about strength related goals and about what my fitness life would look like if I put strength at the center.
Of course, I want to hike and bike and go on long canoe camping trips. But I see now that if I want to do those things as I age, a lot of what’s required is serious strength training.
There’s other kinds of strength too–emotional strength and resilience matters too.
I’m turning 59 this summer. That gives me about a year to think about what this means and if it’s a theme I’ll choose for my sixties. Will my sixties be for strength? Let’s see.
Where does strength fit into your fitness life?
