Headlines like this strike a bad note with me. Sixty hasn’t felt very significant fitness-wise. I don’t feel very different than I did at fifty, to be honest.
Yes, I need more rest and recovery and a good night’s sleep. I am much more cautious about what I eat and when. So a bunch of things around fitness activities feel more fussy, but my energy for the activities feels about the same. I still love the way movement feels when I do it and I love how it makes me feel after.
When I was 58 I felt the same way about 60 talk. See Sam has 60 in her sights! – FIT IS A FEMINIST ISSUE. There I talked about my reaction to Carolyn Heilbrun’s book The Last Gift of Time: Life Beyond Sixty. The last gift of time???
Anyway, I’m not exactly a superfit sixty but sixty doesn’t feel all that different than fifty for me. How about you? Are you getting close to sixty and expecting big changes? Are you sixty and feeling them? How’s the big 6-0 sitting with you?
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Anything that encourages folks to ride is okay by me. Robert Marchand of France was still riding at 109, having set a record (for distance ridden in an hour) at 105. My brother asked for my help in buying a new bike helmet at 85. (Just don’t tell people that you’re amazed they can do x, y, or z “at your age”. A much younger rider once told me “I want to be you when I’m 69”, which felt much better to hear.)
At about-to-be 75, I feel pretty much the same as you, at least in terms of fitness. I can do most of what I was doing in my 40s & 50s, more than I did before that when I was running the family business and raising kids. There are changes; aging is real. That arthritic knee said running was over (but I never really liked running). I can see talking about age & fitness as the study does both positively and less positively. On the one hand, there’s the “60 is the new 40” thing, which is very real. I look back at my grandparents & they thought they were old at 50. We don’t feel old at 60! Don’t call us old! On the other hand, if it helps inactive people get more active & feel better, I’m fine with that.
It was from the comic strip Dustin that I learned “50 is the new 30…and delusion is the new self-esteem.”