Category: aging

vintage bicycle in lush green field belarus Getting on and off your road bike with grace!
aging · cycling · fitness · injury

Getting on and off your road bike with grace!

Sam B3 Comments

Sometimes I worry that I’ve run out of things to blog about, but then there are new injury and age-related challenges that arise, I know that I am not alone, and I want to share the solutions I’ve found.

One of the things that older cyclists sometimes struggle with is getting on and off our road bikes. It’s enough of an issue that sometimes people choose a different style of bike–say, one with a step-through frame–when they get older. This issue didn’t bother me until knee surgery. My knees aren’t as bendy as they once were, and I also have stiff hips. I do a lot of physio, but I’m still not very flexible.

For me, it almost never is a problem getting on the bike. I’m all limber and stretchy then. Sometimes getting off, though, can be dicey, and it’s almost always when we’re stopping in front of a coffee shop, full of fellow cyclists, that I struggle. It’s embarrassing, and so I’m keen to find other ways to do it. If I’m home I sometimes gently drop the frame to the ground, in the grass, and step out and over it that way. Very easy! But necessarily something I want to do on the side of the road.

This video was really helpful. Turns out that I’m a fan of number 2, the side lean, and it’s how I now how I get on and off my road bike.

How about you?

This was another video of “magnificent” ways to dismount your bike. Enjoy!

aging · celebration · feminism · fitness

Honouring my First and Best Feminist Ally

Diane Harper3 Comments

Dad died a few weeks ago. He was not an obvious feminist ally at first glance; he started his 48 year military career back in the 1950s, not exactly the most progressive of times. He didn’t speak up much, and though he delighted in talking about politics from time to time, he was in his 80s before I knew his voting preferences.

He also didn’t talk about feminism or women’s rights, at least not directly. He did, however, delight in his all-female family, starting with my Mom. She was a rebel, having left her home in rural Alberta for Toronto, having her own career, and having and keeping a child (me) at a time when doing so outside of marriage was almost unheard of. They dated for a month, decided on a Tuesday to get married on a Saturday, and were deeply in love for 63 years.

Dad and Mom at my son’s wedding in 2023. Dad never missed a chance to sneak a kiss, and Mom was always happy to oblige.

My sister and I were raised to believe there was almost nothing we couldn’t do if that was what we wanted. Olympic swimming goals and my career as a concert pianist were derailed by lack of swim club and musical talent, but he happily paid for and drove me to all those swimming and piano lessons, even when money was very tight. Though he never finished high school himself, he encouraged and supported both of us to go to university (my sister did journalism, law, and ethics; I did music, political science, French and international development).

One of my favourite memories is the time he lamented that he hadn’t been a good role model because neither my sister nor I were married. No Dad, you were the best model. You showed us what being a great partner and father looked like, and we weren’t prepared to settle for anything less.

Dad, in Mom’s favourite picture of him.
Chronicles of 50, part 2: Kim is still climbing that mountain, at the top of which she learns a valuable lesson about how to go on
aging · climbing · fitness

Chronicles of 50, part 2: Kim is still climbing that mountain, at the top of which she learns a valuable lesson about how to go on

Sam B

by Kim Solga

(This is part two of a two-part post about Kim’s turning 50. CW: some talk about body image and weight, as a part of reflecting honestly on the aging process)

I was home from Jordan maybe a couple of weeks before Sam starting asking me to write a post about my adventures. I love to write and I love Sam so of course I agreed. I figured Sam wanted me to do a blow-by-blow of how awesome it all was, but I had another idea.

I booked that adventure in Jordan in September 2023, after dad’s death was in the rearview and things with mom were starting to settle down. It was supposed to be a cycling trip at first, and I was super keyed up about treating myself to what I was sure would be a really solid riding adventure. After all, I was a fearless cyclist, and the summer before I was still doing centuries with my club. But summer 2023 was not my best cycling season (no kidding Kim; your dad had just died and your mom had become your ward!), and by summer 2024 and in the wake of the crash, I felt something new.

I thought of the impending birthday riding trip, and I felt scared.

I decided the risk of becoming re-injured in the Middle East was too great. I swapped the riding trip for a hiking one that was classed as “moderate” on the adventure company website, and I began to feel confidence return. I’m a good hiker and I can climb with great endurance; I was sure this would be fun and only a bit of a challenge.

I needed new gear for the trip, so I took myself to my local outdoor shop in early September. I tried on a bunch of different hiking trousers; the ones in “my size” did not fit. By some margin. I grabbed larger sizes, fending off panic. When I found a couple of pairs that fit and looked good I began to breathe out again. But then, oh then, I had to do the swimsuits.

When I flew to Amman on 26 September, I was trepidatious. My body was now noticeably different to me; after the outdoor store experience I began scrutinizing myself in the mirror; my middle was bigger, and seemed to be getting bigger every day. I tried on a bunch of my lesser-worn clothes and quickly built a donation pile. I tried to breathe and reminded myself that when I was sharp in those black and white check trousers I was 43; it’s not unreasonable that they are not a good fit for me now. I made another pile of clothes to take to my tailor, and I assured myself Monty would make me both look and feel good in them again. Still, I cried.

On our first full day in Jordan, I learned that, with one exception, my hiking companions were about 30. One of them had completed an ironman only days before! Over breakfast the next morning, several of them were sharing mountain climbing stories; the Welsh trio were swapping hill-bagging brags. I realized that this was a super fit group; I was fit too, I once more told myself, but… I wasn’t 30 anymore. And I hadn’t been up a mountain in quite a while.

What if I couldn’t do this? Or worse: what if I could do it, but I was… slow? Held us up? Ended up the slower, older, odd one out?

Anxiety clutched my insides as we boarded the bus for our first destination.

OK, so a lot happened over the next few days. Two of the youngsters fell stomach-ill, affecting our pace and reminding me that everyone is vulnerable adventuring far from home. I kept up; I felt proud of myself. I also struggled with the rock-scrambling, of which there was more (A LOT MORE) than advertised. I turned my struggles into a joke, pretending they were an aberration for me; every new rocky rise sent my heart into my throat.

By the time we got to Mountain Day, me and myself had to have a talk.

You’ve got to make a choice, I reasoned. Up until now, you’ve gotten away (sort of) with pretending you’re still 30, and hiding the physical and mental pain that’s causing you. Sure, you’ve proved it: you can keep up. But why? What do you gain? And what are you losing?

That afternoon, in the back of the open jeep, barreling through the Wadi Rum desert, I told the two women I was riding with about my AnkSpon. About the bike crash. About how my left side hurt, pretty much all the time, and about how I’d initially planned to do the cycling trip but then got cold feet.

One of them, George, asked me point blank: Kim, are you scared of what we’re about to do? Are you afraid of the climb?

I said I was. And then I felt about a thousand times better.

By the time we gathered at the base of Jabal Umm ad Dami , everyone knew I was worried – and everyone knew to look out for me. I joked with Larry the Body Builder, incredibly sweet and unbelievably jacked, that it was a good thing he could bench press two of me with air to spare because, if I got into trouble, he was going to be my ride. He said sure, of course! As we rose into the sky I hung toward the back of the pack mostly, with different 30-somethings taking turns at my side. We still climbed in (what was for the adventure company) record time.

The feeling at the summit was, for me, exhilarating. Not only had I done the thing, but I hadn’t pretended it was easy. I’d asked if I needed a hand. I hadn’t asked us to slow down, but I knew that I could if I wanted to.

We took a bunch of goofy pictures, poised awkwardly on the narrow swell of summit rocks. We turned our mobile phones toward the Saudi border, trying to catch a signal. We ate dates and saluted Mohammed, who (holy crap!) climbs the mountain 3-4 times a week in high season and knew all the best ways down. We laughed at how much more fit he was than the rest of us.

I felt strong, and I felt free.

***

At the end of my two months away, I spent a week at the Plum Village practice centre in southern France. I lived in the nuns’ community, Lower Hamlet. We meditated together, ate in silence together, sang together, cleaned the dishes together, walked together, got lost on a hike together (really! The novice nun who had been there just a few days laughed with us as she told us she had no idea where we were), and much more.

We were present to each other, together. I’ve never felt more at peace, more in my whole self, in my whole life.

This is a typical reaction for first time visitors to Plum Village (I’m assured), but it also had a profound effect on me.

The peace lasted a couple of weeks; the memories will last longer. But not long after I landed back in Toronto, I felt the anxiety return with a vengeance.

A few days ago I was at the gym when I had a panic attack. We were rowing 1000m; I aimed for my “usual top pace” and freaked out when I realized I had come out of the block far too hard. My usual top pace was not my usual top pace anymore.

I got off the rower, stood in front of my barbell, and hung my head between my knees. I couldn’t find my breath; I couldn’t find my ground.

I couldn’t find now.

Later, the coach, Craig, reminded me that nobody is bionic; we all have to adjust, all the time.

And so I’m trying. I try hard each day to remember the lessons of my time away. Of being with the me of that moment; of adjusting myself to the needs of that moment. Of feeling the earth, the rocks, the sun, sky, and air. Of living the exhilaration of the moment, however it shows up to meet me.

It’s a daily challenge. It will be a whole life challenge.

Chronicles of 50, part 1: Kim reflects on dealing with loss and coming to terms with profound change
aging · death · fitness · meditation

Chronicles of 50, part 1: Kim reflects on dealing with loss and coming to terms with profound change

Sam B4 Comments

by Kim Solga

(This is part one of a two-part post about Kim’s turning 50. CW: talk about eldercare and subsequent death)

Sam and Tracy started this blog two years ahead of their 50th birthdays. Their goal: to be their fittest selves at 50, and to show the world how it’s done, the feminist way. I started following them early, and Sam invited me to join the blogging team in 2013. I’m younger than many of the bloggers here: when I started writing for FIFI I was 38, a long distance cyclist, and cocky as hell. One of my first posts was report on what remains one of my proudest cycling achievements: in July 2013, for the disability arts charity SCOPE, my then-husband and I rode the 450+km from London (UK) to Paris, France in 24 hours and 14 minutes.

Last September, the day before my 50th birthday, I climbed Jordan’s highest mountain, Jamal Umm ad Dami, on the border with Saudi Arabia. (I was hiking the country along with eight other adventurers and a hilarious and kind guide called Mahmoud. For the mountain climb, we were also joined by an insanely fit young Bedouin guide called Mohammed.) On my birthday morning, I woke up at 5am to ride a camel into the desert sunrise; it was magical. It was also still late evening in Montreal, where I was born, so *technically* I was still 49 at the time. And don’t think I didn’t tell people.

As that day progressed and we traveled the highway to the Dead Sea, I felt the ache of the previous several days’ hiking in all of my bones, and especially in the ones connecting my left leg and hip to my spine. I’d crashed my road bike in early July, requiring surgery (and a lot of metal props) to repair my shattered left radius. My left hip, already a liability of sorts because of my joint-munching autoimmune disorder (Ankylosing Spondylitis), had been giving me extra trouble ever since. What’s worse, that crash was avoidable. It happened close to home, in my local park, because I was over-tired from attempting to ride 157km solo across June 30 and July 1, to mark not Canada’s birthday (of course not!) but rather 157 years of… settler colonialism.

Cate and Susan teased me a lot about that one; dumb idea all around, Kim.

I had to admit they were right, and not just because my made-up justification sounds, well, REALLY BAD when you say it out loud. The truth was that 38-year-old Kim would not have minded at all 157km in one go. Kim at 43 would have groaned but done it anyway. Forty-seven-year-old Kim would have been daunted, but she would have made.

And nearly 50-year-old Kim? She was nervous. And so decided she had to do it anyway.

To prove nothing had changed. To prove she was the same woman, same athlete, as ever.

To prove her body was still hers to boss around and control.

Except it wasn’t. It isn’t.

***

I was away two months last fall; that’s one of the benefits of my incredibly good, very lucky job as a university professor. I was on sabbatical, and because I have tenure I didn’t need to hunker down and write a new book. I’d long decided that this was the sabbatical I was going to gift myself self-care; in fact, I’d made that a promise to my rheumatologist when I saw her in the spring.

You see, the thing a lot of folks don’t tell you about reaching this age has to do, intimately, with care. If you are a woman reaching this age, you probably won’t have been thinking much about care in the years leading up to and through perimenopause, because, well, you’ll have been too busy doing it. If you’re a woman my age with kids, those kids are finally launching (if you are lucky). However, at the same damn time, your parents are aging, and fast.

I’ve got no kids, but in April 2023 I was a parent to an extremely old doggo called Emma that I loved more than anything, and two elderly parents who refused to look their endgame in the face. I helped Emma pass on 1 May 2023, and I’m proud I gave her such a good death, because at the time I was fighting my dad on literally every care decision we were trying to make as we navigated his rapidly plunging heart and lung health and my mother’s wheelchair-bound semi-mobility. He wouldn’t accept care for her; he insisted on doing it all himself. He wouldn’t accept care for him, either. He refused to say anything was truly wrong.

I was swimming in the ocean off the coast of Cornwall in June 2023 when my mother emailed me to say that dad was in the hospital. Less than a week later I was flying back to Toronto; he had been admitted to palliative care. The next few months are a blur. I took over my mother’s life management, realizing with horror how little she knew of bank accounts, bill payments, and What Happens Now. By hook, crook, and the help of an amazing Senior Move Specialists called Janice, by Christmas we had her safely moved into a wonderful new care facility. She had her own apartment (for the first time in her adult life!), and, briefly, I felt easy. Then, in April 2024, she had a bad fall; she was not wearing her alert button. She lay half-dressed in her bathroom for what we guess was about 16 hours; she went from the tile floor to the ICU, and she never came home again.

***

In Buddhist traditions, practitioners learn to value the present – to be here now, as they say. The present moment is the one we occupy this very minute, and it is all around us, in all oof our senses. It’s not in our phones and it’s not in our other distractions. It’s also not the moment that was the present of our past selves, past bodies, or past expectations. Those moments are gone; we may have learned from them (if we are lucky) but whether or not we did, they are the past now.

I’m trying hard to be more Buddhist these days; I’ve been practicing in the Plum Village tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh for a couple of years now. In Plum Village, we often say: present moment, wonderful moment.

But who am I now, in this new present moment?

***

What happened after mom died? I’d been a wreck so long, managing eldercare and trying to do my job alongside, that initially, briefly, I felt free. But then I started to notice things. For the first time in a long time I was paying closer attention to my self: my body, my heart, my injured soul. I began to realize that I wasn’t just getting older – I was there. I could see clearly that I was in perimenopause, and that I probably had been for some time.

I began to realize that I was more tired than ever. I reasoned, of course: you’ve been to the wars, Kim. It’s only natural you need to rest! But resting had never before been in my vocab; like so many people my age (so many women my age!), rest is defeat. Keep going, keep hustling, keep riding and lifting and burpee-ing until you drop. That, to me, was my superpower.

I did not drop – I could not drop.

Until now.

aging · fitness

On Being Old(er)

alisonconway65

I’m old-ish. Having just turned sixty, I’ve entered the third act of my life, which may be shorter than my first two. But I’m not old like my mother is old. She is 90, so she probably has entered the last decade of her life, unless she crosses the century line (Go, Mom!).

These are empirical numbers, however, and it’s caught my attention lately that the facts of aging don’t mean much to people talking about being “old.” Or rather, about being called “old.” We want to avoid being called “old,” apparently, because the label signals that we’ve lost a bounce in our step or in our minds. And sometimes just looking a certain way—like, growing in grey hair after years of colouring—can signal this decline or a willingness to let this decline occur. We need to look like we’re going to fight “old” every inch of the way.

We are all familiar with the description of post-menopausal women as decrepit crones, and one hopes feminists fight ageism when they see it, calling out the misogyny hidden in the word “old.” But I worry that for fit feminists, the temptation to stay on the younger side of “old” may complicate what we know and don’t know. We value our fitness and we work hard to maintain it. Competitive folks may like their AG (age group) wins. Even if our times get slower, we like being faster than our peers.  All this is well and good, but it doesn’t necessarily bring us face to face with the cold hard truth: death is coming for us, sooner, in my case, rather than later. We watch the elderly struggle and pray that our cardio and strength training will preserve us. We pretend that the products our social media feeds are so keen to sell us will erase the lines we see in the mirror, that we can push through tiredness and ignore changes to our bodies.  

But, as a friend of mine pointed out, those of us who are able-bodied are only temporarily so.  Anyone, through injury or accident, can find their embodied lives radically transformed in an instant. And death will certainly put an end to all of us one day, whatever the tech-bros say. Are we ready?

In a poem titled “In the Waiting Room,” Elizabeth Bishop describes her seven-year-old self accompanying her aunt to a medical appointment. While in the waiting room, the child hears her aunt cry out in pain. The sound prompts a sudden realization of the humanity that the young Elizabeth shares with her older relative: 

What took me

completely by surprise

was that it was me:

my voice, in my mouth.

These days, I’m trying to listen to the less steady steps of the elderly and to witness my own aging without simply imagining ways to avoid it. I am working toward giving up the dream of radical autonomy and accepting myself for what I am: a frail mammal given a brief moment to share this beautiful world with other living things who will also die one day.

Jane Goodall enjoying a wetland walk with an elderly friend.

William Waterway, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

close up photography of gray adding machine Challenging Perceptions of Old Age
aging · fitness

Challenging Perceptions of Old Age

Sam B

I love this woman’s attitude. Well, sort of. She made me laugh. She also made me wonder about old, and old age, and elderly and what counts.

“Late, late, late middle-aged” definitely made me laugh.

And it got us talking in the blog group.

Alison wrote, “What’s wrong with “elderly”? Or “old”? When I let my grey hair grow in, my mother objected, “It makes me feel old.” Mom, you’re 90. You ARE old.”

Cate added, “I also don’t mind being called old. I think 60 is sort of cusp-y where there is no longer any doubt that oldness is on the horizon, although I think I personally feel like “old” will land on me when the first CPP cheque lands in the mail. But I was happy to take the seniors discount on the French train. Old is permission for so many things, to me.”

I’ve been thinking about aging too lately. Sometimes people ask me if I’m still working and I confess to being taken aback. Of course, I’m still working. I have no intention of retiring anytime soon. (Good thing too! I’m trying not to look at my pension funds in light of Trump-induced stock market crashes.) But lots of people my age (60) are retiring. It’s a perfectly normal age to retire, even though my plan (all going well) is closer to 70.

I also see groups of older people and then I wonder, are they my age? Do I look like that? What’s “like that” even mean though? Sometimes, it’s “old lady hair.” Or “old lady clothes.” But that’s not about age really. Probably I didn’t like their hairstyles and clothes and wouldn’t have chosen them for myself when they were 30 or 40.

I guess it also feels funny to suddenly be in the same age group as my mum. She’s in her early 80s. I’m in my early 60s. But we’re both, for lots of purposes, seniors. We can both get the high-test flu vaccine now. We can take seniors’ aquafit together. (We don’t but that’s another story. I’d like to!)

So I guess like the 73-year-old in the reel above, I don’t think I’m old. I think I’m late middle-aged. But not yet late, late, late middle-aged. 🙂

That’s not young but it’s not elderly either. Maybe 80 will feel old.

But maybe I’m just not sure what it is to feel a particular age. I felt like a very old young person when I was young and now I feel like a very young older person. Maybe I’ve just always felt like me.

Speaking of feeling like me, this might be me in a seniors’ fitness class.

black steel gym plate and pair of blue running shoes Muscles and age, strength training, and protein for WOMEN OUR AGE
aging · fitness · strength training · weight lifting

Muscles and age, strength training, and protein for WOMEN OUR AGE

Sam B1 Comment

I had one of those doctor’s comments the other day that always gets my back up.  You know,  it began with “at your age.” My age?

Apparently at my age weight and weight loss isn’t as important as maintaining muscle. And as you age,  when you lose weight,  it’s more likely that it’s muscle that you’re losing.

From an article in the Globe and Mail, by Alex Hutchinson, We need better guidelines to deal with age-related muscle loss.

“You might be relieved to hear that the creeping weight gain of middle age – a pound or two (0.5 to 1 kilogram) a year starting in your 20s, on average – eventually grinds to a halt. By the time you’re in your 50s, you’ll typically start slowly shedding weight. Don’t celebrate yet, though. There’s a good chance that the weight you’re losing is muscle – precisely what you need to hang onto to stay metabolically healthy and independent into old age. “

You need to be sure you get enough strength training in and make sure you’re eating enough protein.

Okay,  my doctor might be on to something but still the “at your age” comment rubbed me the wrong way. Lol.

I’ve written lots about this in the past.  Maybe I could have shown him some of my posts!

Past posts:

Want to keep muscle after 40?: Eat all the protein and lift all the things
Sam is thinking (again) about protein and aging muscles
Muscle loss is in the news again
Changing protein needs with age
Elmo
aging · camping · canoe · fitness · traveling

Cutting things out with age: Adjusting to the inevitable gracefully or narrowing options unnecessarily?

Sam B9 Comments

I seem to be at the age when friends start making pronouncements related to their age. Like, now I’m sixty I’m not doing that any more! Fill in the blank for “that.”

Some of the things being cut out are beauty regime related and they come with a feeling of PHEW. Like no more shaving one’s legs, or no more lipstick, or no wearing underwire bras. (We all gave up the last one during the pandemic, right?)

Sixty

And okay,  in some cases,  they sound like rich people things to say.  What are some examples? Like, never flying economy on a flight over 3 hours or some such thing. Which is fine, if you’ve got the money and that’s how you want to spend it, you do you. But don’t make it sound like a moral commitment. You’re just wealthy and treating yourself well and that’s fine. It’s not a major life insight to declare that it’s more comfortable having more leg room on a flight.

But some of the proclamations and pronouncements are fitness activity related and they make me just a little uneasy. On the upside,  it’s good to recognize the ways our bodies change with age and adjust our expectations accordingly. On the downside, I wonder if we do that too soon and limit our lives unnecessarily.

The first set that I’ve encountered among friends concern camping. In the last year I’ve heard friends say that they’ve decided they’re too old to sleep in a tent so no more tent camping again. But that rules out any back country camping. Others say now they’ve reached sixty, there’ll be no more portages. That seriously limits your canoe routes.

Others say they’ll ride bikes and run or swim but definitely no more races.

Now I get it if you always hated sleeping in a tent, portaging your canoe, or racing your bike. You shouldn’t do things you don’t like at any age. But if you still like it, why stop? Or maybe you’ve changed your mind, and don’t like it any more, but don’t make it about age. You don’t need an excuse to stop doing a thing you no longer like.

From radicallysunny

My gut feeling is that very little of it is really about age. Other friends say we’re not doing some things because we’re old now. But in many cases they’re things they’ve never done and didn’t want to do in the first place.

It’s kind of like knee replacement surgery.  Some friends who have had knees replaced attribute not doing certain activities to knee replacement.  But they didn’t do these activities before knee replacement. Further, I suspect they never really wanted to do these things.

I worry we shouldn’t stop doing things we love because we think they’re not possible as we age.  The truth is we just don’t know what we’ll be capable of.

When I wrote about aging and activity a few years ago this thought really stuck with me from a New York Times article on a study about aging and exercise, Exercise Can Keep Aging Muscles and Immune Systems ‘Young’.

The piece begins by noting that our understanding of aging might be radically mistaken because so few older adults get any exercise at all.

“Exercise among middle-aged and older adults in the Western world is rare. By most estimates, only about 10 percent of people past the age of 65 work out regularly. So, our expectations about what is normal during aging are based on how growing older affects sedentary people.”

Of course if you don’t like doing a thing– whether it’s wearing lipstick,  sleeping in a tent,  racing your bike,  or whatever– don’t do it. That’s true at 20, 30, 40 etc. But don’t stop doing it just because you don’t like it or don’t like it anymore,  and blame it on age.

I’m hoping to expand my range of activities with age.  I want to try new things,  not shrink my life down. 

Sarah and I met an older woman a couple of years ago paddling and back country canoe camping solo.  She said her husband used to come with her but with age it became too difficult for him.   Now he drives her up there and drops her off. I love that she loves back country camping so much she does it solo now. That’s brave and it’s expanded her options.

I mean,  who knows.  Maybe she didn’t ever like camping with her husband but it didn’t sound that way.

So it does happen, things can become too difficult with age and injury.  I no longer run. But I am hoping to dance,  bike,  and camp my way into my senior years.  It looks as though it might be a struggle to find people to do it with. That’s okay. I like hanging out with younger people. But I am also hoping to lure some friends my own age out onto their bikes for long rides, into the woods and lakes for some camping trips, and out on the dance floor to shake a few moves.

How about you? How are your activities adjusting to aging? How are you feeling about it?

Want the health of a 20 year old at the age of 80? Ride a bike!
Silver hair speedsters and good news on growing older
Aging, Activity, and Myths
Canoe
Julie Lockhart at 73, in her stars and stripes national champion kit, smiling while straddling her cross bike. Remembering feminist cycling celebrity and friend: Julie Lockhart
aging · cycling · fitness

Remembering feminist cycling celebrity and friend: Julie Lockhart

catherine w5 Comments

On Friday, October 11, all of cycling, and especially women’s cycling, and particularly master’s women’s cycling, lost the one-of-a-kind Julie Lockhart. I knew her as a fellow Northeast Bike Club member, teammate, riding buddy and friend.

Julie Lockhart crossing the finish at Cyclocross Nationals (undated photo).

Julie Lockhart was famous in the cycling world. She wasn’t a pro racer. She wasn’t the fastest on the course. She was, however, a multiple cyclocross national champion in her age group (65+), and also a multi-time women’s world champion, the last time in 2019 at age 78. Julie made her mark on cycling, cyclocross racing and women’s racing by showing the world that:

  • It’s never too late to throw yourself into something new and challenging
  • being active and competitive in your 60s and 70s is doable and fun
  • Showing up isn’t half the battle; it’s the whole battle
  • if they don’t have a category for you, keep racing anyway– they’ll make one!

FYI: most amateur bike races (road, mountain and cyclocross) offer master’s categories– age groups like 30+, 40+, 50+, 60+. For men, there are loads of categories, but until recently, there was often only a women’s 40+ category. Julie helped change that. How? By showing up and competing in race after race, and then qualifying for nationals. Take a look at the categories for cross nationals in 2006:

Master’s category starters for women dropped off sharply after age 49. Julie was the one 65+ starter that year.

Let’s compare it to Julie’s last year of racing, 2019:

2019 women’s masters categories included 20 starters for 60-64, 3 for 65-69, 1 for 70-74, and 2 for 75-79 (Julie’s category, and she came in second).

Now, Julie didn’t manage this shift single-handedly, but she did inspire lots of folks to keep racing or come back out of race retirement and rejoin the weekend warriors. Someone has to be willing to be the first in a category of one. That was Julie. In so many ways.

Julie at the start line, in her stars and stripes national champion kit, ready to rock and roll.

If you want to know what Julie was like in a race, check out this 2010 story from Bicycling Magazine about the 2008 Cyclocross Nationals women’s 40+ race, where then 67-year-old Julie and her friend/rival Nancy Brown, 66, went head-to-head in the 65+ category. Even though she got injured during the race, she persisted and went on to win.

Cross racing isn’t easy. You don’t just ride your bike, you run with it, too. Julie’s shouldering hers in this pic.

Julie’s racing stats are prodigious: if you look here at her crossresults.com record, you’ll see that she was active from 2006 through 2019. And by active, I mean VERY active– she averaged 26 cross races a year. That’s a lot. I mean A LOT.

Back in the mid/late 2000s, I raced with Julie on the road, in the woods, and in a couple of cyclocross races. We were two of three women in a first-timer category for a mountain bike race in Brialee CT. I finished first (my one and only time, but hey — a win is a win) and Julie finished third. I must say, off-road riding was not her strongest suit. But Julie rode and raced all the time, and she had fitness for days.

However, what most of us who knew her remember and will miss is her enthusiasm for every part and every member of the cycling community. She cheered on the Cub juniors during their races, and was on a first-name and hugging basis with the elite riders. She was a sought-after interview subject, and happily talked with reporters, cycling newbies, indeed anyone who came her way.

In fact, once when I was with friends spectating at a cross race outside Northampton, MA, she stopped in the middle of her race to say hi to us and chat about the day! We assured her that we’d be there after she finished to catch up, so she resumed pedaling down the course.

Julie in mid-race, looking like she’s having fun. Because she is.

If Julie were here to tell me how to end this dedication to her, she’d say something like “just get out there and do it!” Pondering complexity, second-guessing oneself, waiting for conditions to be just right: none of these were spaces Julie inhabited as a cyclist. She embraced all the experiences (injuries and illnesses included) living and riding as her inimitable self. We will miss you, Julie. Godspeed, and keep the rubber side down.

Julie’s daughter Deirdre just posted this shot. Yes– let’s embrace moments of triumph whenever and however we find them.

aging · Dancing · fitness

Dancer Problems – Wishing I Had Both Courage and Opportunities

Diane Harper1 Comment

I have finally figured out why I’m finding ballet so hard. I take the classes like I’m a 17 year-old in my final year of the professional program, rather than like the arthritic 63 year-old in an elementary leisure class for adults.

I started dancing 20 years ago, and most years I do only one or two classes a week, instead of the 20+ hours per that the senior kids in the professional program do. So it’s not like being a professional dancer was ever a possibility. So why do I work myself so hard?

I suspect it is my refusal to give in to the inevitable. Over the years, I had worked myself up to being in the advanced class. But then I got injured. When I returned to class I started to find that doing certain movements took too much out of me, so I started registering myself for lower level classes each year.

The downside of doing easier classes is that you lose out on learning more complicated steps and routines. My brain loves those, even if my body does not. I have settled into a class that gives me a reasonable balance, if I’m careful.

I hate the creaking and grinding of my knees in plié, and I’m nervous about exacerbating my bunion (jumping is what led to surgery on the bunion on my other foot). But I love demanding the core and strength work of myself to be able to feel, just for a moment now and then, like a “real dancer”.

I’m scratching the brain/choreography itch by doing a jazz class. It’s a completely new skill and vocabulary for me, but the movements are easier on my body.

But I think I really want the opportunity to perform, even though I’m also horrified at the prospect of having people watching me and mocking because it’s ridiculous. Or not showing up to watch at all. Or smiling sweetly and being kind about our efforts being cute. It’s the same fear about aging I have whenever I see “human interest” stories about older athletes. They usually try to be inspirational and mostly they are, but when I imagine myself being that athlete I cringe.

I want to have the courage of these women, and the dance company to make it happen. They are members of Prime, a professional company for dancers over 60 in Scotland. Here they are performing a piece called Ageless at at the Edinburgh Festival in 2023.

Four women dance in white tops and long full tulle skirts. Photo: Murdo MacLeod/the Guardian