I use the term Age is Just a Number often. So much so that I had it tattooed on my leg.
But what does that really mean?
Well, let’s start with what it Doesn’t mean!
It doesn’t mean that I see myself as a young kid. I’m 62 years old, when I wake up in the morning, it’s not a question of “If” something is going to hurt, it’s more a matter of “What” is going to hurt. LOL!! Not that I’m always injured or anything, it just takes a bit longer to get my muscles moving. All of my workouts require a longer warm up before I can start to really get into the hard stuff.
It also doesn’t mean that we I’m going to continue to get faster and faster at SwimBikeRun as I age. Science tells us that as we age, we will slow slow down, that’s just the facts. Sure we can progress some, but it’s really more a question of stopping the regression, or at least slowing it down some.
Okay, now lets talk about what is Does mean.
What it really means is that Age is not a limiter to our dreams. Age should not be a detriment to setting some BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goals) for ourselves. Just because we are in our “Golden Years”, by the way, I HATE that phrase, we can still do amazing things.
I’m a living example of that. At the age of 54, I started to run. I needed to improve my health and loose some weight. At 58 years old, I ran my first Marathon (26.2 miles). At 60 years old I completed my first Ironman Race (2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and 26.2 mile run, all back to back), which took 15 hours, 25 minutes and 2 seconds.
To date, I’ve ran over 75 races, including 6 marathons, 18 half marathons, 1 Ironman and 1 Half Ironman race. I have logged over 1,200 running miles every year for the last 4 years. Last year, I ran the New York City Marathon the largest Marathon in the world.
Please understand that I don’t share this to stroke my ego, get likes or kudos, I share this to hopefully inspire others to do the same.
My Coach is very adamant that as endurance athletes, we must have a very strong understanding of our WHY. Why do we do what we do. Why to we spend hours and hours punishing our bodies, week after week training for these big races.
Her reasoning is that when we get to the final stages of an endurance race and we need to dig deep for the extra motivation to make it to the finish line, it’s our WHY that we reach for.
My Why is very simple, yet extremely important to me. Like the meme above says, “I want to inspire people my age (and younger) and I want them to say, because of the example you set, I didn’t give up”.
Talk is cheep, but actions are what really matter!!!
Until next time………
Running in the 419 