Who You Calling Old?

I’ve always said that I will never let an old person into my body. That is, I don’t believe in ‘thinking’ old. Don’t program yourself to break down as you age with thoughts that decline is inevitable. – Wayne Dyer

Imagine you are a little boy trapped in an old man’s body. Aged lady across the street gets irritated when you talk about being old. “You’re not old,” she said.  “You talk too much about getting old.  You don’t know what old is.”

She wasn’t kidding you, she was kidding herself. She died. Younger than you are today.

“Old” isn’t a number, it’s a condition. Myself, I can no longer dodge raindrops. Hell, there was a time I could run for hours and now I consider making the bed part of my fitness regimen. It’s a king with many heavy pillows.

I get this note.

As I read the literature on health for the over-60 crowd, heart rate and effort take a back seat to simply moving. 6k-8k steps per day gets you the majority of health benefits for longevity, no matter the speed or effort. We are talking about health and wellness, not athletic performance.

First of all, I read that wrong. (For excitement, I like to read my mail without my glasses.) Thought he said 5000-8000 steps. Five thousand, not six. That very night, I get out my log book, look at my Fitbit. Steps – 4985. Oh, hell, no. You can bet I pressed the down button on my motorized recliner and took a brief stroll.

Next night, 4970, took another brief stroll before bed. Two consecutive nights over 5K. Make that three. Let The Next Streak begin.

Folks who spent years pushing the limits of aerobic performance might do well to rethink/reset their fitness benchmarks. Speed and effort might be replaced by simply moving.

Think of our nomadic gatherer ancestors.  They did not sprint from plant to plant, picking berries and nuts. Slow and methodical movement over the course of the day got the job done. Bending, reaching and carrying took care of the strength and flexibility factor.

I get upset nowadays when my wife fetches the mail. That walk across the street and back, those steps could’ve been mine.

Got that note from Kevin Harper, who has graciously shared his wise counsel over the years. I don’t always listen.

Sorry. I don’t have photos of me paddling stand up. Just imagine an old guy wobbling on a board on flat water, just centimeters of imbalance away from tumbling into the drink. But all the time with a look of concentration and joy on his face.  I think Ralph Steadman could capture the moment.

I like the line of thought you are taking with this. For many, it is not about just trying to continue to run. (Although I would certainly like to cruise along at seven-or-eight-minute pace, yakking it up with friends like the “good old days”).

For me it is about finding new ways and adapting to current circumstances and still feeling good and finding joy.  

Walking, paddle boarding, tai chi, Wharton Rope Flexibility, Jay Johnson Strength and Mobility Routine, GMB Fitness Training, TRX and workouts from a book titled “Ageless Strength” are all part of my health and fitness journey.  Kelly Starratt and his wife Juliette have had a strong influence on my ideas of fitness over the past several years.

I am sure it is not original, but I have come up with an idea or maybe metaphor regarding the kinetic chain.

HARMONY

That is the key.  Think of Copernicus looking for the “harmony of the spheres”.  That quest changed the worldview from an earth-centered solar system to a sun-centered solar system.

Now consider the harmony of the human body/kinetic chain.

When I watch Galen Rupp, Jakob Ingebrigtsen and others run, I know it is more than just “up your mileage,” like I figured was the secret back in the day. Look at all the work Meb Keflezighi put in that was not just running. [Parker Valby comes to mind.]

You wrote an article about Rod Dixon. He mentioned getting soreness and going back to ABC training. Agility, Balance and Coordination. Dixon won bronze in the 1500 in 1972 and won NYC Marathon in 1983. 

Most of my study is on movement. I see The 4 Keys Of Movement as:

POSITION

STRENGTH

FLEXIBILITY 

CONTROL

Position is largely influenced by Starratt.  

GMB Fitness group (all certified PT’s) gave me the idea of strength, flexibility and control.

Tai Chi reinforced the idea of harmony.

Getting these four in harmony is my goal. They all work together.

I am completely determined and fully committed to achieving five to eight thousand steps daily. With enough strength, flexibility and control to achieve pain-free harmony. Doing my best.

Then I wondered what some other no longer young runners were doing…

Rick Bayko:

I’m somewhat envious of the fact that you guys are all still getting outdoors.  My main activities for the winter is the rowing machine, the gym and the exercise bike, all indoors.  My only running is a mile or so on a treadmill at the gym twice a week before doing my trainer-guided group strength & conditioning hour.  I’m currently down to 12:44 for my fastest mile.

By eschewing running in favor of rowing like a demon I’m managing to keep the worst of my damaged body parts tolerable.  Aches and occasional pains, but nothing debilitating (knock on wood).  I do miss the fresh air of the great outdoors though.  

Patti Dillon:

A while ago I was snowshoeing.  Even entered Master Nationals – finished third.  Toughest race I ever did! Connecticut doesn’t receive much snow.  However, when I can get out in the snow I will.

I did cross-country skiing, which I so loved. Though once again, not enough snow.

Right now I’m rowing on a Concept 2.  I so enjoy it.  Did an hour early this morning.  As it’s been single  digits here, I’m staying inside.

Yes, I’m still running. Though I’m in active recovery mode due to a terrible disabling fall. I have full intent to resume running soon.  As no matter what I do, nothing quite hits the notes as running does for me. When I do run, I run with a dog or two.

My main thing right now, is to be consistent doing something. Outside of being a couch potato watching Netflix.

Jon Anderson:

I stopped jogging eight or ten years ago, due to bursitis in my hips, especially the right one.  I had been sticking to jogging for thirty minutes on a treadmill in part due to the ‘bounce’ it provides … a little ‘softer’ surface than pavement.  At about the same time that I decided to stop jogging, my wife surprised me at a Christmas with a Concept 2 rowing machine.  I took on the challenge.  I see Patti has one.  If she does an hour … impressive for sure.  A friend of mine who is a three-time Olympian kayaker (4th in one Olympic race!) calls the Concept 2 a “torture machine.”  I agree!  Rowing machine manufacturers claim they provide a ‘full body workout’ … pretty close.  So, we still have the Concept 2 over in our place in Sunriver, but now have a “Hydrow” that isn’t quite as tough on me and has video stuff like a Peloton.

I try to get on the rowing machine at least every other day for thirty minutes.  Sometimes more, sometimes less.  Usually follow that with an easy thirty minutes on a stationery bike.   I used to alternate days with a long walk in the hills of about an hour, but recent foot problem has that curtailed.

More Patti Dillon:

Have you heard about Human Garage?  Feldenkrais with Alfons?  Or Knees Over Toes Guy?  All on YouTube. Please check them out. I advise Human Garage and Feldenkrais.   Ben Patrick (KOTG) would be after six weeks of Human Garage and Fels. 
Jon, you may be doing rowing too intensely.  Just work on time.  I started with twenty minutes.   And I moved along and intensity comes naturally. You know, just like running.

John “The Painter” Dimick:

I’ve tried to keep busy and pretty active as I’ve moved along through the years. 

In the ’80s due to foot problems, I stopped running other than trying to get out of the woods before dark when I’m hiking or geocaching. I took up road cycling about fifteen years ago and I bike pretty hard when I ride and climb pretty well. It pays to be a skinny little guy with a good set of pistons and the right gearing when you hit the hills. I biked up Mount Washington when I turned 70 and since my painting brings me to shows up in Waitsfield, VT I bike the gaps up there every summer, Lincoln, Appalachian, Middlebury, and Brandon (LAMB ride). Once a year, I bike up Lincoln Gap, the steepest paved mile in America. Last summer at age 74 it was brutal. In the winter or rain I have a Wahoo Trainer set with my road bike and bike with Zwift, a program where you can bike with riders from all over the world. I’m not quite the same caliber cyclist as my good friends Hank Pfeifle or Judi St. Hilaire. We follow each other on Strava, so they provide me with plenty of motivation to get back in the saddle when I’m feeling a bit lazy.  Twenty miles at 20 mph is in the range of pace. 

I do a lot of hiking. Last fall I joined a group from around the country on a Sierra Club hike in Scotland called the West Highland Way. We hiked about ten miles a day, 96 miles from Milngavie to Fort William. During COVID – when you did everything alone – I would take my hiking gear and bike and head for the trails. I would drive my car to the end point of the hike and bike back to the starting point. I’d hide my bike in the woods and hike eight to twelve miles along the trail back to the car. Appalachian Trail in Mass. and CT., New England Trail from Monadnock south and into Connecticut, the Monadnock Sunapee Trail north, and the Mid-State Trail across Massachusetts from NH to RI. I’ve got a hiking friend that I get out with some and we hiked in the Dolomites and Alps a couple of years ago when the pandemic ended.

I took up the sport/game of geocaching a year ago. Geocaches are hidden all over the world, cities, along the roads, and in the woods along trails. You use your iPhones GPS ability to locate them. I’ve located over a thousand while hiking and traveling during the past year. The active “game” has brought me to interesting spots I probably wouldn’t have ever discovered.

Cross country and backcountry skiing and snowshoeing play a mixed role in the winter, although the snow cover in recent years has been pretty poor.

When you’re in your 70s (75) keeping active isn’t always easy, especially when your brain tells you that you’re still a competitor.

My dear old mother always said to me, ‘If you keep moving, they can’t plant you.’ So, keep moving any way you can.

Coincidentally, I just sold a painting this morning of Beacon Hill (above) that I painted from a photo I took while waiting for the Jon Anderson BAA win celebration a couple of years ago.

Hank Pfeifle

With lack of snow on the Maine coast area, it is all bike riding on the trainer. I use the Rouvy program and the Saris smart trainer. Tons of rides available to choose from and the trainer reacts immediately to the undulations of the road forcing one to shift gears as would be done in real life. There also many, many formal workouts on the trainer, much like formal workouts in running on the track where you have to face measured reality. 

Ideally, I would skate ski three days a week and hit the trainer four days a week but closest ski park is an hour away and it’s a two kilometer loop. On normal winters the ski area is but thirty minutes away. Way more convenient with twenty miles of varying trails. Olympic quality. 

The trainer and skiing combo makes for a refreshing bridge to being able to ride outside come spring. 

Bob Hodge

I am running every day, averaging thirty minutes.

Swim some laps in the pool four to five days a week.

Snowshoe now and then; nothing too challenging.

“Nothing too challenging.” Ha! Who are these people?

Almost killed myself a half century ago trying to follow their lead. Snow shoeing? My God!

Wearing as many as five layers of clothes in Central Florida, I walk the same neighborhood loop, alternating direction alternate days. Counter-clockwise is two or three minutes slower. Go figure. Some nights, counting steps, get bored walking inside the house, so I go outdoors before bed.

Stepping carefully under a streetlight, cane in hand, I flash on a night in the 1970s, Chemeketa St., Salem, Oregon, maybe 10:30, need a few more miles, and suddenly I see myself skipping down the road, eight minute pace, a slow jog, not even worried about falling because I am like a jungle cat let loose in the night, free to run free. Right about here I remember that young man healed overnight and today my PEDs are blood thinners.

IMPORTANT NOT TO FALL. Let me repeat that – buried here at the end – because this is key to successful elderly exercise, important not to fall. Or – as legendary basketball coach John Thompson advised at a 1984 corporate confab – don’t tell them what you don’t want, tell them what you DO want – STAY ON YOUR FEET!!!

I am carefully and regularly exceeding five thousand steps daily. Harmonizing all the way. Another few thousand more steps. Another few thousand more steps. Another few thousand more steps. Da doo run run run, da doo run run. Fear I might break into a stroll.

Cannot just do it. Run run. Realized real soon, that mantra might be all wrong, especially for another few thousand steps. Wait, I got it!

Do wah diddy diddy, dum diddy do. Here I am, just walkin’ down the street. Do wah diddy diddy, dum diddy do. Do wah diddy diddy, dum diddy do. I look good, I look fine, here I nearly lost my mind. Walkin’ round the street, singin’ do wah diddy diddy, dum diddy do. Sorry, got carried away in the reverie.

Do whatever, just keep moving.