What does "aging" mean?

Everybody wants to live a long time, but nobody wants to get old!

• I’m 90 years old. I’m actually some 15yrs past the “expected lifetime” for American men

• There are some 2.4million Americans over 90, but 70% of them are women

• The leading cause of death, & a factor in living longer, is “heart health:” that is, what’s typically described as “heart disease” is lack of training & good nutrition

• For the heart is never normally “diseased;” it’s simply required to oxygenate blood & contract some 60xminute to circulate that blood through the body & brain

• This is required from our heart-muscle—the heart is almost entirely muscle—because few people actually work to strengthen their hearts

• The man in the photo above is Robert Marchand, a Frenchman who was encouraged to ride his bike on the Paris velodrome—an indoor cycling arena—at the age of 105

• Needless to say, he set a world record, riding 14.2mi in one hour in 2005; that’s when I heard about him

• He was small & fit, but had never been a consistent cyclist; nevertheless, his record will likely never be challenged: few men live even to my age of 90, let alone to 100+

• I hope to make it: I’m not a natural athlete, though I’ve run, swum, & cycled since youth; I only began seriously to train after I’d been playing singles tennis for a decade or so & my tennis partner decided to improve his running; he invited me to join him…

• I’d never seriously run, so I got the best shoes I could find (running shoe technology had just then—1976—begun to develop) & started practicing

• I was 40yrs old & gradually I improved, to the point that I began competing in local races—I taught at the Univ. of Wisconsin at the time—from “5k” (=3.6mi), “10k” (6.2mi), until gradually I worked up to marathons (26.2mi)

• By this time the sport of triathlon—swim, cycle, run in a single event—had emerged & soon the “Olympic distance” (1k swim, 40k bike, 10k run) was established (after triathlon had become an Olympic sport in 2000)

• I did my 1st triathlon in 1983; I acquired new gear: triathlon swim suit; time trial bike (triathlon cycling is a time trial); & triathlon-specific running shoes

• By this time I was close to 60 & decided to attempt the “Ironman” distance (2.4mi swim, 112mi cycling, 26.2mi run): I competed in several of the small number of Ironman races staged in the U.S.

• Several triathlons were specifically designated as competitions for a place in the “Ironman World Championships” (in Kona, Hawaii each October)

• I qualified the first time in 1996 by winning my AG (then 60-64) in Chicago; it took me over 13hrs to do the race that year in Hawaii

• By the time I turned 70 (20yrs ago) I’d qualified & raced 5 times in Hawaii, racing “IM” events all over the world that were “qualifiers” for Kona

• I had to stop running at 70 owing to spinal surgery: my lumbar spine had begun to break down owing to congenital scoliosis

• Since then I’ve only cycled & swum: I ride approx. 190mi/wk & swim about 3000y/wk; I now live in Tucson AZ & so am able to ride daily—some 10kmi/yr—& swim 3xwk

• This me this past winter with my BMC Roadmachine:

  

• So, I’ve no problem with aging: my heart developed as I trained over the years: my resting HR is 46

• I’ve no organic or chronic ailments or illnesses; I eat about 2400cal/day now=my “resting metabolic rate” (RMR) of 1400cal/day + my bodyweight & activity-level calories (you can discover your own RMR with a simple calculator online)

• All this argues for training for aging well now: every improvement you make in your heart-rate, nutrition, & fitness will ensure aging will be a pleasure, not a cycle of illness & infirmity…

• See you out there…