Life is Long

I ran competitive cross-country, as well as track and field with the Flying Angels and Assiniboine Olympics clubs, in the early 1970s in Winnipeg. In cold Winnipeg winters we trained in the arena, every winter workout including hundreds of stairs, often up and down around the entire arena, sometimes multiple times. From the first year of my teaching career, at age 23, in Pembroke, Ontario, I coached cross-country running teams, including a few individual and team winners over the years. In my later 20s I took up road running and racing with some of my students as my running partners. I continued running, and racing, with an unrelenting passion until I tore my meniscus and ended my “career” at the age of 59. I completed two marathons, one each time I was divorced, achieving stress relief and enhanced self-esteem each time. I set 10K and half-marathon personal bests at the age of 38. Leading into that year, I was dating and training for triathlons with a male friend who was faster than I was in running, cycling and swimming, and training at a high intensity level whenever I was with him really improved my performance in all 3 sports. We also did a speed workout on the track weekly that year, following a program from Runner’s World called “Speed Work for Real People” or something similar. At various times in my life, but not always, I have worked hard at strength-building with weights. I won my age class (35-39) in a half-marathon in September of 1994. I lived in Valencia, Venezuela from 1995 to 1999 where I trained and competed on an amazing mountain ridge near our suburb. I dealt with calf muscle tears (many) and plantar fascitis (once) in the early 2000s, and cut back my distance and frequency to accommodate. In 2013, the first of three years I worked in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, I won the 10K hosted as a fund-raiser by the school where I worked. In 2014, I suffered from undiagnosed atrial fibrillation that affected my running quite severely. I quit without finishing the 10K that year. Then I had a brief reprieve and ran my first half-marathon in over a decade in June 2015, with a handful of my Malaysian students. It was a great run, one way on a 21-km bridge in Penang in northern Malaysia, starting at 1:30 am because of the heat. In August, I also quit without finishing my school’s 10K, because on a downhill at about the 4K mark, I tore my left meniscus; the ensuing MRIs showed that I had no cartilage remaining in either knee. Someday I will likely need a double knee replacement but I am following the advice of my Malaysian physiotherapist who said “wait until you can’t do anything of the things you love”.

I retired to Victoria, British Columbia, and discovered an abundance of wonderful hiking. I also renewed my acquaintance with cycling, the latter with an incredible group of older women that ride and raise funds and awareness for the Stephen Lewis Foundation as “Victoria Grandmothers for Africa”.  It has dawned on me, very gradually since I retired, that I am now officially and solidly in the group of “older” people. Of course, as all older people know, I don’t really feel any different than I did at the beginning of all this!

For the foreseeable Covid-dominated future, I am enjoying fitness opportunities close to home. Luckily, the opportunities are well suited to working hard on improving my cardiovascular fitness, something that is long overdue as a priority, nothing being quite as good as running for this purpose. I can talk myself into long slow distance hiking or cycling experiences daily without hesitation, but I often come up with an excuse for not pushing hard at those things. My Covid-era workout involves a lovely loop hike through a forest beside a gurgling stream, and an abandoned gravel pit area with a great view. There is a long steep set of 134 stairs to the side of the forest path that I go up, as rapidly as I can, twice on the weekend, 3 times Monday, and 4 times the rest of this week so far. That will be supplemented by some hill riding on my bike on a neighbourhood street with a long uphill. On the weekend there were two young women in their 20s also running up and down the stairs, nine times! And Monday there was a young man from the same age group doing them 30 times!! As I passed the girls on Saturday, I said “I used to do what you’re doing”. They looked at me without any kind of recognition, a look to which I am becoming reluctantly accustomed, with eyes slightly glazed over, indicating that as an older person there is very little about me in which they could possibly be interested. It made me sad not to be recognized, and to realize how very difficult it is to be truly empathetic. Why is it that so many young people seem unaware, or uninterested, in the fact that we had full, rich, learning-filled lives bringing us step by step to today? And is this a loss of some kind to the world, or only to my ego?

Or maybe it’s just a matter of perspective, mine as a 60-something being uniquely different from that of the 20-somethings? When I passed the hard-working young man, on my 3^rd “up” and his 19^th “down”, I asked “are you involved in track and field?”, imagining that his reply would likely be “yes”. But he said “no, bodybuilding”. Hmmm … fascinating and thought-provoking, as are so many things in these Covid days. I am grateful for having the time to reflect.

Laurie Wilson is a retired educator and lifelong learner who still likes to make a difference as much as possible. She cycles weekly (until recently) with a group of strong, inspiring women, preparing for the Victoria Grandmothers for Africa’s largest annual fund-raiser, the Cycle Tour from Campbell River to Victoria. Scheduled for September 11^th – 13^th this year, its viability is uncertain at this time, as are so many other events and norms. Laurie told many students over the years that “life is long”, hoping to help them understand that mistakes are minor stepping stones in the big picture. At this point she feels a little less certain of that message in her own life.