<

Home

ageing well - photograph of the author

Faster, stronger, longer. For a longer health span. It’s well-established that exercise can significantly reduce the risk of major diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, and dementia. Also, being fitter and more physically healthy leads to improved mental health. I’m 67 years old, and while I was an average athlete at best as a young man, I’m now at the high end of performance and key health metrics for my age group. The message is clear to me. Working hard, being faster and stronger, and training for longer durations works. Especially when attention is paid to nutrition and other lifestyle factors. See here a summary of the benefits of exercise and, conversely, the risks of frailty, disease and mental illnesses when more sedentary lifestyles are enacted.

Follow my blog and social feeds, where you will see the type of exercise and nutritional strategies I use. I’ve been fortunate to have been involved in sports, sports nutrition, and functional foods for thirty years. As a result, I have a good idea of what works and what is BS. I will support the former with scientific evidence and call out the latter.

Please remember that the challenges I set myself are truly challenging for me. I only complete some of them. If I were to hit every target, then I would not be setting the bar high enough. Injury can stop me, or life can get in the way. But I will give them my best shot and document the good, the bad, and the ugly.

FIND ME ON MEDIUM AT: medium.com/@thestephenmoon

Latest Posts
February 2, 2025Father Time Has Presented The Bill Misogi reality is kicking in, as my challenge appears to be in deep conversation with Father Time. I’m due to run the New York Marathon 39 weeks from today. It’s a true misogi, as I haven’t completed a marathon before. I’m 67 and not exactly Eliud Kipchoge in stature or athleticism. I can complain that I have missed a month of training with the heavier-than-usual UK bout of winter flu hitting me hard. My knees hurt around the clock. I can add up many small obstacles and say my misogi reality looks bleak. The harsh reality is that Father Time is undefeated. Looking in the mirror, I know that thought is affecting me. The old saying goes, ‘Two certainties in life are death and taxes.’ Being an avid reader of the financial press and observing what’s happening in US politics, I’m not sure about the taxes part of the saying. But death? Without doubt. My thoughts can drift: How do I navigate the road from here to death? Commonsense Advice Without realising it, two people have gotten under the skin of my misogi reality in the last month. The challenge is me saying that I won’t accept the inevitable that quickly, despite my body protesting. As long as I can keep challenging myself hard, I can have at least some pretence that I have a say in my fate. I can maximise my healthy years if I stay active and keep pushing. As I’ve said many times, I don’t fear death. But I would find it hard to be incapacitated due to poor health. The science is clear: regular exercise does wonders for healthspan. I have been told by entirely rational people that I should think about exercise in a long-term sense. Do I want to be running and going to the gym in my seventies and potentially eighties? And if that’s the case, is my misogi reality that I should drop the brutal challenges? Thirty-nine weeks of hard training and a major marathon may leave a permanent mark physically, one that may affect the next years. The mental high and physical buzz of exercise are core to me. I worry about my world shrinking, about having fewer choices as Father Time strips them away from me. I immensely enjoy this phase of my working life, where I can support, mentor, and advise smaller businesses. The variety and intellectual stimulation fulfil me without the grind that decades of long working weeks served up. I like exploring new areas, such as music and writing. It’s all good so far. But I live in fear of my physical choices being taken from me. Misogi Reality – Pain The truth is my body hurts a lot of the time. During exercise, I largely feel great. I need an extended warm-up in my runs before my knees feel okay. But exercise is a buzz. The downside is that often, I’m kept awake by knee pain. In the morning, I move like an ironing board, my body painfully unfolding from bed. Post-exercise aches and pains can last two or three days. I can often start a training session while still hurting from the last session. My misogi reality looks like a long road of high discomfort. People reading this think, “You are supposed to recover fully before training again.” I know. Using today as an example, my body hurts from a treadmill session two days ago, but my HRV data tells me my readiness is high. The engine is well-tuned, but the chassis is falling apart. That’s my reality. If I waited for pain-free days, then my fitness would sharply decline. I know this from my last month of flu-forced layoff. The aches and pains left me, but my TrainingPeaks fitness score plummeted. Age makes “no pain, no gain” a harsh reality. This is my misogi reality, too. The whole misogi idea is to attempt a challenge that’s tough to complete. If you think you can do it, then you are cheating, in effect. A marathon is undoubtedly a misogi for me; the odds of finishing are well under 50%. Sometimes, I wonder about the odds of getting to the start line. It recently occurred to me that I trained for a marathon when I was around forty and pulled out on the advice of a knee specialist when an MRI scan showed bone bruising around my right knee. So why go again 28 years later? Make A Choice? Now, I have had this bucket of commonsense tipped over my head by two people I listen to carefully. Do I want to be training when I’m 80? Damn right, I do. Yet I balance that rationality against my fear of having my exercise options taken away before I’m ready. I get it; none of us get to choose. Father Time serves the subpoena when he wants, not when we want. I can make a very rational case to myself that a weekly 5k run and a few sessions at the gym are a great way to keep myself healthy for as long as possible. So why torture myself with almost impossible challenges? Many chapters can be written on that one, a minefield of psychological complexity that has made me who I am. For some reason, the simple road has not been one I’ve chosen that often in life. I will push on for now. My misogi reality is that I will likely fail in my attempt to run a marathon at the age of 68. The questions are: What long-term physical damage might I incur in the effort, and what will the psychological damage be if I take the more conservative approach to lifelong exercise? At some stage, I need to make a choice. But not today; I’m off to the gym. [...]
January 29, 2025Managing The Whole Human I’ve just returned from the gym. My membership app told me that I’ve been there 187 times in a year. ‘Wow,’ I thought to myself. Then, in my head, I added another one hundred workouts to this number: outdoor running, cycling, and rucking. “Not bad for an old guy”, I reflected as I gathered my breath between bench press sets. I’m walking the talk when it comes to using exercise to live my best life. To not succumb to the health issues that many people of my age can suffer with. Now, how about my mental health management? As I moved from the bench press to the warm-down area, I considered my mental health. I’m a strong proponent of a healthy body being a cornerstone of a healthy mind. In addition to the positive feeling of having good cardiovascular fitness and muscle mass, there’s the serotonin buzz from a good thrash on the road or in the gym. It helps my mood. I suffered from the various winter viruses for a whole month from mid-December and noted the lack of a decent workout added to the downbeat mood that a virus can bring. Doing The Work I reflected that in recent years, I have become as proactive in working on mental health management as my physical health. At stages in my life, having treatment for my mental health has been remedial when I’ve had periods of severe anxiety or depression. I’ve unconsciously shifted to mental health treatment as a positive element in my life. For the last four years, I have seen a psychiatrist regularly. She helped me when I had an acute period of poor mental health. Over those years, she has worked diligently with me in many aspects, from medication to the introduction of other talking therapists into my mental health team. Initially, private healthcare picked up her cost, but I continued to pay from my pocket when that lapsed. And will continue to do so. I’m now on a low level of medication, which gives me no conscious side effects, and it’s always reassuring for me to know there’s an appointment in the diary every three months, and she is at hand if I were to drift into choppier waters. Throughout the years, I have had several spells of talking therapy. Indeed, in the last five years, this has been central to my health. Straight psychotherapeutic psychotherapy has been supplemented by practices and techniques such as cognitive behavioral therapy and EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing). I took a break for a while in the last months. But more recently, I felt the need for a little more support and discussed it with my psychiatrist, resulting in me meeting a new therapist earlier this month. Adjusting And Improving The new therapist is an early-forties Belgian guy who is very well-qualified and has a superbly empathetic listening style. He’s threatening me with some EMDR, too – most practitioners I work with believe I’m recovering from some early life trauma, and therefore, this method is appropriate. I took some convincing with EMDR; it sounds almost silly to a layperson like me that moving my eyes from side to side can improve mental health. But in fairness, my last stint of this method was hugely beneficial. We also had a good discussion about what underlies my episodes of feeling anxious, overwhelmed, or hypervigilant, how I respond in the moment to these feelings, and how I see myself. I’ve had too many well-qualified professionals tell me it’s related to early-life trauma to mount much of an argument anymore, so I roll with the treatment and give it my best. As though I’m hammering out a set of deadlifts, I give my therapy the best shot, too. My mental health has been a big load to carry for as long as I can remember, and it has affected too many people around me when I have been at my lowest. I owe it to myself and important people in my life to crack on. The therapist has identified that I have a strong tendency to see only the ‘bad’ version of myself and that I need to show myself some compassion. Game on. Let’s see where I go—being proactive with mental health management. We discussed ruminating about the past and worrying about the future. He asked me to sit forward and mirrored me. He put both hands out and invited me to take his hands. We looked directly at each other, and he asked me, ‘Where are you now?’ My answer was, ‘Right here.’ It was unusual for a therapist to make physical contact, but what a powerful example to encourage thinking about the power of living in the now. Get Over It? I saw a newspaper story just this week suggesting that people are tending to label the ups and downs of life as a mental health issue. Here’s an excerpt: I can’t link to a paywall-protected article. Why are so many people being prescribed NHS antidepressants, with a record high of 8.7 million patients in England, about 15 per cent of the population? According to a report from NHS England in 2023, 20 per cent of children aged eight to sixteen have a probable mental health disorder, up from 12.5 per cent in 2017. And is it connected to a rise in people self-diagnosing depression or anxiety when they may just be experiencing the cyclical human emotional weather of sadness or worry? There is now an increasingly hard pushback, but it goes in different directions. These warring factions could be summarised as those who think we are “overdiagnosed”, “overmedicated” or — and this is more likely to be the budget-slashing politician — should “just get over ourselves”. I can see that. But I thought it was potentially a damaging article. I feel life’s natural ups and downs, and I would be concerned if I didn’t. But if you have suffered severe mental health issues, then this rhetoric is dangerous territory. It’s tantamount to ‘man up and don’t be a snowflake’ stuff. If this kind of press keeps even one person from seeking help, that’s a tragedy. I use ‘tragedy’ after some thought and because of the number of people who commit suicide each year. This is trending in the wrong direction, with over 6,000 people taking their lives in 2023. Men are hardest hit, being three times more likely to end their life than women. Why Am I Telling You This? I want to tell you why I’m writing this deeply personal stuff. Why would I put myself out there with the reputational risk that might come with that? My mental health has been a serious challenge, and I’m at the manageable end of the spectrum. I know people with much more serious mental illnesses and with no realistic hope of recovery. Therefore, the first reason for telling you all this is to say that it is only in the recent handful of years that talking about mental health has been remotely acceptable. It still verges on taboo in some circles. We have to normalise talking about mental health. We have normalised talking about cancer and other serious illnesses, and we have to make it okay to talk about mental health. The second reason to say all of this is to highlight that we can be proactive about our mental health management. I look at my whole being when thinking about my health and well-being. An embarrassingly high gym membership fee is deducted from my bank each month. Deliveries of creatine, protein, hydration powders, vitamins, and minerals arrive at my door. I find any excuse to order the new Hoka running shoes on launch day. So why is me paying for a session with a psychiatrist every three months any different? I pay for a professional sounding board to unpack and help me make sense of my emotions and advise on improving my mental well-being.Is this any different than a personal trainer session at the gym? Let’s Seek To Improve I hope we continue to embrace the conversation about mental health as a society. If you are suffering from any mental health issues, I encourage you to talk to someone about it. Just giving a voice to your challenge can be a huge help. Spend a couple of minutes thinking about my approach. I invest in my physical health, as I don’t want to be a frail older man. However, I have realised that health is a much broader subject and have started to proactively invest in my mental health management as well as my physical health. I don’t believe people show up to a personal training or CrossFit session feeling somehow broken. But I do know—and I’ve been there in the past—that it’s all too easy to turn up at a therapist’s door feeling faulty, broken, and with low self-esteem. I flipped that in my head some time ago. I turn up for a session with a mental health professional, feeling positive and wondering how I can use it to deal with my anxieties, asking myself what I can learn today. There’s an old gym rat saying, ‘The only workout I’ve ever regretted is the one I didn’t do.’ That is me and my therapist sessions these days; I don’t remember walking out thinking it was a negative experience. I can walk out with high emotions and a headful of thoughts to process, but that’s good. That’s the work that needs doing. The gym leaves me with many muscle fibres to repair; the therapy session leaves me with many thoughts to process. Mindfulness Mindfulness meditation has been a major part of my mental health management over the years. I hit a streak of over 1,100 days up to May 2023, when I lapsed during a stay in hospital. It’s good to form positive habits, but without care, they can lapse quickly too. There is a lot of scientific proof showing the benefits of mindfulness meditation, and as little as ten minutes a day can have a profoundly positive effect. I have picked up the habit of using my Calm app at night; a great way to have the mind sort through the noise of the day. And I’ve gone further by exploring the work of Sam Harris and his Waking Up app. As well as guided meditation, there is a lot of fascinating material to explore, as Harris blends science and spirituality. Journaling is highly recommended and has scientific support, and my new therapist has nudged me to pick up the pen once more. My journal sits on a side table looking at me balefully most of the time. My introvert mind stores stuff up and then lets a flood of it go after an extended period. Especially in the medium of writing. I always feel better when I scrawl three to six pages of indecipherable spider trails on a page. I just need to develop a stronger habit. Men’s Groups Let me briefly tell you about my latest mental and emotional health workout. I joined a men’s group late last year. Six to eight of us meet monthly and talk for two and a half hours. At my first session, I was nervous as hell, but I found the group open, accepting, and enabling. An excellent facilitator, Kenny Mammarella-D’Cruz, keeps the conversation moving and encourages all to speak for as short or long as needed. I surprised myself by disclosing much more than I expected for someone who has trained himself to be socially closed and cautious. I stress that it’s not therapy. And it’s not some caricature of men whinging about all that isn’t good about life – the country, women, youth, the government, and all that. It’s a wide-ranging conversation that is grounded in collective life experiences. And it’s definitely not a petri dish of toxic masculinity. It’s another blade on the Swiss Army Knife of my general wellness. It quickly became an essential element of my mental health management strategy. I need to remain curious and open to new ways to improve my 5k run time, and the same goes for my mental health. I think my monthly discussion with a bunch of guys is both cathartic and grounding. Not A Victim I don’t write this so anyone can say, ‘Poor you’ or ‘That’s brave.’ I’m no victim. I’m not seeking sympathy. I write this because this is how we move on: discussing mental health and exchanging ideas, enacting empathy with each other, and embracing our human frailty. Perhaps there is a way to see mental health management in the same light as physical health, where we can proactively improve. If these few paragraphs make you want to say more or ask me a question, please don’t hesitate to contact me. You will be heard. [...]
January 2, 2025Before explaining my misogi challenge, I want to explain the core concept. Then I’ll tell you why I’m pursuing it, together with the big and small challenges I’m entertaining. I encountered misogi during a discussion in a chance meeting with a successful US entrepreneur who explained his annual challenge. He helpfully pointed me toward Michael Easter and his book, The Comfort Crisis. I intuitively recognised the concept, but Easter’s writing on his experience brought it to life for me. The Roots Of Misogi Misogi is an ancient Japanese practice rooted in Shinto traditions. It is used as a form of ritual purification. Historically, it involved cleansing the body and mind by immersing oneself in natural elements such as cold water or enduring other physically demanding activities. In modern interpretations, misogi has evolved into a broader philosophy that emphasizes pushing personal boundaries to cultivate resilience, self-awareness, and growth. This latter approach is what piqued my interest in the practice. At its core, misogi encourages physical or mental discomfort—something challenging enough to reveal one’s limits and help one grow beyond them. These challenges are not about achieving perfection or competition but intentional discomfort as a pathway to mental clarity, focus, and inner strength. I observe that the challenges must have a high probability of failure; if you know you can do it, it’s not a challenge. Misogi encourages stepping outside of lazy comfort zones to gain profound personal insight and a deeper worldview. That’s the attraction to me: What can I learn about myself and the world I live in by pushing myself out of my comfort zone? I have looked at the concept before in this blog, but life got in the way of my plans. Tiny & Big Misogi Challenge Before I tell you about the expected significant challenges, I spent some time thinking about more minor discomforts. I live a cosseted Western lifestyle, with an overabundance of food, warmth and shelter. I rarely leave this comfort zone as I go about my daily life. As a starter, I want to add one small misogi challenge to my daily life. To make me reflect on my lifestyle and understand not only my good fortune but also the fragility of our lives. I detest the cold and wet. When it’s cold, I wrap up in my cashmere coat. I don my Japanese designer rain jacket as soon as a cloud crosses the grey, winter London sky. I steer away from cold water at all costs. My small starter kit misogi is to encounter freezing water once a week. This tips my cap towards the Shinto cleansing in cold water. Once a week, I will stand under the very cold (designed for post-sauna) shower in my gym. I’ll start with a minute under the shower once a week and build up to three minutes. It’s a small challenge, but it’s outside my comfort zone for me. Indeed, it’s an area I will avoid at all costs. Of course, the more significant challenges are central to the misogi challenge concept. I have written about one in this blog: I will run my first marathon in my late sixties. It’s a true misogi, which will take me to the mental limit and probably beyond my physical limit. I have less than a fifty percent chance of succeeding. Therefore, it falls hard into the true spirit of misogi. I am looking to add another challenge to my 2025 list. An ultra-ruck session is one idea. To see how far I can carry a heavy rucksack containing a 20kg weight plate. Is that enough of a challenge? I’m unsure, so I will reflect on it and consider other misogi challenge options. For now, getting very cold once a week and grinding out preparation for November’s New York Marathon is challenging enough. It Hurts When I Do, It Hurts When I Don’t At the heart of any misogi challenge is learning from the discomfort. I’m not setting out to simply thrash myself as an end in itself. What I learn about myself while preparing for and engaging in the challenge is critical. My battered body hurts after exercise. After more brutal sessions, standing up from the sofa at home is difficult. As an aside, I know that if I don’t exercise, my body hurts after a few days. It’s a case of picking my poison – hurting through striving or laziness. As I train for my New York date with my inner self, I want to reflect for a few minutes after every training session. What did I feel, positive or negative, and did it contribute to my misogi challenge or detract from it? Taking this further, I want to get out there and train when it’s cold or wet or I don’t feel like it—challenging my comfort zone. If it’s worth doing, then it needs sacrifice. To get deep into the concept of cleansing body and mind, I need to push myself and practice mindfulness about what I learn about myself. I know from my last couple of years that pain from injury won’t stop me. But what about the absolute grind of getting ready for a big challenge? It’s been four years since I completed a physically demanding challenge, with everything from the pandemic to mental illness to accident-related injury standing in my path. It’s time to get back into the week-after-week, month-after-month grind to achieve something which, for me, will be major. I think that’s a challenge worth facing. [...]
December 28, 2024Is 2025 My Last Shot? The last dance for my big annual athletic event is almost upon me. My mind works like this: I know I have to stay fit to have a decent later life; I’m not naturally athletically gifted, and I need to push myself. I motivate myself by signing up for a big event and training for it. It’s worked well for me, and I have challenged myself in endurance events and strength challenges over the years. But at 67, I have to be sensible and recognise the opportunities for big challenges are diminishing. One more shot, one last dance. Two memorable annual goals were finishing the surprisingly gruelling 101-mile New York Gran Fondo in 2016 and setting a new deadlift personal record in my late fifties. The last two years have been stinkers. I was knocked off my bike – an innocent domino falling – part of a chain instigated by an errant e-bike. In April 2024, I had my second cycling accident in 50 years, and that put paid to my 2024 goal of running my first marathon. That’s two years without me hitting my goal. My body has presented me with the invoice for years of wear and tear, and the hammer taken in my two recent accidents snuck in as an eye-watering surcharge. It’s a big bill, and it challenges me to consider whether to go for another big event or to settle back into a less challenging yet still valuable fitness maintenance lifestyle. What’s It To Be? What’s it to be? Even as I wrote the last paragraph, I thought, “Yes, take it a bit easier on yourself; do it for general fitness and enjoy it.” It sounds appealing. Or not. It’s not how I roll. There has to be another tilt, a last dance. My life approach has been to set myself big goals. I was brought up in a small Northern town and found it suffocating. I feared being stuck there, and I always looked upwards and outwards. This isn’t some rags-to-riches story, I hasten to add. I have always been conscious of being an average man, but with a deep inner knowledge that life would be a soul-destroying grind if I didn’t strive for more. Goals of any kind have been a way to make me bring my best effort. Set big goals, or become lost. I must define big goals. I won’t appear on any awards list. Not in any dimension of life. My idea of a goal is to challenge the person I see in the mirror. When I was younger, I genuinely felt that if I didn’t improve, then life would suck me under the surface and drown me. As I got older, my psychology changed, and I would look at myself in the mirror and say, “Come on, do better.” Fast forward to recent years, and I can look in the mirror, smile at myself, and say, “Let’s do it.” At this stage in my life, I find, to some extent, I have come full circle. If I don’t have any goals, if I don’t take the last dance, then life will finally suck me under its dark waves, and the current will carry me quickly to the inevitable finish line. There’s My Answer – A Last Dance The answer lies in the last paragraph. I need a 2025 goal. I need it to compensate for the disappointment of the previous two years and help me lean into the fourth quarter of my life. This year was to be my first marathon, but serious damage and a head injury cut that short. It’s an unfinished piece of business. I’ve got my entry guaranteed for the New York Marathon on 2 November 2025, and now all I need to do is drag my sub-par body through hundreds of hours of grind and training, and all will be good. Easy, right? Taking stock, it looks unlikely. I’m a novice runner. At 6’5″ and currently 245 pounds, I don’t look like a runner. I have moderate osteoarthritis in both knees. The right knee has suffered two meniscus tears in three years and doesn’t quite straighten. At 67 years old, my body carries the sum of a long lifetime of minor niggles and chronic wear and tear. It’s a stark choice between ten months of hard work, carefully managing my physical shortcomings, or accepting that the Last Dance has been and gone. In my heart, I know that living with the latter is more challenging than the hard yards of getting the grind done. A New Discipline This is not a simple case of getting out there and doing a bit of running. It’s a tightrope over the swirling white waters of building fitness, recovering well enough, and keeping the injuries to a minimum. It’s not easy, and one stumble will see me in the water, being swept to a third year of failing my fitness goals. I say fitness goals, but that’s a cop-out. Goals that help me keep my psychological and physiological self together. I call myself a novice runner, but when I totted up my exercise for 2024, I was surprised to see I had laced up the ASICS 80 times. Admittedly, they were all 5-10k runs, but the work happened. It must count for something as I enter 2025’s training block. It gives me a level of confidence, and now I need to build on that sensibly. My key elements for success at The Last Dance are: A training plan that recognises not only my fitness needs but my limitations, too. Holistic management of my injuries and wear and tear. Ensuring I have enough space to rest and do the other things I enjoy. Paying attention to nutrition and general health. Getting Help With My Training My years of pursuing my interests have taught me that I’m a good student. I will work my backside off to learn everything about my obsession de jour. I’ll learn all I can, put it into practice, and then overdo it. Doing enough is never good enough; I have to do too much. I cannot count the number of times I’ve overtrained and broken down with injury. The last dance needs to be different, and to that end, I have signed up for a top-quality coaching service at Coach Parry. I’ve been clear on my limitations. Running more than three times a week or on consecutive days does not work for me. I need to limit my volume. This is a tricky one, as preparing for a marathon requires volume by definition. I have been prescribed a plan with three runs, two rest days and two strength sessions. I need to stick to it. As my coach pointed out, I know that if I’m short of road miles, I can top up my cardio work with some indoor Wattbike sessions. There is a way to get it done. Avoiding Traps, Seeking Support My traps are twofold. I tend to hit the strength too hard, and it can take three days to recover from a heavy leg session. My focus has to be endurance, and strength training is part of my injury avoidance. To that end, personal best lifts must be shelved for a while. My second trap is not having two rest days a week. If I fail to rest, I will fail; it’s a simple equation. I have professional help with my training, and I must follow what I am told to do and, as importantly, not do. If I can’t manage my need to overdo things, it’s on me when I fail. I’m very fortunate to have a small team of fellow runners around me who support me. Our new club happened partly because my cycling days ended this year. But also because any decent-sized group of cyclists will have a strong contingent of multi-sport athletes. Two of my colleagues are also running marathons in 2025, and one is running at least two half marathons. Hyrox and Ironman events also appear on a couple of calendars. There is enough pain for everyone to go around our small club. ChainGangRunners is small by design but consists of like-minded people, and I know they will be a massive source of support for me. Managing Wear & Tear Sixty-seven years old and an ungainly running style is not exactly a formula for success at the last dance, but it’s what it is. Now, how do I manage my limited resources? An obvious one is to drop some weight. I’ve done some rucking, and I’m always surprised by how hard it is to carry 40 pounds in a backpack. It isn’t just perception; it comes through in the training stress score. Now imagine if I can take something off the 245-pound load I carry around every minute of every day. I’ve always battled with weight, even as a kid. So I can’t set some absurd goal. At this stage, my target is to lose 20 pounds over the next ten months. That has to help. The most apparent physical weakness I have is my knees. My osteoarthritis diagnosis isn’t a shock. I feel it when I lie in bed every night on training days. After hard days, I’ll feel it around the clock for two or three days. I make a noise when I get up from my overly low sofa at home. On bad days, I roll off the couch to the floor first and then push myself to my feet—the unglamorous and brutal reality of later-life hard training. No big deal, as I know much younger professional athletes can deal with this as early as their twenties. Strength & Mobility I’m fortunate to work with a top-quality physiotherapist. He has a simple four-exercise routine that helps me immensely: single-leg leg presses, stiff-legged deadlifts, lateral walks with a band on my ankles, and single-leg calf raises. This needs to happen all year. Ensuring I optimise the muscles around my knees is key, and ensuring I don’t have a left-leg to right-leg imbalance is also essential. I’ve struggled with mobility and flexibility, especially around the hip flexors. This weakness will undoubtedly be an issue as the miles accumulate under my ASICS shoes. The last three months have seen me use the short routine below as a game-changer. Along with my central strength routine, this is a core element of my preparation. Coaches Shona Hendricks and Devlin Eyden are excellent on a day-to-day basis as part of my Coach Parry training package. Someone recently told me that a major consideration in running is injury. “It’s not if you get injured because you will get injured. It’s what you do when it happens.” I know it will happen to me. Then, I’ll need to see whether any late-life sense has entered my skull or whether I push on, tearing up my ticket to the last dance. Rest, Recovery, Life My life changed in October 2023 when I walked away from full-time work after 50 years. That’s a whole different story, but now I’m fully embedded in my new life rhythm, there are some advantages. The most significant change for me is I sleep at least seven and a half hours a night. If I train hard on any given day, my body will help itself to any extra sleep it needs, so eight hours or more is no longer uncommon. It’s a far cry from my cortisol being off the scale and waking up at three a.m. stressed out. I enjoyed my career, but there was a price to pay. My new portfolio career of advisory roles and coaching is the right amount of challenging for me without the cold sweats. Two rest days a week and enough sleep should allow me to train well, recover, and go again. This is a novelty in itself. Staying injury-free is a key element in getting to the last dance. Strength, mobility, recovery, and rest are all important. My fourth quarter of life realignment must also be a plus for me. Seventy hours a week and being “on call” seven days a week for decades was not the best. When you’re in it, you don’t see it. Or if you see it, you don’t accept it. Or you kid yourself that it’s a badge of honour. I’m advising three small-to-medium growth companies and enjoying it immensely. It took me some time to fit this work around my schedule. For too many years, work was first, and everything squeezed around it. Investing In Health Only relatively recently have I considered spending money on my health as an investment, not an inconvenient cost. Considering how much I spend on other pursuits, it’s odd that I didn’t see it as an investment. Without good health, nothing else can happen. Investing in exercise facilities, such as gym memberships, running, and other exercise equipment, is essential. I have a thorough annual medical and take the results seriously. Blood tests are taken twice a year, and I act on any issues in the results. This year, I even had my male hormones checked—all optimal—to ensure that I was lacing up my trainers and in good shape to deliver the training. I spend possibly £5,000-£6,000 a year on general health maintenance, which I consider well spent. Outrageous? I don’t want to add up what I spend on coffee or restaurants, but I’ll bet it’s more than the money I spend on health. To my earlier ambition of losing twenty pounds. The most realistic path to this is to keep my protein intake high. I find protein blunts my appetite. Between high protein and training volume, I hope to make some inroads. Now, if only I could crack my ice cream addiction. But life’s for living, they say. I’ve given up a lot of negative stuff in recent years, including alcohol. Ice cream may stay. Paying Attention To Nutrition On nutrition, I’ve blogged before about the importance of protein. Two hundred grams a day must be my goal. More recent evidence shows I can go even higher than this, which will benefit me further. Maintaining muscle mass is critical, especially as we age and, in my case, given my training load. Protein and my five grams of creatine daily, with all its benefits, are non-negotiable. Hydrating on training days before, during, and after the run is essential. I always add electrolyte powder to my drink bottle. Salts and minerals need replacing. We don’t sweat plain water. Once runs pass the 45-minute mark, an energy gel or chew is essential. We all have enough glycogen in our stores to last around 90 minutes, but it’s not wise to run the fuel reserves all the way down before topping the tank up. We will use 60-90 grams of carbohydrates an hour during endurance training and events, and it needs to be provided from somewhere. As a bigger unit, I aim for a 90 grams of carb per hour equation. I’ve been working with Thomas Robson-Kanu and The Tumeric Co. recently because I’m interested in turmeric’s anti-inflammatory properties. Thomas and his father, Reche, developed a range of turmeric shots to help Thomas recover from knee injuries sustained in his professional football career. It’s a small but essential part of my nutrition regime on the road to the last dance. I find a daily shot helps my osteoarthritis symptoms. On training days, I double up. There is some decent science building behind turmeric, and I’m a believer. What About Enjoyment? I’m worn out rereading this. It could lead readers to believe I’m living this somewhat obsessive and joyless life, tilting at the windmill of a geriatric marathon attempt. No one who has ever run a marathon has done it without actual investment in time, effort and pain. I’m up for that. Reflecting on the last couple of years, physical struggle is a positive. We aren’t built to sit around in front of Netflix, being force-fed highly calorific food. We were built to move; if we don’t, there is a mental and physical price to pay. Taxing ourselves physically is good. The endorphins that flow from that effort are good for our mental well-being. At my age, I am supposed to slow down, take it easy, play golf, and do all that stuff. Not for me. I need intellectual stimulation and need to keep on learning—about myself and about the world I live in. That’s enjoyment—not going through the motions day after day, counting down the calendar pages until the end. I’m challenging myself to keep my professional skills sharp. Weekly bass guitar lessons have become part of my routine. In the background, I’m studying writing and collecting ideas for a novel. I remain curious, proudly so. Dump The Comfort Zone It’s the same with physical challenges. Looking for something new appeals to me. I can go to the gym three or four days a week and be fitter than most men my age. Science tells me that it will improve my quality of life and potentially the length of my life. So why not settle for that? I don’t know. The same drive that led me to leave a small Northern town still burns within—an ambition to see what else I can do in the wider world. The gym five days a week is in my comfort zone. But something where there’s a higher than fifty per cent chance I will fail taps into something else in me. And it is enjoyable. It speaks to me of being on a journey. The journey has always guided me, even when I had no clue where the road was leading. It’s the same now. The day I don’t want to be on the journey will be an end phase – I’m not there yet, not by a long chalk. The Last Dance My Last Dance will not be the stuff of the Netflix series, where the Chicago Bulls, led by the sporting legend Michael Jordan, take a sixth NBA Championship. (If you haven’t seen it, do.) But while there won’t be an open-top bus parade for me, I will feel immense achievement if I reach the Central Park finish line on November 2. The odds say that I won’t get it done. Age and injury are already conspiring against me. Hell, my right knee doesn’t even straighten fully. But that’s why challenges exist, right? It wouldn’t be much of a challenge if it were a slam dunk, and I breezed across the finish line. That’s what’s driving me. Why settle for a quiet life? We are only handed one life, and for far too many of us, it’s a struggle for reasons beyond our control. For others, it is a grey frustration, a dull plod from one end to the other. I’m fortunate that life has given me enough opportunities amongst the challenges. I intend to respect my good fortune by seeing how much can be squeezed from this one-and-only trip down this road. And the Last Dance in Manhattan is one of my marks of respect for all that life has given me. Stay tuned. #runmoonyrun [...]
December 5, 2024I wrote a blog post about whether to stick with or quit my training some days ago. I’ve been busy since then, trying to understand what’s going on for me and finding a way forward. After a short mental slump, I realised I needed to embrace the grind. I hit the gym on Monday and focused mainly on my upper body. I hit my heaviest bench press for several years—certainly the most I have pushed in my sixties. At least I can say my collarbones are no longer a perceived weak point, and the titanium plate and screws in my right collarbone are robust. (I had this odd psychological tick where I imagined the plate giving way!) On Tuesday, I did a 5-kilometre ruck with my weighted vest. I tackled the hills of Hampstead Heath, and while the one-hour walk didn’t seem intense, the data was interesting. Logging the work on my Garmin HR-Pro Plus strap and 965 watch showed the Training Stress Score higher than my 5k gentle jog the previous week and only slightly below my 5k personal best set in October. Rucking is a sneakily good workout. I will log that information for the future; rucking is now a nice switch-up in my repertoire. I can embrace the grind with less stress on my knees and hips while stacking a decent core and cardio workout. Wednesday saw me back in the gym, and I benched the same weight again, but for three more reps than Monday. This was a good result, and I was pleased with it. (Friday edit update. I repeated the Wednesday lifts, so that has been a solid week.) Today, Thursday, I met for an hour with my top-quality physio, Stephen Davies. He examined the knee that’s been bothering me and released my tight hamstring and calf muscles. The bottom line is that there is nothing seriously wrong with my knee. An in-depth discussion of my training was helpful. Stephen’s considered opinion is that I’m training too much and too intensely. I need to have two complete rest days a week. I should run only three times a week. And my lower body strength training needs to be less intense. Simply put, I’m overtraining; that’s the cause of my constant niggles and building fatigue. It’s ok to embrace the grind but not to grind myself to dust. Stephen has introduced some single-leg work to my routine to bring some focus to my right leg, where I have intermittent knee problems. I do a single-leg press and calf raise, lateral banded strides, and a stiff-leg deadlift to lengthen my hamstrings. It’s less intense than my usual lower body work and instinctively feels like it will help me, but without taxing my central nervous system too much. If you have read this far, you’re shaking your head and saying, “No shit,” as you muse on my idiocy. Overtraining has always been my weakness. My knowledge that I’m an average at best athlete drives me to try to work harder than the next person, including the person who looks back at me when I stare into the mirror. It’s not ego that drives me this hard. I fear what happens if I don’t work hard enough. I love to embrace the grind, and this makes me overreach. That’s my update. I need to dial it down a couple of notches to make progress. Stay tuned. [...]
December 1, 2024The Best Laid Plans ‘Stick or quit’ is not my usual conversation with myself. It’s on my mind now, and I’m not sure if it’s my psyche playing with me, introducing the ‘quit’ word to get me going again. Or is it that time? It’s been some year or two. After a challenging 2023 that threw up significant life changes, I decided to throw down a misogi challenge to myself. To run a marathon. Something I’m not built for, something that would tax every atom of my ageing body. But life got in the way again this year, with a serious cycling accident in April. Being a combination of stubborn and optimistic, I thought I could still run my marathon in November. But unfortunately, a side effect of my head injury was vertigo, which seriously curtailed my training. I started, genuinely intending to train for the marathon, even running while wearing a sling after my collarbone operation. The vertigo couldn’t be overcome. When out running, the road would sharply drop away to my left side as though a gentle jog was morphing into a big dipper ride. It’s not ideal base training. While the vertigo eventually cleared, weeks of training time vanished. The grown-up thing to do was to postpone my marathon until 2025. My logic was that I had plenty of time to train correctly. It’s still annoyingly complex, however. I struggle to keep up with the volume of training. My knee problem from many weeks ago has now resurfaced. I spend much of my time feeling sore in one part or another, as my five to six days a week in the gym or on the treadmill and road taxes my reserves. Taking 400mg of Ibufrofen before bed on run days doesn’t seem like a healthy long-term practice. Father Time Is Undefeated It’s led to a lot of reflection for me. Is this it? Stick or quit time? Since I was 67 in late May, have I reached the point where severe physical decline starts? After a lifetime of cycling, I still grieve for the exercise I loved so much. But after two trips to the ICU, suddenly making a mockery of my 50 accident-free years, it’s not fair of me to put my wife and family and friends through more anxiety. My inner voice said this wasn’t a problem, and I could get my dopamine and serotonin hits from running as my endurance exercise drug. While my inner voice, egged on by my brain, said this was the perfect solution, the body called a time-out and said, “screw you.” I’ve read many studies on how exercise is the key to a strong healthspan. No shuffling around for me. I’ll hit the gym and road hard and be physically vital as I enter my seventies. Father Time is undefeated, as the boxing fraternity tends to say. I’m wondering if it’s my turn. The fitness bros, the scientists, and all the other cognitive bias sources I study say that I can turn the tide. But my body is tending to side with Father Time, and I’m leaning back on the ropes like a heavyweight boxer who has suddenly found his legs have betrayed him. The Social Element Of Training Stick or quit? I’ve gone around the alternatives. I may retreat to the gym and stay in shape with weights, stationary bikes, upper body erg machines, and rowing machines. That sounds like a sensible way to stay fit and minimise the battering I’m doling out to my body. I can make a case for it, and in a year, I will be in top form, awash with functional muscle, decent cardio, and flexibility. This gym-based option also scares the crap out of me. I’ve turned my back on the sport that allowed me to experience nature and an enriching social environment while slamming out 60, 70 and 80-mile cycling adventures in the UK and Europe. But no worries, running gets me outdoors and offers major challenges such as half and full-marathon events. And some of my former cycling friends also like to mix in some running, so the social aspect remains. Am I Being Unrealistic? Nagging injuries and permanent soreness are flagging worrying realities for me. Should a 67-year-old, 195cm tall, 110kg lump be putting himself through pounding runs? A wave of gloom engulfs me as the prospect of no running presents itself. Is this it? My sporting opportunities are plucked from me one by one. I get driven indoors to the gym. Then, that option starts to drift away from me. It is a metaphor for a shrinking life, eventually shrinking to a hospital bed and then a final destination. Perhaps it’s not a ‘stick or quit’ decision, more of a gradual decline. It’s not my style to think this way. In my darkest moments, I have always pushed forward. That’s been the pattern of my life, even from my early days. Recent years have seen me struggle through long periods of mental health challenges, with the last two years offering up 27 fractures, a brain injury, a haemothorax, and a punctured pelvic artery. But in all those cases, it has never occurred to me to stop moving forward. In reflective moments, I have realised that I can’t cope with drawing back from this relentless forward movement. I know that if I stop, that will dismantle my spirit. So what do I do about it? Do I accept Father Time as the Jake Paul to my Mike Tyson and go and sit on the stool? Do I set aside any thoughts of a misogi, take to the gym, and spare my joints and powers of recovery any more insults? So, Do I Stick Or Quit? Stick or quit? I guess I sound like an old man whining or a lion in winter raging against the loss of his powers. Whatever. It’s my reality, and it challenges my core drivers. It’s existential to some extent. My lizard brain tells me this is a threat and must be faced up to or run away from. Father Time is dancing on his toes in the neutral corner while I take a standing eight count from the referee. (How many fingers is he holding up as an aside?) That being the case, I must press on. I fear an accelerated unravelling of fitness and health if I back down. Perhaps aches and pains are just the price of the game in one’s sixties. I’m going to approach things from several angles and see if there’s a route through this—a path to decent physical fitness and all the mood and mental health benefits it brings. I’ve got a decent running coach already in Coach Parry, and I have agreed with the team there to back off training until the first week of January 2025 to give me time to recover and, where needed, heal. Then I’m coming back with a lower running load. I aim to run twice a week and do one aerobic session on the Wattbike at the gym. I’ve got a seriously good coaching resource and don’t use it enough. It’s time to change that. I strength train twice a week, and for runners over the age of 50, this is key. Injury becomes inevitable without dealing with the natural loss of muscle mass older adults face. But I need to adjust here, too. I’m prone to getting myself into some pretty full-on lifting sessions at the gym – for example; I bench-pressed more than I have in this decade of my life only this week. How an allegedly intelligent man thinks he can train for a marathon and set personal bests in the gym is a winning strategy is beyond me. I will do a decent weekly workout with weights and a second session with body weight and resistance bands. Recovery And Maintenance Recovery hasn’t been taken seriously enough. I’m training five and sometimes six times a week. Rest days are quite often forced because I’m dog tired, rather than them being planned. Again, the scientific research on the importance of rest stretches from here to Mars. It’s time for me not simply to read this stuff but also act on it. Yes, the facts apply to me too. One area I have made good progress in is mobility. I’ve followed a simple programme that focuses on hip region mobility, and I’m a lot better for it. I intend to continue with this. The recovery from both my accidents was massively helped by working with a top-class physiotherapist, Stephen Davies. I intend to have a few sessions with him in December to see if I can get ahead of the game and improve my knee health. I’ve twice torn the meniscus in my right knee in the last three years, and I have moderate osteoarthritis in both knees. I’m convinced – so, thankfully, is my physio – that surgical intervention and steroid injections are not the answer. I will be ok if I can focus on and succeed with better knee health. I don’t have any other obvious injury problems. Just the zillions of aches and pains that being old delivers free of charge. What’s It To Be? So what, you say. Some old guy is banging on because his training is going badly. Why doesn’t he go and sit down and get old, like other old guys? Physically, I see what happens to people my age and younger if exercise isn’t a priority. I don’t have to look far beyond my own family to see the risks of doing next to no exercise. That’s a significant consideration in my stick or quit dilemma. The niggling physical injuries are probably a better option than drowning in an increasing number of age-related health problems. I want to live on my terms for as long as possible. Having read this screed, I know you will think I tend to be a fool. But not as badly as some of my exercise excesses would lead you to think. I will not willingly let all my choices be taken away from me one by one. That way lies a deterioration of mental health to go with the physical decline. That’s not why I’ve struggled and fought to get this far. Nanakorobi yaoki has been my principle. And that will continue for as long as possible. I have no wish to live forever. I will take the years allotted to me by God, fate, chance or genetics. It’s the quality of the years gifted to me that I’m concerned about. Will I run the New York Marathon next year? It’s going to be tough. I have physical challenges now, and by November next year, I’ll be 68. But without a big challenge, I can see even more challenges ahead of me. But sometimes, executing the plan is the prize. The benefits of continuing to train may be more valuable than the endorphin-laden achievement of crossing the finish line. Watch this space. [...]