Training, strength, endurance, nutrition, and what breaks.
I’m sixty-nine. Two marathons in twelve months at sixty-eight, and now a barbell instead — 143kg off the floor by December, which is a serious number for a man my age, and one I might not get. The point isn’t the events. The point is arriving at eighty still able to pick heavy things up.
I’m not an athlete. I was distinctly average at sport as a boy and I’m a distinctly average athlete now, carrying twenty-seven fractures, two arthritic knees and a shoulder that won’t rotate. What I have is consistency: fifteen years of training, on average, every other day.
I spent nearly thirty years in sports nutrition, which means I read the research rather than the marketing, and I’ll tell you when the evidence is thin. Expect numbers, sources, and the sessions that go wrong as well as the ones that don’t.
Is 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 …
I 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 …
The 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 …
Keep It Simple And Focus On Four Areas Staying in shape at 50 and beyond. I’m a 67-year-old weekend warrior athlete who spends time in the gym and working on my cardio through running. I’m in the top 15% of my age group in crucial …
One Last Blog On Resilience Do the work. That’s been the core mantra for me over the last couple of years. I am going to move my writing on after this post, into a broader look at physical and mental wellness, particularly in the context …
Positive Mindset My positive mindset powered me to deadlift my body weight for three sets of eight yesterday. So what? It was a significant milestone for me only four months after a serious cycling accident. I was knocked unconscious, and while there was no lasting …
Indicators of Fitness And Readiness HRV is the key metric that determines my fitness and training readiness. Heart rate variability measures the time between each heartbeat. Somewhat counterintuitively, for me, more variance between beats is better. A higher variability indicates better cardiovascular fitness and a …
Close To 100% Running on the comeback trail has been a while coming. Four months into my recovery from my cycling accident in Girona, I feel close to 100%. I have been suffering from vertigo, but thankfully, it has decreased. A knee injury has troubled …
Grinding For Life I use keep grinding as a hashtag in my Instagram exercise photos and videos. I’m deep into my sixties and when I refer to keeping grinding, I’m not referring to the sound of my knees. I am highlighting an essential truth of …
Build A Routine If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it. I can do all the exercise I want and make all the lifestyle adjustments I want, but how do I know it’s working? As you know from following this blog, I’m interested in …