When I got into my fifties (just a couple years ago) I mentally still felt much like a kid. I didn’t feel all that different than most any other time in my life. However, the number that represented my age started to perplex more than I would have guessed. Many people my age were grandparents. When I met people my age with a less healthy lifestyle, my thought was often “damn you look old”.
I guess I must have been muttering about this more than I had realized because all of a sudden Mary tired of the mumbling and gave me two books about how young 50 is. One was “Spring Chicken” and the other was “Fast After 50”.
I trained hard and raced hard for many good reasons, most of which were centered around the social joys. However, I had been noticing a new motive gaining space in my motivation corral. As long as I was kicking butt and winning races, I must not be old.
This all occurred to me after a good racing night at our Tuesday night go kart racing series, my new hobby. I was fastest of our little group of 3 friends, which was made up of Jeff Govro, Jeff Sona and myself. This comprised the fasted 3 amigos of our larger group. I managed to get 3rd fastest lap time for the track, for the week. Then I realized that I’m doing it again. As long as I can race well and kick butt racing something, anything, I must not be sick.
All in all, I think that this is a fine strategy.
After go kart racing, I think that the people in olympic ribbon twirling better prepare themselves for some tough competition. After that? I might need some suggestions.