Achieving Longevity
Photo by: John LeGasse, Dirigo Digital Media
A central tenant of longevity training is that reserves of energy and resilience can be built over the course of a lifetime of athletic activity to forestall the eventual frailty and infirmity of the normal aging process. This can be thought of as achieving longevity.
Athletes of any age are generally not concerned about frailty or infirmity because they usually possess abundant reserves of energy and resilience. These reserves have been built up through preparation for competition and can be drawn upon in daily life to support a vigorous and powerful lifestyle.
Although man is ultimately mortal, survival in later life is increasingly the product of habits and conscious actions that promote longevity by offsetting the inevitable declines of ageing.
In medical terms, “longevity” means living longer than the average person in a particular age group usually does. At the start of life, the likelihood of achieving longevity is strongly influenced by factors over which we have little individual control, like avoiding a fatal accident or inheriting good genes or being born into favorable circumstances. But once these “non-voluntary” factors are taken into account, further gains in prolonging the length of human life appear to be strongly influenced by lifestyle elements that we do consciously control.
The absolute “life potential” of human beings is limited to a finite span of about 115 years. We know this from a review of birth and death records over centuries that confirm that there are documented cases of individuals who achieve this exceptional age, but they are rare, and there are none who exceed it.
“Life span” on the other hand, is the average expected length of life achieved by members of a society in the absence of disease or accident. In the United States today, the average life span is approximately 85 years. We can think of this as the average life potential for a person with good luck and good health.
When we entered the 20th century, infectious diseases like influenza and tuberculosis were the main cause of death in human beings. But advances in medicine reduced or eliminated many of these illnesses until the main causes of non-accidental human mortality shifted to chronic diseases with names like cancer, atherosclerosis emphysema, diabetes, and cirrhosis.
If we look at the percentage of human beings who die at each age as they grow older, two stark facts emerge: First, there is a progressive increase in the human death rate in higher age groups until everyone has expired, and Second, there are no exceptions.[i]
The fact that there are no exceptions means that lifestyle choices like adopting a particular diet or maintaining active exercise habits will not extend the absolute human “life potential” beyond its finite limit. If they did, we would surely see individual cases of people surviving beyond 115 years, but we don’t. So the absolute length of life appears to be fixed regardless of lifestyle and is probably genetically determined.
But the average length of life for an individual human is a different matter altogether. Even though death is inevitable and our life has a fixed length, there is no reason why, within the confines of those realities, we can’t extend the length of our own life to more closely approach the maximum human “life potential”. We are, after all, creative beings in our essence.
By controlling infectious diseases the average length of human life in the last 100 years has been lengthened considerably in all age groups. This “ageing” of the general population primarily reflects a reduction of infant mortality, the control of infectious diseases and improvements in general heath care.
So for people living in the present time, the best approach to extending life beyond an average length (i.e. achieving longevity) rests with the prevention and reduction of chronic diseases and offsetting the conditions that produce the frailty of human aging itself.
The effects of diet and exercise on preventing chronic diseases are well established. But lifestyle factors such as these are less fully understood in the context of delaying the onset and progression of human frailty itself. More athletes need to recognize that the same processes that build reserves of energy and resilience during years of peak performance will help in achieving longevity because they will continue to do the same in later life if they are not abandoned prematurely.
Frailty due to human ageing has biochemical and cellular roots that can be described as a decline in the maximal function of the vital organs. (Finch 1976) [ii]
The term “organ reserve” is used to describe the capacity of tissues within the body to withstand changes produced by internal and external stress and preserve homeostasis (the self-adjusting ability of the body and its cells to maintain internal stability).
The concept that “organ reserve” exists in the form of an excess capacity within the body to withstand stress, suggests that increasing it could promote health and decrease age-related conditions like cardiac failure and muscle loss.
In 2008, Neustadt and Pieczenik [iii] showed that organ function decline is not necessarily inevitable, and that it can be restored by nutrition and medical treatments.
In achieving longevity, these facts have considerable importance when properly understood.
The “organ reserve” potential is greatest in early life and it shows a gradual decline as we age that is roughly the same across all major organ systems. What is useful for longevity athletes to understand however is that when the maximum performance of an organ is measured, those gradual declines are apparent well before they show up as visible limitations in normal activity.
A decline in organ function of about 1.5 percent per year begins the early in life of healthy people. This is well before it should be due to a specific disease, and it therefore reflects a change independent of any abnormal condition.
Because organ reserve function is called upon to restore homeostasis when a person is stressed, its decline lowers the body’s ability to withstand internal and external changes. Eventually, the deterioration makes death inevitable even in the absence of a specific disease.
When reserve reaches a capacity that is less than about 20 percent of an organ’s lowest functional level, even routine daily stresses may lead to death. [iv] When a person’s dies because their organ reserve has become inadequate to overcome normal stresses of daily life like adjusting to hot and cold weather or walking up stairs or catching a cold, they may be said to have died from “natural causes”.
In younger people it just takes more stress to overcome the organ reserve capacity before death results. For example, the stress of a 70 mile-per-hour car collision will probably overcome organ reserve of even the fittest young athlete, but for a sedentary person with borderline organ reserve, even the simple stress of a hot summer day can be potentially fatal.
The important thing to note here is that the likely cause of death changes with age until the level of stress that can kill you becomes identical to the minimal level of organ reserve needed to maintain homeostasis.
From all this it seems reasonable to conclude that although the threat of premature death by accident or illness is present throughout our life, the postponement of death due to “natural causes” (achieving longevity) requires us to build and maintain a maximum organ reserve for as long as possible.
Achieving Longevity through lifestyle
A recent article published in The Physician and Sports Medicine [v]. Looked at the preservation of lean muscle mass in lifetime athletes.
The authors argued that the age-related declines associated with human frailty have more to do with lifestyle choices, like sedentary living, than they do with the ageing process itself. They set out to determine what really happens to muscles as we age.
A muscle is an organ consisting of muscle tissue, nervous tissue, connective tissue, and blood vessels and the mass and strength of a muscle are two measures of its organ reserve.
The study looked at changes in muscle mass and strength by comparing sedentary persons and athletes across different age groups. The results showed that mass and strength could be preserved with lifelong physical activity and the authors concluded that the weakness experienced by ageing sedentary persons is modifiable by lifestyle changes.
A picture is often worth a thousand words, so here are a few from this study that are worthy of examination:
1. A cross-sectional Magnetic Resonance Image (MRI) of the left and right legs showing the muscle mass of a 40-year-old triathlete
2. A cross-sectional MRI showing the muscle mass of the left and right legs of a 74-year-old sedentary man
3. A cross-sectional MRI showing the muscle mass of the left and right legs of a 74-year-old Triathlete
The authors drew several conclusions that are relevant to achieving longevity:
“It is commonly believed that with aging comes an inevitable decline from vitality to frailty… These declines may have more to do with lifestyle, including sedentary living and poor nutrition, than the absolute potential of musculoskeletal aging… This study and those discussed here show that we are capable of preserving both muscle mass and strength with lifelong physical activity.”
So what have we learned from all of this?
Well fundamentally we have seen that as we age, organ function gradually declines, and reduces the body’s ability to withstand internal and external stress until ultimately, death occurs because our organs fail.
But when athletes build reserves of energy and resilience, they can reduce the risk of chronic diseases and forestall the premature frailty of human aging that prematurely affects sedentary persons.
So the postponement of death (i.e. achieving longevity) becomes possible for anyone who can maintain his or her maximum organ reserve potential throughout life. Lifetime athletic training for competition using longevity principles is a means to this end.
[i] www.milbank.org/quarterly/830427fries.pdf
[ii] Finch, C.E. 1976. The Regulation of Physiological Changes during Mammalian Aging. Quarterly Review of Biology 51:49–83.
[iii] http://www.imjournal.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/archives.main/articleid/8549
[iv] J.F. Fries and L.M. Crapo, Vitality and Aging (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman, 1981).
[v] https://physsportsmed.org/doi/10.3810/psm.2011.09.1933
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Longevity Training Boundaries
Longevity Training Principles rest on the foundation of the phrase: “Know thyself”.
Through self examination we can discover that the human body is a miraculous gift functioning under the conscious control of the mind, even as it continually changes its physical state from minute-to-minute on a completely subconscious level.
But there’s much more to us than that. We are in fact spiritual beings having a human experience, and by intentionally placing our mind and body under the guidance of the overriding creative force behind all things, we can transcend the usual limitations of “the human condition”.
Longevity training principles function within these understandings to promote well-being through consciously controlled athletic activities that influence subconsciously controlled physical processes.
But more importantly, longevity training holds that our common purpose is to live a “good life” by pursuing physical, mental and spiritual ideals without regard for the success or failure of our attempts. Such training ultimately yields the just rewards of health, peace and contentment.
Now it may seem a far cry from this outlook to our everyday situation, but “The proof is in the pudding”. So let’s get down to the nuts and bolts of improving fitness through longevity principles that are effective at any age..
We can’t directly “will” our cells to carry more oxygen, or to store more fuel, or to survive longer, but we can induce adaptations in them by producing stress conditions within our body that trigger subconscious adaptations at the biochemical and cellular level.
If we do this while holding an attitude of gratitude for the gift of our human incarnation, amazing things can happen. So let’s look at what can be done to bring this all about.
The Aerobic/Anaerobic Boundary
In a previous post we talked about promoting longevity through multi-sport training and conditioning activities that consciously induce controlled athletic stress.
Cycling at a constant and easy pace is an example of a training activity that requires the heart and lungs to continuously bring oxygen to the cells of the body where it can act to liberate energy. But as the rider consciously delivers more power to the pedals and cadence increases, a greater stress is created within the body to subconsciously produce additional energy, until the limit of its aerobic oxygen carrying capacity is reached. At that point any further energy production will have to tap into energy reserves stored within the muscle cells.
Consciously training at low intensities will improve and maintain fitness up to a certain level, but eventually the body will adjust to the training load as adaptation occurs. Further gains will require a greater training load to produce a conditioning effect that induces more fitness adaptation, either in the form of longer periods of low intensity training or through a cross-over into a harder level of physical effort.
Consciously moving the training effort closer to the intensity level where the heart and lungs can no longer aerobically meet the energy demands of the working muscles will produce an oxygen debt that tells an athlete when the aerobic phase of conditioning has been passed and the anaerobic phase has been entered. By working back and forth across this boundary, an athlete can consciously emphasize different aspects of subconscious adaptation.
The aerobic/anaerobic cross over boundary is easily identified during training by the emergence of heavy breathing due to oxygen debt. This makes it a convenient marker for training activity because the athlete perceives it directly. It signals the upper limit of effort that is useful for improving oxygen carrying capacity and the lower limit for triggering the “afterburner” effect of dipping into stored energy reserves.
Tracking the emergence of the oxygen debt threshold over time also produces a marker for conditioning progress, because it will shift as adaptation occurs and fitness improves. In effect, the point of its emergence signals progress in conditioning (or the lack of it).
Energy Production and Use
Glucose is the primary source of energy used by the body’s cells in both aerobic and anaerobic respiration. Within the marvel that is the human body, it is transported from the liver, where it is stored in the form of glycogen through the bloodstream to the cells. The glucose in glycogen is made available for cell absorption via the hormone insulin. In addition to being stored in the liver and other locations, glycogen is also stored within muscle cells for exclusive use in high-energy demand situations.
As energy is consciously expended during exercise, glucose stored outside the muscles eventually gets used up to the point where the body can subconsciously experience total glycogen depletion. On a conscious level, this is referred to as “hitting the wall”, but glycogen depletion can be consciously delayed by eating certain things before and during exercise.
Nutrition and Fueling
Twelve hours or so before exercise, you can eat foods containing carbohydrates that convert to glucose relatively slowly. The liver will subconsciously store these low glycemic index carbs for later and release them as a steady stream of energy into the blood stream. But during exercise you can also consciously forestall depletion and keep the body in motion by eating carbohydrates that convert to glucose in the bloodstream very rapidly. These high glycemic index carbs can be obtained from fruit and energy gels while on the run.
When a runner consciously pushes from a jog into a sprint, the aerobic/anaerobic boundary is crossed and glycogen stored within the muscle cells becomes the primary source of anaerobic energy needed to power the sudden burst of speed.
Energy Expenditure and Renewal
I’m not going to get into the miraculous biochemical processes involved when this happens, but we need to note that at this subconscious level, glycogen stores are rapidly expendable and gradually renewable.
Glycogen stores can be completely depleted in about 30 seconds during a 100% physical effort. The process of renewal however is much slower. Its replacement begins during the heavy breathing you experience after a sprint. By drawing more oxygen into the blood stream, you repay the oxygen debt and start rebuilding your anaerobic energy stores from whatever biochemical building blocks remain in your body at that time.
At the aerobic/anaerobic changeover boundary, the stress of training also causes your body to form and remove a by-product of glycogen breakdown called lactic acid, which is essential in the energy replacement process.
When the lactic acid concentration in the blood stream becomes magnified to the point where there is more of it being produced than can be immediately removed, your body has subconsciously reached its “lactate threshold”, which occurs somewhere between 50-80 percent of a person’s maximal oxygen consumption limit, also known as VO2max.
Without getting too technical, you should know that too much lactic acid in the cells and bloodstream can produce fatigue, cause pain and reduce the strength of muscle contractions on a conscious level. It can also hinder the production of more energy on a subconscious level.
So slowing your pace during training can be seen as a form of conscious active recovery to decreases lactic acid levels while you continue to work aerobically. But eventually you will have to stop, because ultimately glycogen replacement and lactic acid removal require passive recovery in the form of complete rest.
If you try to press on in the face of depletion your subconscious “intelligence” will eventually overrule your will to continue and your body will begin to shut itself down. But the spirit can override the protective mechanisms of mind and body when intentionally empowered to do so. Read Ironman for an example.
When glycogen depletion occurs, an athlete can experience a fatigue so deep that it becomes difficult to move. But studies indicate that ingesting carbohydrates immediately after exhaustive training can replenish glycogen more rapidly.
Longevity Training Under Conscious Intention
On a conscious level, an athlete’s ability to subconsciously produce glycogen and remove lactic acid can be conditioned by using training methods like strides and interval workouts across different sports.
For example, after warming up you could “hit your stride” by accelerating to the fastest pace you can maintain while remaining relaxed and smooth across the full range of your high-speed motion. You could then hold that stride for say, 30 seconds, before returning to an easy pace for 5 minutes to catch your breath, and then repeat the same sequence several times.
Similarly, you could cycle for a certain distance (interval) at a hard pace before dropping back to a recovery cadence until your heart rate drops to its base rate and then repeat that same sequence over and over again. Or after swimming easily for a 50 or 100 yards, you could push to cover the same distance at a hard effort followed by an interval of easy effort until you recover your normal breathing pattern and turnover rate. By repeating the sequence over, say a thousand yards of total distance, you press your conditioning to a new level to induce further subconscious adaptations.
The foundation of Trilongevity accept the connection of body and mind to spirit in the three pillars of Longevity Principles: moderation, conscious intention and self-imposed challenge.
Our choices and actions produce physical and mental consequences that may, or may not, be within the scope of our conscious awareness. But we can mediate those consequences by developing a conscious connection to the spirit and intentionally making it the guiding force in our life.
When conscious attention to the spirit is lacking our life thirsts for purpose, but when the spirit is recognized and called upon with conscious intention, beauty and commitment surge into every aspect of existence.
Through the inner experience of knowing ourselves, we discover that the race of life can only be won when our last breath is spent in gratitude to our Creator for the gift of a human form, for it is in that form alone that we can earn the wreathe of immortality.
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Multi-Sport Conditioning
Human beings consciously create reality using sub-consciously produced energy. If they wish, they can also consciously choose to create a new reality as they grow older, one that sub-consciously produces a high level of fitness to promote longevity.
In the past I’ve written a lot in these pages about improving athletic longevity through multi-sport endurance training. As a former marathon runner who started competition in triathlon at the age of 57, I’ve learned lessons about conditioning that have worked for me and I’ve drawn some conclusions about them based on the way my body and my resilience have changed since my prime athletic years. I have given the name “Longevity Training” to this method of athletic conditioning.
In testimony to its effectiveness, I completed my first Ironman triathlon at the age of 63. In the entire year leading up to it I was able to remain healthy and free from significant training setbacks and debilitating injuries of any kind, and I finished the 140.6-mile event running ahead of the pace that would have been predicted based on my pre-race training times.
The Role of Stress in Longevity Training
Athletic activity is a form of stress that takes a toll on the body over time. As we grow older, we become less able to endure high levels of it without suffering injury or debilitation. Longevity training recognizes this fact and uses methods to control stress so that strong conditioning effects can be produced without causing harm.
In daily life we see the cumulative effects of increasing susceptibility to stress play out in many different ways, as for example when older workers pass more demanding physical chores to younger people so they can continue to work everyday without getting hurt.
But the situation is different for athletes. They can’t pass the stress of training and competition to anyone else as they age, so many stop participating in their favorite sports when stress related vulnerabilities show up in the form of pain and injury.
Stress can come from physical, mental, emotional and environmental sources and its influence on us is cumulative over time. See my article on Allostatic Load for more about this.
As we age, stress related points of weakness are different for each of us. Some people discover them in their joints, or in specific muscles groups like the shoulder or the back of the legs, while others find susceptibility at the site of a previous injury.
The presence of stress can have positive or negative effects on anyone depending on its source, duration and intensity. For example, the stress of taking a test can motivate a student to study and learn, but if it becomes too powerful or prolonged the same stress can lead to debilitating anxiety or even physical effects like sleeplessness or ulcers. Fortunately stress can often be controlled and offset in a number of ways by spreading it out over time and redirecting it.
The anxious student, for example, can start preparation for an exam weeks ahead of time or go for a long walk to reduce tension before the test. In a similar way, a person who is committed to an athletic lifestyle in later years can manage the physical stress of training and competition through multi-sport conditioning.
Multi-sport Training
Within the context of athletic longevity, multi-sport training refers to participation in more than one sport activity to build and maintain endurance and fitness in later years.
Multi-sport conditioning and training offers older athletes stress management advantages over single sport activity, because it spreads the strain of exercise out over different areas of the body while simultaneously promoting broader conditioning effects.
This can be understood if we compare the daily activity of a runner against a triathlete who combines running one day with swimming or cycling on the next.
Not only is it more interesting to cross train in multiple sports, but by using different muscle groups, the substitution of swimming or cycling reduces repetitive stress on the lower extremities The overall effect is to create a state of relative rest and active recovery in some muscles of the legs relative to what would have been caused by running exclusively.
In both multi-sport and single sport training activities, athletes promote the oxygen carrying and energy producing capacities of the cardiovascular system. But multi-sport conditioning activities have the additional benefit of producing broader conditioning effects at a cellular level.
Multi-sport Conditioning
Both single sport and multi-sport training can improve cardio vascular fitness, but multi-sport results in better general fitness and endurance because it triggers conditioning effects in more muscle groups at a cellular level.
General fitness is improved whenever the body is conditioned to use oxygen more efficiently. By involving more muscle groups in training activity, multi-sport conditions more cells to produce, store and use energy in a more efficient way. This is especially important, as we grow older, because the conditioning effects can carry over to improve stamina and quality of life in later years.
Two kinds of conditioning effects can be named, based on the way they trigger the body’s subconscious response to the stress of athletic training demand (adaptation).
The first type conditions the body’s ability to use oxygen that’s dissolved in the blood to produce energy in a continuous way. This is aerobic conditioning. Training activities that cause this kind of conditioning effect require cells to function using energy produced from dissolved oxygen in the blood.
When an athlete is consciously involved in aerobic conditioning activity for prolonged periods of time, the body experiences a stress that challenges it to subconsciously “learn” (adapt) to more efficiently deliver oxygen to the cells and convert it to energy.
On the other hand, when athlete consciously creates a demand for power that exceeds the aerobic energy production limit, conditioning becomes anaerobic (functioning without oxygen), and the body starts to subconsciously draw on its stored energy reserves to get work done. This kind of athletic stress challenges the body to “learn’ to use and replace stored energy reserves more quickly and efficiently.
Although training at low intensities will improve aerobic conditioning to some extent, greater gains are made when a training effort is held close to the intensity level where the heart and lungs can no longer aerobically meet the energy demands of the working muscles and an oxygen debt is produced. This is the point where an athlete in training pushes past the aerobic phase of conditioning into the anaerobic phase. By working back and forth across this boundary, an athlete can emphasize different aspects of conditioning and trigger the subsequent adaptations.
In summary, good training should induce enough athletic stress to condition strong fitness and endurance adaptations without doing significant harm.
I believe controlling stress through multi-sport training and conditioning can extend athletic longevity. By consciously spreading the strain of exercise across different areas of the body on different training days, athletes can reduce stress at points of particular vulnerability when compared to single sport training activity. Multi-sport conditioning also permits partial rest and active recovery in some muscles while simultaneously producing more adaptations in more muscle groups at a cellular level.
Collectively, these advantages translate into less down time, more training time and a prolonged athletic career.
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Ironman
140 miles is a long way for any athlete to race over water and land. The strains and repetitive traumas of sustained motion tear and inflame muscles, stress the heart and lungs, shock bones and connective tissues and pressure the elastic and physiological limits of the entire body.
But despite the multiple traumas inflicted during an Ironman event, there are forces that can be invoked to sustain and enable the body to continue on even as nature ramps up the protective safeguards of pain, fatigue and organ system shutdown.
My race day started early on November 5th with breakfast at 3:30 AM. By the time the opening gun sounded at 7 o’clock, my physical energy stores were completely topped off after nearly a week of careful nutrition, hydration and a tapering workout schedule.
I am certainly not fleet of foot but I am none-the-less a resolute athlete, so the swim and bike segments of the Ironman race were just behind me as the sun began to set.
The moon had risen at 3 PM that day but it was obscured from view by the brilliant light of day until just before 6 o’clock in the evening.
My race plan divided effort during the marathon into four evenly paced segments of just over 10 kilometers each. The two circuit out-and-back route looped through St. Andrews State Park and suggested this natural partition of the 26.2-mile course.
By 8:30 PM I was struggling to stay on pace during the last 10 kilometers. Near the limit of exhaustion, I was only 90 minutes from the finish, if I could just hold discipline and focus for that long.
I had been running in the dark, except for an occasional streetlight, for about an hour and the pack of runners had thinned out substantially as many slowed to a walk.
As I approached the curve at the furthest point of the park loop, the thought that was foremost in my mind was to keep going. I knew from experience, that in a marathon, slowing down to walk could lock your muscles up tight. Fatigued as I was, I knew I probably wouldn’t be able to start running again if I lost my race pace.
I had been able to take solid food every 20 to 30 minutes over the entire 112-mile bike course and switched over to energy gel during the first 10 kilometers of the run. But due to stomach upset, I was only able to sip a little water to dilute it. I could no longer tolerate citrus sports drink without nausea and due to an increasing lack of nutrition and hydration, lactic acid was building up and my body was starting to shut down.
I found myself alone, tired, sore and doubtful.
But at that low point, the beauty and stillness of the night suddenly broke through to my awareness. A three-quarter moon illuminated the road ahead dimly, in contrast to the brilliance of the sand dunes to my right. They appeared like a motionless cascade of silver waves strewn with sea oats and beach elder, standing out against the darkened sea.
The fog of fatigue began to lift as I recalled why I was there. I remembered my son’s death and the beating of his heart throbbed in my temples. I recalled his beautiful face and perfect smile and experienced the pain of his loss again. And I reconnected to the pledge I made to dedicate my life to living as he did, with joy and purpose and care for those who shared his life.
I knew right then and there that my mind and body were the only things that stood between me and fulfilling that pledge. And in that timeless moment it became clear that I was no longer pushing myself; a force that would not relent was drawing me onward with conscious intention.
I stopped trying to suppress the pain and let my legs go numb. I stopped resisting the fatigue and let it assault me in harmless waves. I stopped thinking of the finish line and let each disembodied stride release itself as easily as walking, only faster.
I continued to run, and run, and run, until the lights on the horizon became a glare within a chorus of shouts and cheers.I heard my name called and chanted and I was lifted from the daze of exhaustion by the voices of my family, and friends.
And in the midst of it all there was Greg’s face, three feet high, smiling and dancing over his wife Amy’s head among the people who meant the most to him: my wife Cheri, my daughters Melissa and Michelle, my brother Phil, his wife Pat, and their daughters, Amy and Nicole and their husbands John and Mark and Greg’s closest friends Ira, Chad, Kris, and Carrie. The circle was complete, the deed was done, and his spirit was triumphant.
Three days have passed since then and as the soreness fades and strength is regained, the afterglow of a perfect race day lingers.
The sea was calm, the water clear, and the jellyfish hovered like flowers just deep enough to avoid contact with my swim strokes. The wind was fresh, the temperature cool, and the sun was bright and plentiful. The equipment was clean, the connections were tight and the training, nutrition, and race plan were right.
In the last article, I stated that a finishing time of less than 16 hours would solidify my conviction that an average longevity athlete can successfully complete an extreme endurance event safely and competitively by using the moderation limit principles I have developed and outlined in these pages.
By using this approach, intensive conditioning proceeds without injury or setback as self-induced stress is maintained at an optimal level through feedback from minute-to-minute attention to your own physical and mental status. By applying the same technique in competition, I was to maintain my race pace for 15 hours and 8 minutes without interruption.
But even more importantly, another principle of longevity training was also confirmed. When we let a spiritual context guide our mental condition and physical actions, beauty and commitment surge into every aspect of existence.
Through challenge and adversity we can come to know ourselves, and in that knowledge discover that the race of the day is just practice for the race of life, which is itself the ultimate contest of endurance. That race can only be won when our last breath is spent in gratitude to the Creator for the gift of a human form and in realization of its amazing capacity to transcend limitations of any kind.
RPE and Moderation
Over the past 20 weeks I’ve followed a training plan designed for first time Ironman competitors written by Scott Herrick. I recommend it now for that purpose because it is intelligently planned and dovetails nicely with the moderation limit approach I advocate for longevity athletes.
Much of the training described in Scott’s plan is tied to the Rate of Perceived Exertion concept (RPE), in which you proceed at a pace or level of effort based on a personal assessment of how hard you are pushing yourself.
This is not rocket science, but it is based on the Borg scale that established RPE as a method correlated with actual workload during exertion. It was later modified to a ten-point scale, where 1 is very easy and 10 is flat out as hard as you can go.
But the important thing to know about RPE is that it focuses you on listening to your body and using that feedback to personally adjust your training pace on a minute-to-minute basis.
Yes, RPE is subjective, and in a short time you begin to set the pace of your training activity to match a private scale of just how hard you feel you are pushing yourself compared to the easiest and hardest efforts imaginable.
For a longevity athlete this is a key attribute because it taps into the same method of introspective attention to your physical condition that tells you when your present athletic stress is about to become potentially harmful.
Under the longevity training principle of “nothing in excess”, one can effectively push any activity to a high degree without allowing it to become extreme. This is called the moderation limit. It is defined as the amount of self-induced bodily stress that triggers the greatest adaptation response possible without producing an injury or a setback in training due to overexertion.
After using RPE and moderation limit principles in combination for nearly 5 months, workouts that seemed difficult a few months ago now seem like a respite, indicating the presence of a strong adaptation effect.
During the same period I sustained only a single minor injury. It was due to a clear violation of a basic moderation limit principle. I strained my Achilles tendon because of an inadequate warm-up in the excitement of starting a run on a particularly nice spring day. It resulted in a setback amounting to three days of limited training.
Considering my age and the workload involved in training for the Ironman distance, I believe that the principles of longevity training produced safe and effective training results in combination with the Herrick plan because that plan also specifies activity in terms of an athlete’s personal level of exertion relative to their own physical state and capabilities.
The longevity principle of moderation states that the key to preparation for competition lies in adaptation to self-induced stress that pushes an athlete’s tolerance limits to a high degree without exceeding them in a harmful way. The RPE scale can be used along with this principle to maintain stress on a minute-to-minute basis that is continuously within the moderation limit
In less than a week I’ll put this training approach to the test. As a sexagenarian newbie my primary goal is to finish the Ironman within the allotted 17 hours.
Any time less than that will be a victory, and any time under16 hours will solidify my conviction that the average longevity athlete can benefit from the combination of RPE and the moderation limit in preparation for endurance competition.
Contending for Longevity
After relocated my base of operations to Fernandina Beach, Florida, I return now to blogging for my fellow longevity athletes from the beautiful Island of Amelia.
Those of you who have been with me for a while know that longevity athletes are people of any age who understand that the prospects for a long and good life are improved substantially by structured and challenging physical and mental activity.
The key is to use self-generated challenges to push oneself to the upper limit of moderation while acting with conscious intention under the guidance of your spirit. This, in a nutshell, is what is called “Longevity Training”
Competitive events are one of he best forms of personal challenge you can set for yourself. By pushing yourself athletically to the limits of moderation you can find yourself contending for a longer and more robust life.
Contending
Every athlete is in some sense a competitor, but very few are true championship contenders. None-the-less all athletes strive to perfect themselves toward the same ideal as the champions does and by that pursuit, they gain from dedication to the same ideal weather they win a contest or not.
The age group rankings popular in so many competitive events these days recognize this inherent desire for perfection to an ideal by expanding the opportunities for athletes to compete against others with similar experience and physiology. But even here the number of those who are truly contending is a very small percentage of the total participant in any given category.
Despite the fact that most of us are not truly contending for a championship, many authors who write about athletic training and development are themselves former champions with extraordinary physical talents, or renowned coaches with years of experience grooming world-class competitors, or professional trainers who have developed gifted athletes.
We read the writing of these experts because I suspect we would all like to be champions. It’s why people buy tickets to games and sporting events, dress in colorful team jerseys, and adopt heroes as role models. It’s the reason we spend money on gear that holds the promise of letting the average person play like the best of the best.
Let me state here that as a competitor I am a most enthusiastic participant, but as an athlete I am at best average. However my averageness does not diminish my credentials as an authority on the subject of longevity training in the least, in fact I believe it improves them.
By comparison with the true contenders in any sport, I am slow and lumbering and no amount of athletic training is going to turn me into a champion at the highest levels of performance or perhaps even a winner at local events. In this connection I am like most age group competitors.
But if you are an average person too, please don’t be discouraged. The bell curve shows us that when any ability is measured, the vast majority of people, are clustered somewhere in the middle of the range, and very few have abilities at the extremes. The top 1 percent of participants in any sport or discipline is simply better than the other 99% of us.
And so I ask candidly: Who can speak with the most authenticity to the vast majority of us who have average talent and genetic potential, someone at the extremes or someone closer to the heart of things?
There is something innately thrilling about the sensation of hitting a hard smash in tennis, or the satisfaction of a sprint to the finish line in a foot race against a rival, or the perfect ping of a golf shot well hit.
Even if it’s only for a moment, when we have trained hard and executed an action with power and skill, we taste the elixir of the champion for ourselves.
There is something deeply imbedded in our collective DNA that attracts us toward things that are consistent with longevity and survival. And physical and mental prowess are certainly among the most robust of such traits.
Even though championship-level performance is accessible to only a very few, a significant improvement in physical and mental performance is available to almost everyone. Nature would have it no other way.
Genetic diversity is the rule in life, not the exception. And consequently, nature has given each of us the capacity to survive and prosper by adapting to challenges.
Among those with average abilities who do not prosper, the main problem is not an inability to overcome challenges, but an inability to generate them with sufficient definition to trigger beneficial adaptations. In simplest terms, there is a lack of effective, self-directed motivation.
Nature favors those who overcome challenges with the reward of a long and good life. It also allows the slack and diffident to fade away into obscurity.
Nature in fact favors the daring and the adventurous by granting them deep and mysterious advantages that are born of the spirit. We see this when a hero arises among us, when a brilliant idea takes hold and improves the lives of millions and when young people uncover who they really are by exploring and discovering things about themselves that they never suspected.
I am not a great athlete, but I have become a better one, by pushing limits and risking failure. Compared to gifted athletes, I am still slow and lumbering, but I am still in the game and that makes me an athlete in good standing, one who is getting better all the time.
I do not compete because I am a great athlete, but I have become a better one through competition, a competition with myself and against time. Do not confuse cause and effect here.
Longevity training is training to contend against the greatest adversary imaginable, the adversary of death. None of us will prevail in contending against this adversary. But in the arena of life we can choose to live every moment with conscious intention and an awareness of the fundamental connection between body, mind and spirit, so that when the time comes we will face our end having sought to perfect ourselves toward an ideal that makes life worthy and whole.
Each of us has a choice about how we want to live our life. In terms of longevity, nature favors choices that are self-determined, challenging and consciously guided by our spirit. Through those choices and actions we are in fact contending for a personal championship that knows no equal.
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Flying the Owl
Modern bicycles are highly evolved time machines.
In their earliest form, they were used to shorten the period of travel between point A and point B for the purpose of allowing the rider to do something else with the time that would normally have been spent traveling on foot.
But it wasn’t long before riders turned the two-wheeled time machine to a different purpose; to be ridden in the company of other people who just wanted get to point B before everyone else: competition in its purest form.
I could spend a great deal of time here talking about what has become the sport of bicycle racing, but sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. So let’s get to it. This is my bicycle, shown as she was in 2006 when purchased; I call her “The Owl”.
TREK Equinox 7, triathlon series bike (as purchased)
The Owl is not the absolute, top-flight, state-of-the-art machine that frontrunners are riding today, but she’s very well outfitted from my perspective as a serious age group competitor.
In her original configuration (shown above), The Owl was well suited to my aspiration for competition in triathlon at an intermediate to advanced level.
Her 58cm geometry matched my 6’4 frame pretty well and after a professional bike fit our contours melded into a seamless unit of efficiency.
In my opinion the Trek aluminum/carbon aero frame design and Shimano drive train components provide a foundation of strength, smoothness and durability that has been easy to build and improve on.
I need to say up front, that despite the fact that I am not a compact, lightweight contender, I am still a serious competitor. As a consequence, my objective in racing is not to shave seconds so I can win the race. I just don’t have the genetic gifts required to prevail over a 140-pound man (or woman) with short levers and an abundance of fast-twitch muscle fibers.
So my main rival on every course is myself. My intention is too push to the finish in the best time I can achieve through honest effort and careful preparation.
Over the years the Owl has been well maintained and modified both for training and racing. To bring her to her present form, I have invested about $4,500 (every penny of it well spent). The Owl has raced through several dozen events and and is in race-ready condition. With careful maintenance and professional care when needed, she’s become an impressive piece of equipment and is a great joy to ride.
The “Owl” is similar to machines raced by many age group triathletes over distances ranging from the sprint to the full ironman course. There are different styles and options available to every rider and each decides for him or herself what set-up is best. It’s a highly individual form of self-expression.
The Owl has no feathers, but if she did, they would be straight back and tucked close against the frame. The beak would be out at a point, the head erect, the eyes intent, the lean forward. Every ounce of form and function trimmed to give the air nothing to grasp in its frictional fingers. In a word: Aerodynamic or “aero”.
This is also the physical stance and mental state of the rider. Smooth, efficient, intent, focused, alert and “aero”. Together the rider and machine fuse into a Zen of adeptness.
Now back to earth.
This tour of the owl starts in the cockpit where instrumentation and fuel systems are arrayed for easy access and aerodynamic streamlining.
Cockpit overhead view
The Shift controls are mounted forward (to the left in the picture) at the tip of the aero bar grips. The right hand leads to the front derailleur and left hand to the rear. Shift tension is adjustable at the forward grip points. The aero drink bottle is mounted at the center between the aero bars and followed immediately by a Garmin 305 GPS computer equipped with a wireless speedometer, cadence counter and heart rate monitor. Next in line is a fuel box for nutritional supplies. All are in the same slipstream line to minimize drag. (See aerodynamic profile below)
Front Aerodynamic profile
A side view of the cockpit reveals the vertical layout.
Cockpit side view
Notice the custom designed aero bottle mounting system. (The original one relied on elastic bands that deteriorated quickly.)
The bottle is held in place by a custom cut bungee cord, cross-wrapped across the aero bars. It’s anchored in place by passing behind the sipping straw and secured from the bottom by a set of Velcro tabs, two on the upper surface of the bars and two on the bottom side of the bottle itself.
The bungee cord and bar mounted Velcro strips are shown below with the bottle removed.
Aero Bottle mounting system
This arrangement allows the bottle to be moved forward, or backward, to put the straw in an optimum position for hydration without releasing hands from the aero bar grips
The Owl is configured differently for training and racing.
The main difference is in the wheels. In the training configuration (below) she runs Bontrager race lite wheels. For racing she wears Zipp 404 carbon wheel set.
Training Set up
The wireless cadence counter sensor can be seen at the rear wheel mounted on the cross member. She also carries a tool bag suspended below the X-lab bottle rack. The bag holds a spare tube, a compact CO 2 inflator, tire change wedges and a wrench set (shown below).
Compact tireinflation kit, tube and tools
In racing the configuration, this setup is suspender under the seat to conceal it from wind drag and the wrench kit is carried in a clothing pocket for quick accessibility without breaking down the inflation kit.
The primary difference between the training and racing configuration is the addition of Zipp 404 speed weaponry carbon fiber wheels fitted with Continental G-force tires (both front and rear for extra durability, grip and and puncture resistance).. . (See below).
The Owl, ready to race
These are Team Clydesdale wheels designed for riders over 200 pounds (I weighed 215 in my first race). They are built for strength, stiffness and improved durability.
Over the past five years I’ve learned a lot about going fast on a bike with efficiency. By applying the principles of longevity training outlined in previous articles, I’ve made my way to the final stages of Ironman race preparation. I have confidence that my personal time machine has the right stuff to deliver me to the finish of a 112-mile bike course with legs fresh enough to finish a marathon before midnight. More to come on this later.
Achieving Natural Longevity
Post-prime athletes can use knowledge and experience to push the limits of health and vigor much more deeply into later life than is generally accepted through a lifestyle that support natural longevity.
The very fact that you are an athlete, or are interested in re-kindling your love for competition, means that your genetic composition and life conditions have favored a healthy lifespan. The real question is how will you shape your natural longevity?
Natural Longevity
There is an evolving definition of longevity that reaches beyond the simple concept of an extended existence. It’s a view that relies on filling post-prime time with the greatest number of years in which physical and mental activity can be enjoyed with vigor and purpose.
This view of longevity places emphasis on a lifestyle that intentionally develops the body and mind, under guidance of the spirit. In combination with self-imposed challenges and setting moderation limits, these principles define what is called longevity training.
Nature, of course, is the creative and controlling force that manifests itself in the physical universe. By it, we are born with a genetically defined potential lifespan that can be shortened of lengthened by our personal choices and actions.
Since we have no control over our genetic composition (at least not yet) and we have no say about the family circumstances we are born into, it is only through choices and actions that we can hope to shape our longevity.
Longevity is technically defined as the actual duration of an individual life. But the quality of any life largely depends on the decisions we take and the attitude we adopt in response to the natural facts of our existence, which cannot be changed.
Athletes may choose to follow a course of natural longevity by living in a way that is consistent with ancient wisdom. Diet, exercise and moderation are the keys to natural longevity, while poor nutrition, inactivity and excesses of any kind work against it.
Natural longevity is not a road to be travelled by the faint of heart. It takes discipline and determination and active spirit to achieve, and it is not the easy road most popularly taken.
It’s easier to eat rich foods and develop heart disease than it is to eat nutritiously each day. It’s easier to be inactive and become heavy and slow in your later years than it is to exercise and stay lean and quick. Even for athletes, it’s easier to take drugs that artificially increase muscle mass than it is to develop strength through non-artificial means. In each of theses cases you have either worked for or against your natural longevity and in each case you have made a choice.
There are many sources of information and many advertised options available to a person who seeks to extend the duration and quality of their life. But how are we to decide which will actually help us to achieve natural longevity and which may work against it? For longevity athletes, an example can be drawn in considering the case of performance enhancing drugs.
“Steroids”, or anabolic-androgen steroids (AAS) are drugs developed to mimic the effects of human testosterone (the male sex hormone). They stimulate male sex characteristics and strongly promote the build up cellular tissue, especially in muscles. For this reason both amateur and professional athletes are known to use them to enhance athletic performance.
AAS have many side effects that can negatively affect health when taken in high doses or even when taking low doses over a prolonged period of time. Some of these side effects can be detected through lab tests and can be minimized clinically by modifying the dose and by other medical means.
AAS are illegal under the rules of all major athletic governing bodies, because they give users an unfair advantage in competition by comparison with naturally trained athletes. They are also illegal, in most developed countries, except for the treatment of specific medical conditions, because of their potential side effects when used “off-label”.
It could be said that testosterone and human growth hormone (HGH) are natural substances and therefore they produce an acceptable route to natural longevity. But their use violates a main tenant of longevity training, the principle of moderation. They raise hormone levels in the body to ”excess” in the sense that those levels do harm. In that context using them is no different that overtraining to the point of producing an illness or injury. Too much of anything is too much.
The doctors who prescribe growth hormone and AAS in anti-aging clinics, or for performance enhancement or appearance improvement, are practicing outside of accepted standards.
They may say that they are treating a deficiency because an older person may have lower levels of these substances than they once had, or because women have lower levels than men. But much of the results obtainable through anti-aging “treatments” could be achieved without artificial performance enhancement simply through the diet and exercise programs that these same clinics also often prescribe.
I have pointed out before that maintaining muscle mass will keep you healthier longer, especially after you hit a certain age. But the amount needed for that purpose is different than the amount produced by HGH and AAS administration for purposes of performance enhancement or appearance improvement.
The artificially robust appearance and exceptional strength produced by “steroids” comes not only at a cost in dollars and a risk for side effects, but also and most importantly, it comes at a cost in personal honesty and integrity, and this is why they are banned in sport and illegal in trade.
Each of us has a finite number of days allotted to us, and none of us knows what that number is. Nor do we know what unexpected events may shape the quality of our life as it unfolds. But we are not helpless. We have some control over the present moment and how we use it to shape the future. Achieving natural longevity means challenging ourselves through the moderation limit principle to achieve a long and good life by developing traits of discipline, determination and conscious intention.
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Longevity Principles
As we grow older we become increasingly aware that there is much more to life than we had supposed in our youth. With longevity comes new awareness, and the old adage: “The more you know, the more you know you don’t know.” begins to ring true soon after we have completed our formal education.
It is no accident that as we become more aware of life’s brief and mysterious nature our physical being reveals its mortality to us in increasingly plain and unmistakable ways.
For a longevity athlete this awareness can be an invitation to enter a new realm of challenge in which the goal becomes not so much to win the race of the day, but rather to win the race of life by achieving its true purpose. In pursuit of this purpose, the new catch phrase might be: The longer you live, the longer you long to live long.
Body Mind and Spirit
Trilongevity means training the body and mind through athletic discipline to recognize the spirit as the overriding force in achieving a long and healthy life.
The principles of Trilongevity hold that we are spiritual being having a human experience, and as athletes we can use our physical being to its fullest extent by exercising freedom of action and conscious will to unify the body and mind in an awareness of spirit that is consistent with life’s transcendent origin.
Trilongevity uses longevity principles that seek to tie self-development to a reality that transcends physicality. This is called longevity training.
Longevity principles acknowledge that it’s possible to function physically in the world without giving much thought to things like breathing, digestion or blood pressure. But our lifestyle choices can certainly affect them.
Longevity principles also recognize that it’s possible to function mentally without paying much attention to the direction of our thoughts, or the fact that there is a spiritual side to our being that stands silently apart from the physical and mental worlds, but our lifestyle choices can certainly affect them too.
Although silent, the spirit (or soul) is an unerring witness to events and the ultimate beneficiary of our life choices and actions. Longevity principles acknowledge this fact in their foundation.
The Foundation of Longevity Principles
There are two concepts that lie at the core of longevity training and its longevity principles. They are to be found enshrined among the inscriptions carved into the temple of Apollo at Delphi: “Nothing in excess” and “Know thyself”. Self-knowledge is the foundation of longevity training. and the concept of “Nothing in excess” guides us to make choices and take actions that do not produce extreme physical and mental consequences that become a burden to the spirit. Consistent with this advice is the practice of moderation that is recommended in the traditions of both Eastern and Western cultures.
Moderation: The first Longevity Principle
Moderation is one of three longevity principles that guide athletic development under a process that leads us to modify our behavior in response to a continual introspective examination of our physical, mental and spiritual state.
The longevity principle of moderation recognizes that the key to preparation for competition lies in overall stress management. Through this principle our adaptation to stress is moderated by delivering a self-induced level of challenge that pushes our tolerance limits to a high degree without exceeding them in a harmful way.
Under the longevity principle of moderation, expanded techniques of rest and recovery are also used to offset all of the other stresses that accumulate in daily life in addition to those that are self-induced during longevity training.
The second foundational concept of longevity training is summarized in the phrase: “Know thyself”. Consistent with this advice, Socrates taught that we should examine our thoughts and actions to assure that they are directed toward the accomplishment of a life well lived, one of honorable self-improvement that produces benefit to society as a whole. Two additional longevity principles draw on this foundation also.
Self-induced Challenge: The Second Longevity Principle
Through introspection the longevity athlete recognizes that the human body has physical self-regulating and self-healing capacities that are not under our conscious control.
The longevity principle of self -induced challenge asserts that that these capacities can be tapped indirectly to achieve a long and healthy life through disciplined participation in athletic training for competition.
Self-induced challenges acknowledge that humans are, in essence, creative beings. Through the inherent power of their choices and actions they produce adjustments in physical reality according to rules of a grand design that governs all things. This is generally understood as the law of cause and effect.
Though mostly hidden, the rules of the design produce a new reality whenever the force of human will is exercised. Through this power we create the circumstances of our life and we become the author of our own destiny. Understanding this is to begin to “Know thyself”.
Conscious Intention: the Third Longevity Principle
It recognizes that our choices and actions produce absolutely certain physical and mental consequences that may, or may not, be within the scope of our conscious awareness. The longevity principle of conscious intention however states that we can mediate the consequences of our actions and choices by developing a connection to the spirit that makes it the guiding force in our life.
Longevity itself can be thought of within the confines of this single lifetime alone, or within the much grander context of our immortal being. We make best use of the human form when we proceed in recognition of the overriding necessity for a spiritual context to guide our choices and actions.
Longevity principles acknowledge that when conscious attention to the spirit is lacking our life thirsts for purpose, but when the spirit is recognized and called upon with conscious intention, beauty and commitment surge into every aspect of existence.
Through the inner experience of knowing ourselves, we discover that the race of life can only be won only when our last breath is spent in gratitude for the gift of a human form and we humbly accept the wreathe of immortality from the hands of our benevolent creator.
The foundations of Trilongevity accept the connection of body and mind to spirit in every aspect of its longevity principles. The longevity principles of moderation, self-induced challenge and conscious intention assert that self-imposed limitations based on false premises weaken us, while limitations and challenges we set for ourselves, based on knowledge and experience, improve our prospects for longevity and open the floodgates to a new reality.
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Expectations
In a previous article, I noted that medical studies reveal subconscious forces at work when a noticeable improvement in health occurs after taking a harmless substance called a “placebo”. The strength of the “placebo effect” on health depends in part on deception, because the person is lead to believe that they are taking an effective drug when in fact it’s just a sham.
Studies of the placebo effect imply that well-placed expectations can have healing effects due to measurable biochemical changes. But the properties of such expectations have not been fully explored either in conventional medicine or in athletic training because of the negative association of this effect with deception or “wishful thinking”.
None-the less, taking a placebo seems to induce an internal responses triggered by a simple expectations or a desire for improvement. The fact that this appears to come about by deception is unimportant. All that matters is that it works.
Now a question arises about the placebo itself. Since it’s completely inert, harmless and without any physical properties that should affect our health or performance, why does it produce the effects documented in medical studies?
The answer is simple: The effect has nothing to do with the pill. The pill only allows the experimenter to arrange a test that reveals the effect of our expectations.
The set up of these medical studies just disclose a general human adaptation property that is governed by subconscious forces that are invoked by our expectations. If this is true, then perhaps we can extend the effect to include mental placebos as well.
About Expectations
Our expectations can be positive or negative and the results they bring are correspondingly beneficial or harmful.
People who are depressed for example may see things as dark, disconnected and futile even if they are financially well off. Since their expectations for the future are similarly dark, life is a struggle and their health can deteriorate.
Positive expectations on the other hand, bring the opposite result. Even patients with a terminal illness that cannot be overcome by medicine alone, can find peace and contentment in their final days.
An expectation is our conception of what is considered most likely to happen next. It’s a belief centered on the future. It’s a choice we make in our attitude. It may or may not be realistic given our present circumstances, but as we all know from experience, circumstances can change and it’s our expectations that shape that change.
The American psychologist, Richard Lazarus, believed that people develop positive and negative expectations in response to their life experiences and the background attitude they hold toward likely outcomes. [i]
He noted also that people who are “well off” in a material sense often have a negative outlook on their well being while people who face hardships more often see things in a positive way. In other words: If things are too easy we can become negative in our outlook, but when we are challenged the door is opened to become more positive about future events.
Lazarus also found that stress often had less to do with a person’s actual situation than with how the person perceived the strength of his own resources.
I said earlier that expectations may not be realistic given our present circumstances, but things can change and our expectations shape that change.
Five years ago, when I was just 58, I was recovering from some serious injuries following a car crash. In the face of the resulting hardship I set positive expectations for my recovery by adopting a secret goal. In effect, I gave myself a “mental placebo”, a completely inert and harmless suggestion without any physical properties that should affect my health or performance.
I set a goal to complete a triathlon. I revealed it to no one, but it gave me hope and direction and my body responded (subconsciously) by marshaling its forces in that direction to create a new reality consistent with my expectations.
The rest unfolded naturally and of its own accord, because this is the nature of reality: We create it largely through our own expectations and mostly without a conscious awareness of the impact it has on our future.
After I limped to the finish of my first race, I a set another (completely ridiculous) goal: to complete a full Ironman distance event. I revealed this “mental placebo” to no one and for three years I struggled through training and ever longer events to get where I am today. I take little credit for this, it happened of its own accord, because this is the nature of reality: We create it largely through our own expectations.
The principles of Trilongevity hold that as spiritual being having a human experience, we are immersed in an unseen ocean of potential from which everything emerges. For an athlete whose goal is longevity, this understanding is crucial because life is largely a matter of the attitude we adopt through our expectations. The unseen ocean is brimming with opportunities that are limited only by our imagination and courage. Even in the most dire and desperate of circumstances it is there, waiting to be tapped.
Lazarus showed that those who face hardship frequently adopt a more positive attitude in response to the challenges they face. I believe by using a “mental placebo” to produce a self-created challenge we can unleash a self-fulfilling prophecy fueled by the power of our own expectations.
[i] http://www.lists.ufl.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0212&L=psyaging-l&T=0&P=1925
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A Pattern For Longevity
Longevity athletes are not simply physical beings. They have a depth of understanding and awareness that puts physicality in perspective within the rich outlook that their life experience grants them.
Trilongevity speaks of training the body, mind and spirit in recognition of this outlook. It seeks to focus the discipline of mind and the enabling qualities of spirit on achieving a long and good life through athletic training for competition.
Longevity athletes are people who seek to overcome challenges through consistency, effort and self-discipline. They can do this once they have established a reservoir of strength, resilience and stability within themselves through a pattern of personal development.
A pattern is a theme or recurring system reflective of common underlying principles that we can perceive through experience and attention.
Every pattern has an underlying truth that is separate from its individual expression and arises from principles unconstrained by time or space.
A pattern transcends physical limits by being recognizable in a way that’s independent of scale. A pattern is unique because its underlying principles repeat themselves in a predictable manner that generates distinctive things.
Every human being is an example of this kind of uniqueness. We are all modeled from a pattern of DNA that is identical in every cell, but totally distinct from any other human pattern. We are all individuals even though the same genetic principles are at work in each us.
In just the same way, every ray of sunlight is a unit of energy distinctive to the model of its source. Even though the light of every star is generated according to the same underlying principles of energy emission, the spectral signature of our sun is uniquely recognizable in every dapple of daylight on your bedroom wall or glint scattered by a sparkling sea
And so it is with every other heavenly body in our solar system. Although every ray of sunlight is identical to its source, that light is uniquely modified by the elemental make-up of the objects it strikes So the spectrum of the moon and the illumination of our next nearest neighbor in space uniquely identifies those objects as the distinctive spectral pattern of moonlight or the brilliant radiance of Venus.
R. Buckminster Fuller noted that: “A pattern has an integrity independent of the medium by virtue of which you have received the information that it exists. Each of the chemical elements is pattern integrity. Each individual is pattern integrity. The pattern integrity of the human individual is evolutionary and not static.” [1]
In the same vein, the patterns of our individual lives are also evolutionary as they unfold, even though our origin is the same. All things, seen and unseen, are patterns derived from the one truth at the center of everything. This is the underlying nature of creation, and human beings are its fullest expression.
The principles of Trilongevity seek to tie self-development to a reality that transcends physicality. Longevity athletes use their physical being to its fullest extent by exercising freedom of action and conscious will to unify the body, mind and spirit in a pattern consistent with life’s transcendent origin.
Although you may have started out as an athlete with fitness or physical performance as a goal, that’s not where you have ended up. The pattern of your life, your experience and your very being are tied to a truth beyond words that can be quite eloquently expressed through the pursuit of Trilongevity.
[1] R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983), U.S.American philosopher and inventor, in pattern Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking (1975), Pattern Integrity 505.201.
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Self-imposed Limitations
The idea of a post-prime athlete training “hard” may seem to run against the grain of
conventional wisdom. How often have we heard comments from people who say: “You’re too old for that” or, “I never saw a machine yet that was run hard and lasted long”, or “If you keep that up you’re going to hurt yourself.” And my personal favorite: “What are you trying to prove?”
Well let me answer that last question first: I believe that most of the limitations we face in life are self-imposed, and I’m trying to prove that “hard” training and competition are consistent with longevity, if, and only if, those limitations are rightly chosen.
Limitations and Longevity
The familiar pieces of advice that we may have heard about the consequences of training “hard” in a body that’s no longer young can be proven false by my statement about self-imposed limitations.
There was a time when I put training limitations on myself in the belief that I had never seen a machine that was run hard and lasted long. That was before I was aware of the amazing regenerative and healing powers of a body that is taxed by effort in a specific way and allowed to rest and heal in a specific way.
Many people have occupations that are physically demanding. A young tradesman for example, may work all day under great physical strain in harsh conditions and grow stronger as a result.
But as ageing progresses, the toll of labor can cause a physical breakdown in the knees or back when the body is driven too hard, and eventually a permanent disability may result.
This kind of age-related breakdown can be avoided by setting some limitations like passing the harder work down to younger people or by imposing limitations on what should and should not be done physically, based on experience.
But in the real world, a job must be finished on time and within budget. So workers frequently push their physical limits, day after day, to produce stress levels that exceed their body’s regenerative and healing capacities on a continuing basis.
But suppose for a moment that each worker had the ability to set limitations in the form of a recovery schedule that fit the body’s need for healing whenever these stressful levels reached a peak? Although economically impractical, the effect on health and longevity would be predictable. The machine could be driven hard and would last a long time.
And so it is with the method called longevity training. It begins by recognizing that the objectives of the young competitor and those of the longevity athlete need to be stated in fundamentally different terms.
The young competitor is willing and able to train with very few limitations and spend athletic capital at high risk during a once in a lifetime window of opportunity to achieve peak performance. The post-prime athlete who is committed to longevity however, is more like an investor who preserves capital strategically through practical risk-taking over the long haul. The longevity athlete understands the true limitations (and potentials) of a post-prime body and uses them to advantage. Let’s explore some of them here.
In a previous article, we talked about how older athletes, especially those over the age of 50, need progressive strength training to keep pace with age-related muscle loss.
Ageing causes the muscular and cardiovascular system to respond more slowly to exercise demand, and so its important to warm up more gradually before a hard workout.
During warm up, you should check for signs of stress or weakness that reveal themselves in the form of stiffness, pain or fatigue. The first line of defense against injury when these signs are present is to to set a limitation by extend the warm up period until things become more loose and fluid.
Stretching is important at any age, but even more so as we grow older. You’ve heard this advice before, but especially for a longevity athlete, stretching can offset the tightening that comes with muscular imbalances and any adhesions in the sheath of fascia that surrounds them. The self-check you do during your warm up will often identify them, and so will any areas of soreness that emerge after a hard workout.
An extension of muscles through a broad range of motion loosens and lengthens the affected tissues to improve flexibility, and flexibility is free speed.
Many of our limitations are not self-imposed. The ageing process also typically affects muscle fibers that are classified ‘fast twitch’, more than those classified as ‘slow twitch’. ‘Fast twitch’ fibers contract more quickly to give greater strength and power, while ‘slow twitch’ fibers contribute more to muscular endurance.
Strength training selectively builds ‘fast twitch’ fibers, and in so doing, takes stress off the joints, by allowing your now stronger muscles to absorb a greater amount of impact during hard training. In terms of longevity, this reduces the likelihood of developing conditions like tendonitis, sprains, and strains, as well as arthritis.
Triathletes are particularly susceptible to these kinds of complications if they try to get by without resistance training because swimming, running and biking don’t require great strength and the ‘fast twitch’ muscle fibers that are not used will become weaker over time.
When you’re young you might get away with not maintaining these ‘fast twitch’ fibers, but the older you get, the more important strength training becomes to your athletic longevity.
And now we come to some important points about limitations and recovery.
When you were in your prime, you may have been able to go weeks without taking a day off from training, but as a post-prime athlete, your off days are at least as important as your training days. And what you do in the interval between training sessions is at least as important as the sessions themselves.
You may still be able to do the same tough workout that you did years ago, but just like the ageing tradesman, you cannot do them without breakdown in the absence of adequate recovery.
Post-prime athletes need more time to recover between the most demanding training sessions and that time needs to be devoted to outright rest, active recovery, or advanced recovery practices like yoga and meditation. Of course, a well-balanced diet will also aid in recovery, longevity and your overall quality of life.
As an educator who worked with high school students for 15 years, I often saw the “I can’t do this” attitude get in the way of achievement. Self-imposed limitations based of a perceived lack of intelligence or bad habits often had to be overcome, and once they were, an opening of the floodgates followed as a new reality emerged. The point is that any venture begun by asserting that we can’t do something won’t result in success – even if we can do it.
An article published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine. (Wright and Perricelli, March 2008), illustrates this point further. It analyzed the performance times at the 2001 National Senior Olympic Games for athletes aged age 50 to 85.
These trained post-prime athletes demonstrated that there was indeed an average year-to-year decline in speed after 50. But that limitation was small and barely noticeable until about the age of 75.
Men and women, sprinters (and distance runners) up to age 85 who participated in the 2001 Games, showed an average yearly percentage of decline in performance across all distances and ages of only 3.44% for men and 3.36% for women. And most of that average decline occurred between ages 75 to 85.
What this tells us it that training for competition is not only possible as we age, but that age only limits us to a relatively small degree. But when we accept statements like “You’re too old for that” or, “I never saw a machine yet that was run hard and lasted long”, or “If you keep that up you’re going to hurt yourself.” You accept limitations that are self-imposed and contrary to the facts.
The facts are these: The authors of the study above noted that Muscle power is lost at a greater rate than endurance capacity and that makes strength training a top priority.
They also said that since the nerves that activate muscle cells also degenerate with age, and muscle cells require stimulation from these motor nerve cells to function, they will weaken if not stimulated by strength training. So it all boils down to “use it or lose it”.
The principles of longevity training assert that self-imposed limitations based on false premises weaken us, while limitations we set for ourselves based on knowledge and experience improve our prospects for longevity and opening the floodgates to a new reality.
So, “What are you trying to prove?”
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Muscle Mass and Longevity
Trilongevity
A personal note to my readers:
This article has been delayed in publication due to personal struggles as I continue to mourn the passing of my son, Greg. As you know, my work is dedicated to him and serves as a way to continue on in the face of adversity, as he would have done himself. In this challenge, I am inspired by the examples of Greg’s sisters Michelle and Melissa, who are both powerful athletes in their own right, and my dear wife of 43 years, Cheri. I apologize for the delay and take this occasion to summarize what this endeavor is really all about.
As the course of our life unfolds, we are all engaged in a struggle to survive, prosper and procreate. Although prosperity and procreation are to some extent optional undertakings, the struggle for survival is not.
When we face outward into the world, it can seem as if we are in a game where the rules are unforgiving and the stakes are very high. But if we take the time to look inward on ourselves we can discover a very different reality where peace and tranquility reside. This is a place of respite and restoration apart from the physical world in which the spirit resides in its most authentic and powerful state.
When we enter into a human body at the time of our birth, the struggle for life creates a framework within which our individual strengths, weaknesses, talents and character are revealed.
The “Tri” in Trilongevity
The term ”Trilongevity” refers to achieving a long and good life through training of the body, mind and spirit. Within this context, the human spirit is viewed as the capstone over a pyramid whose base and middle are the body and mind.
Mind and body are closely knotted together in the physical world and deeply engaged in the game of life. The spirit endlessly stands witness to the unfolding of human events and it infuses both the body and mind with life force.
Just as it is possible to function physically in the world without giving much thought to the processes of respiration or digestion, it is also possible to function mentally without paying much attention to the spirit. But when conscious attention to the spirit is lacking our life will thirst for purpose. On the other hand, when the spirit is called upon with intention, beauty and commitment will surge into every aspect of our life and all of our activities. The Trilongevity approach acknowledges this important quality of life aspect in its principles.
When one engages in athletics (or any other form of worldly endeavor), the mind directs its attention to immediate events and uses the body as an instrument for action. Through physical training, an athlete achieves readiness for competition one workout, one step and one breath at a time by the perfection of mechanics, form and function. In Trilongevity training, the mind learns to discipline itself by placing steady and concentrated attention on a goal.
As we age we become more adept at whatever we repeatedly do with concentrated attention. The act of practice in athletics toward trilongevity also brings improvement in every other sphere of life, so we become better readers if we read, better plumbers if we plumb and better runners if we run. Success gained through intentional discipline over time is in fact the key to survival, procreation and prosperity.
But when an athlete has aged past the prime years, physical skills and mental capacities undergo a parallel decline. Eventually age brings each of us to a point where the conjunction between the triune of body mind and spirit is ended and the animating force of the spirit returns to its own realm so the gift of life can be given elsewhere.
Through Trilongevity training, a person who has developed experience using the discipline of mind to sharpen the skills of the body may also choose to redirect that same concentrated attention inward toward the spirit. In doing so, the problems of the world are diminished, the unforgiving rules of the game are rendered fair and what is at stake is discovered to be immortal in nature.
This is deep concentration, the deliberate, intentional connection of consciousness with the spirit. As a byproduct of this kind of meditation, the mind achieves tranquility, the body gets deep rest and the spirit comes to dominate all aspects of life.
Through this inner experience we discover that the real race can only be won when the last breath of life is spent and we humbly accept the wreathe of immortality from the hands of our benevolent creator.
Trilongevity principles can guide us to seek the true purpose of life through body, mind and spirit.
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Proving Ground
Iron Owl
This week’s blog is a little different, but it will return to its original format next week.
I’m publishing here a chronicle of my first few days of formal training for Ironman Florida to introduce readers to the new Trilongevity webpage “Iron Owl“. I need to say at the outset that running a race of this distance for the first time, at my age (63 on race day), may, or may not be consistent with promoting my longevity as an athlete, but that’s what I intend to find out.
I will use all of the principle and techniques we have discussed in these blogs over the last six months to get to the finish. My goal is to complete the distance without injury or excessive stress and to be a stronger and better athlete in the longevity sense, when I’m done.
I intend in the process to prove that the principles of longevity training can be applied in the toughest arena possible. Along the way I will learn new things and share those experiences with you.
I’ll be following a 20-week training program written by Scott Herrick. I’ll explain more about why I chose this particular plan as we progress through its stages and I’ll also note How I may choose to modify it based on the principles of longevity training I outlined in my blogs titled: “Moderation“ and “The Moderation Limit”.
So, let’s begin.
Days remaining 138
Even though I’ve been training and competing as a triathlete for four years, I am still a beginner at this distance. Completing two 70.3-mile events has taught me respect for the distance to be covered and given me experience with the preparation needed to finish strong.
Today’s workout consisted of a 5-mile run and a long open water swim. The plan called for a 45-minute run at easy pace and a pool workout with an 800 yard warm up and a 2500 yard main set at easy to moderate effort, followed by a 200 yard cool down. Because the weather was nice and there were only a few boats on the lake where Mom lives, I chose to keep the warm up and cool down unmodified and replace the main set with an open water swim of 1.5 miles working on form and rotary breathing at moderate effort. Finished well, but suffered a leg cramp in the right hamstring when standing after the cool down.
Days remaining 137
Today calls for another 45-minute run at an easy pace and a 60-minute workout on the bike trainer. I’m feeling pretty good after the swim yesterday and have decided to go to my gym, the Seacoast Sports Club at Greenleaf. I chose a video bike routine and used a heart rate monitor on a spin trainer endurance routine at level 5 for one hour. Since I rode on the high end of the heart rate and cadence parameters and combined the ride into a bike/run brick, I cut the run time to 30 minutes.
Days remaining 136
The training plan I am following is based on the principles of periodization. The approach is broken into cycles based on calendar days and tied to a yield period of peak performance on the days of scheduled competitive events. In this case my Ironman race day. This is why each days chronicle is titled “Days remaining”
I’m not going to get into a discussion of micro, meso and macro cycles here, suffice it to say that the training demand is designed to produce a progressive increase in work load and intensity level within cycles that are cut back periodically to allow recovery under a more moderate level of exercise demand.
Today, the micro cycle calls for a race specific swim workout that I completed without modification.
Swim workouts are coded to give warm up (Wu), Main set (Main) and cool down (Cd) distances (in yards) along with the rate of perceived effort (RPE, how hard you are pushing yourself) on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is maddeningly easy and 10 is flat out, 100 percent burning.
The workout today:
Wu: 4X75, last 25 in each backstroke
Main: 3X400 1= RPE 3, 2= RPE 4, 3=RPE 5
Cd: 150 easy
I took on some water during the backstroke because I haven’t done it for years, but the rest of the warm up went well. But I found the main set to be demanding and fatigue caused my feet to sink lower in the water. From this I learned that I should work on my kick and core strength. I’ll talk to my trainer about this.
Days remaining 135
A 90-minute long run at easy pace today. For all runs over an hour I wear compression socks for the reasons described in my blog titled: “Compression”.
I also put down a yoga mat and stretch for ten to fifteen minutes after all my long runs. I concentrate on loosening my lower back, hamstrings and hips. All work is done lying flat with no ballistic movement. I also elevate my legs and do deep breathing during this recovery period as described in the same blog. Frequently, I will drink a soy protein shake with Banana or fresh strawberries added within a half hour of the end of a long run.
Ironman Florida will be a proving ground for trilongevity training principles at the ultimate race distance. Follow the chronicle here: Iron Owl
Athletes as Positive Role Models
Assateague Assault
My first father’s day since Greg’s passing. We were up early today for the Assateague assault triathlon in Berlin, Maryland. He was there for me even though he generally didn’t like to get up early on weekends. The air conditioning over night probably would have had bothered his sinuses but he didn’t complain. It was Father’s day and we were just enjoying the time together.
We had a quiet breakfast, threw the bags in the truck and snapped the bike into the fork lock.
Coffee on the way; we always enjoyed that, and today it was especially important to help focus the mind on the details of set-up and execution. Details sometimes cause me to forget that Greg’s nearby, but he always pops up to point things out along the way or give encouragement when a challenge crops up.
We first saw the ponies coming over the bridge leading onto Assateague Island, stocky and scruffy looking, in groups of three to five beside the road and along the shoreline. They have the run of the place and they leave piles of road apples everywhere. Mental note from Greg, delivered flatly: “Keep that shit off your shoes and tires at all costs”. We smiled together.
At 5:45 AM the sun was mostly obscured as it just kissed the pale horizon with a thin strip of light. Thick clouds above the line promised an overcast day ahead. Light wind, humid. Good, we weren’t ready for heat.
New England had not yet seen a hot day and most of our spring training had been against a chill east wind under gray skies along the rockbound northeast coast. Conditions good for the character, but sometimes bewildering to the spirit. When Greg was there the sun shone even on the darkest days, but sometimes he stayed away because I needed solitude. He was good about that.
At the starting line, my wet suit felt a bit snug. Strength training in the pre-season added a few pounds to my upper body and the suit felt constricted in the shoulders chest. I wondered if I needed it at all in these warmer Maryland waters. Mental note from Greg, delivered sagely: “You probably won’t be wearing one at all in Panama City four months from now so enjoy it while you can”.
He looked out silently over the gray breakers, “Let’s go”.
T1 was behind us as the breathlessness of the swim-to-bike transition passed into a rhythmic spin of feet and sips of half-strength iced tea from the bottle mounted between the aero bars. A flat course, so not much gear shifting until the bridge rise where pony shit piles presented an amusing chicane of ins and outs. Greg reminded me of the need to hydrate now and complained that there would be no beer tent at the finish. He would think of that.
Cramped up at T2 as my struggle to plug my feet into pre-laced running shoes clenched my right calf into a grip of pain. “You really need to get those elastic yanks so you don’t have to go through this again. Ask Michelle to get them for you for father’s day if you don’t want to spend the damned 5 bucks yourself ”. I ignored him and put on my hat.
As often happens when one thing goes wrong, other complications follow in a cascade. As I limped toward the run exit I couldn’t close the clasp my race belt and the tugging snapped the number sheet free on one side making it flap in the breeze. Greg reminded me it was just a distraction: “ Ignore it, we need to work on getting your stride smoothed out”. Damn it’s hot!
The chutes were about 100 yards ahead now and we were in full stride. A quick glance back showed two of three runners within striking distance. We hit the afterburner and no one passed.
Another finish line crossed. Exhausted, I re-entered the world of the living.
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Healing
It was night, but the sky was a hazy yellow mist, lighted by indistinct globes as I passed upward in a weightless ascent suspended gently on all sides. In a moment of pause I was twisted to one side so my left foot could be removed from where it was entrapped in an iron grip of bent metal. I rose, with detachment, out past the place where the roof should have been, floating gently to ground where my head was strapped to a board, and faint voices asked me what day it was and the name of our president.
J
ust a moment before this surreal flight, I was at complete peace., immersed in a powerful and restful presence, embracing no thought or desire, only sensing profound calm.
But something had gone terribly wrong, hadn’t it? Where was I? And at that very instant of self-awareness, serenity was stripped away and immediately converted to confusion. Reluctantly, I reentered my broken body to deal with the aftermath.
Only a week before I had run into the chutes at the finish of the Boston Marathon in the company of my beautiful daughter, Michelle, who was racing 26.2 for the first time for the Dana Farber Team. She had convinced me to run through the New England winter as her training partner, something I had not done in decades.
Still in her thirties, Michelle was in great shape and I struggled to keep up as I joined her for the last half of the course. She had saved me from the lethargy I was struggling with as I grew older and she reconnected me with the joys of running and the most precious gift of a daughter’s love. I felt better than I had since I was in my thirties and the road ahead stretched out as far as the eye could see. The excitement of competition beckoned again.
Awakening in the emergency room to the realities of my damaged knees, ankles, cracked ribs, and a cerebral hemorrhage was the beginning of 18-months of rehabilitation brought about by a brief moment of inattention on a rainy night. I didn’t know it at the time, but that awful event was the beginning of a bold new direction in my life.
To this day I have no recollection whatsoever of the events leading up to the crash. I only know the details from reading a police report. It told of a young driver crossing the centerline into my lane on a darkening road. Fortunately she was not seriously injured. There was no malice or substance abuse involved, just fate at work. From my vantage point, I was just coming home on a familiar road and the lights suddenly went out.
For more than a year after I felt old and broken. At the age of 57, I was convinced that my athletic life was ended. Walking a mile was an ordeal on knees so stiff I needed arm support to get up from a chair. But despite the toll taken, I did come back. I credit good medical care, an honest effort over a long period of time, a loving wife and children and a merciful Creator. The ability of the human body to repair itself is startling, the influence of a positive attitude is transformative and the authority of a prevailing spirit is without parallel. These are just the facts.
I got the news today that a good friend suffered injuries in a bicycle crash comparable to those I’ve lived through myself. My heart goes out to him, but so does this message: My friend, you have a loving wife and children and you possess a magnificent human body with startling ability to repair itself when driven by positive attitude and connection to an overriding spirit. By the Creator’s grace you will be made whole again, it’s just a matter of time and determination.
Recovery from injury and setback is a matter of the body, mind and spirit. These are the “Tri” in Trilongevity.
Every good workout produces a series of minor injuries in response to stress as muscles are stretched and ripped and the allostatic systems jump into action to restore our bodily balance. The healing that follows is a mostly automatic adaptation that can be sharpened by a disciplined mind when conscious control is exerted over work, rest and replenishment. Ultimately, healing occurs out of the resources of spirit that drive our destiny.
More serious injuries are no different in substance than minor ones, but they are certainly different in scale. Both large and small injuries automatically call up the body’s subconscious restorative powers, but in serious cases the mind takes a much larger role. Work, rest and replenishment will need to be modified in a disciplined way and the spirit must be allowed to govern.
If medical augmentation is needed, an injured athlete should retain responsibility for decision making when it comes to invasive procedures, surgery and the like. To abandon trust in your own restorative power is a mistake. Time is a much bigger factor in healing from serious injury than is generally recognized. From my own experience I have learned that surgeons love to cut and nature loves to heal. These two paths to recovery are not mutually exclusive, but nature should always take the lead.
And this is where the spirit looms large. Has not your body always done what you called on it to do when given work, rest, replenishment, and time? When it failed was it not due to a lack of these or impatience with the course of events?
Destiny is what it is and cannot be forced. The aftermath of injury will play out as surely as the sun will rise tomorrow, but actions consistent with a respect for the gift of the body we are given and trust in the spirit which is a manifestation of the Creator’s plan, will surely bring an acceptance of the outcome, a satisfaction of the mind and a body as intact and functional as it is meant to be.
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Silver Owls
This blog is re-posted for my friends at Coe-Brown Academy in Northwood NH. As I leave the Academy to embark on a new adventure in life, I will always remember you and your kindness and dedication to making so many young lives richer. I wish each of you success and longevity in you careers and in life.
It could have been the flash of a mirror in the low angle of the morning sun that first pulled my attention down the boulevard, or maybe it was a blaze of color that drew my eye to the rhythmic pattern of approaching action.
At first, they were just barely there, riding at an hour when I was just beginning to stir my morning coffee. As they approached, I could see they were fully committed to a hard workout at a time when most people were still sleeping off the excesses of a Saturday night in Southern California.
At the time, I was34 years old and had already discovered strands of silver hair stretching from my forelock back the crown of my head. As a young professional, I’d sometimes run a little to keep in shape, but I had lost that youthful connection to my basketball and track days in high school. As an athlete I was a dabbler, and like many other people my age, I had resigned myself to the fact that my best athletic days were in the rear view mirror.
It was 1983, and after living my entire life in the northeastern United States, I was happy to be on the west coast to observe the San Diego outdoor lifestyle I had heard so much about back home.
On the day before the start of a week of meetings, I chose to have an early breakfast in a small restaurant in the vicinity of the Embarcadero Marina. It was a sunny, bright and cool morning, and from a window seat I looked down a long stretch of curved, traffic-free road approaching my location from the water’s edge.
It was then that I first saw them, perhaps a dozen in number, tucked in a close line and moving as if they were one. Suddenly, the trailing rider kicked out and attacked the lead with such power and headlong determination that I stopped chewing my toast and just gawked!
You see, I’d never seen a cycling team in motion like that before, and although it’s much more commonly observed today, three decades ago it would have been a very rare sight on a New England road.
As the riders advanced my heart leapt again. Their dark glasses, shoes, and helmets struck a sharp contrast against the colorful riot of their shimmering close-fit attire. Surely these lean and practiced athletes were part of some elite race team in pre-season training before their next assault on the French Alps. Imagine my delight when they all leaned to the right and entered the empty restaurant parking lot.
The glare of direct sunlight outlined speeding silhouettes as they passed the window and parked their cycles against a nearby fence. At the time I knew little about bicycles so I can’t recall many details about them, but I knew for sure that I wanted to get one of my own and learn to ride like they did.
I put down my cup and watched the door in anticipation of their entry, wanting to study every detail of their gear and attitude. I was stunned beyond my expectation to see that half of the riders were women, but certainly not girls. As the helmets came off, stylishly cut silver hair was shaken out over bright and high-spirited smiles. The men were of an equal age, or perhaps even a bit older, but each of them was lean and angular.
Although I didn’t know it at the time, this was my first encounter with the athletes I now call “silver owls”. They train, compete and live as if they are still in that period of activity that defines youth. They are of no specific age but they have carved out a lifestyle for themselves that is boldly athletic and makes no apology for it.
Since that day, I’ve aged a 28 years, learned to ride high-performance bicycles, run three marathons, competed in dozens of triathlons and played about every sport you can name.
And as my own hair has turned completely silver, I’ve discovered that on that day I was inspired, despite being past my prime years, to embark on a new journey through life as an athlete. It’s a decision I’ve never regretted because it led me to define and pursue the longevity lifestyle I glimpsed for the first time on that golden morning in San Diego.
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