Feeling your age?

Little Katie (in the bike helmet and huge t-shirt) next to her sister Charlotte, Brother Mark at the end.

In general, I do not feel my age because I am fortunate enough to be in fairly good health for a woman who will be 81 very soon now. It is well known in my sporting circles that, coached by my husband Steve, who recently celebrated his own 70^th birthday, that I am still in training for major events in Europe next year, since every race I was on the start list for this year, has been set forward to 2021. 

Having your race programme put on hold for a whole year though, has had consideration attached to it that would not occur to a twenty-year-old athlete. A year is a long time when in truth, you are already on the less favourable side of the odds.

Yet it is also true that I am in a good place training wise. Just a bit short on the swim training but that is not something that can be totally lost, a bit like riding a bicycle but there is less damage done by missing a few swims than there would be if I had missed bike training time. My biking is going well because there has been an increase in time spent on the bike and the same goes for my running where we have more than doubled our weekly mileage. 

The last five months have been used well in our household and I have frequently offered up thanks that I have a life partner who is as keen on the same sport and that we can work out together. How dreadful it must have been for those who don’t even like the person they live with let alone be happy to spent almost all their time together.

So no, I don’t feel my age a great deal. There are moments though when I do wonder where the years have disappeared to and one of those stop in your track’s times occurred today. We had a call from a woman who has been swimming with us since she was a little girl of six years old, dragged along by her mum who didn’t want to miss her own swimming and could not leave her little girl at home. She rang today to thank Steve and I for her birthday card and little present.

I asked little Katie jokingly how she felt about being another year older and she said “It means I am one year closer to 40”! She blurted out. We have been running a club for 30 years. Now that made me feel old!

This last photo shows your left to right. Charlotte who is a nurse, Club coach Steve, Katie in white and fellow swimmer Anthony Towers all preparing for the 2-mile pier2pier sea swim on the Isle of Wight.