Age Wise

The Motivating Power of an Age-Based Fitness Goal

Join me in the #DoYourAge Fitness Challenge to improve your physical health and mental well-being

Fitness ought to be fun, and the author gets a lot of it on a mountain bike. Here he prepares to ride into Sedona, Arizona’s Canyon of Fools, which ought to prove something. All photos courtesy Sean Gates.

UPDATE 5/13/22: I made it! It was a heckuva challenge, especially the last 15 miles, and especially mentally. My 21-year-old son joined me for the last 30 miles, and having a riding buddy along helped a lot. Anyway, the article below remains as originally written. And now, I encourage you: Go find your “mountain” and climb it!

The original article:

Goals are vital for motivating us to stay fit. But as we slide into middle age and beyond, setting motivational goals gets tricky, since we know we’ll never be as strong or as fast as we once were. Not even close.

In my twenties, I could run six-minute miles in the 10K of a short triathlon, my daily training motivated by nothing less than the free T-shirt. Today, I can’t jog one lousy mile in under 11 minutes. Yet, I’m fully aware that even moderate physical activity — anything that gets the bones moving and the heart pumping — improves mood, helps keep the mind and body…