Estate Living Magazine Retirement Living - Issue 40 April 2019 | страница 54

C O M M U N I T Y
L I V I N G
BEYOND
BOWLS
Gary Player
There was a time when retirement estates built bowling greens for the ‘more active’ residents, and something as
daring as a tennis court or an outdoor pool was considered an unnecessary expense because – well – you know,
old people don’t really do exercise.
Mavis Hutchinson
Dephne Belt
There are literally thousands, if not millions, of over-60s who regularly
run, play squash, do long-distance ocean swims, climb mountains,
paddle marathons and/or hurtle down black-grade singletrack.
These are just the ordinary, everyday people who happen to have
been on the planet for quite a while, and who also just happen to be
physically active.
Most of them are living proof of Christopher McDougall’s awesome
quote in his book Born to Run: ‘We don’t stop running because we
get old, we get old because we stop running.’
In fact, it’s not really that unusual, and – unlike the generations
before the boomers – we don’t expect to sit on the stoep and fade
away after the birth of our first grandchild.
But there are also some phenomenal older athletes – the outliers,
the (rapidly becoming less exceptional) exceptions that show us
that limits are, largely, in our heads.
Gary Player
Late starter
Even if you’ve spent most of your life on the couch, there is hope.
At the age of 50, Briton Daphne Belt was a plump lady who got
seriously out of breath climbing stairs, so she decided to get fit.
And, as she did, she became obsessed with triathlons, winning
European and World championships, and completing a slew of
Iron Mans (a 3,860-metre swim, a 180-kilometre bicycle ride, and
a standard marathon run of 42.2 kilometres). In 2013, she did 75
triathlons in the 75 days running up to her 75th birthday. That was a
1,000-metre swim, a 13-kilometre bike ride, and a 3-kilometre run.
It doesn’t sound like much, but she did it every day for 75 days – at
the age of almost 75.
‘I don’t think that I am extraordinary,’ says Daphne,
but I am part of an extraordinary generation. […] We’re in our 70s,
but we’re young at heart and we have steel in our soul. Everyone my
age is capable of making their mark and helping this world to be a
far nicer place.