Estate Living Magazine Retirement Living - Issue 40 April 2019 | Page 55

C O M M U N I T Y
The ultimate amateur
Closer to home, our own Galloping Granny, Mavis Hutchinson, first
proved that women can run, and then that ‘mature’ women can run.
When Mavis started running at the age of 36, the accepted wisdom
of the (male-dominated) sporting world was that women could
not run distances of greater than 800 metres. (It was not specified
what terrible fate would befall a woman who did, but it was clearly
a serious health risk.) Well, Mavis – who says she was a timid, sickly
child who regularly fainted, and would not say ‘boo’ to a goose –
proved them wrong, and helped pave the way for women athletes
the world over.
She is one of the first women to have run a standard marathon – and
she did not drop down dead, or suffer from an exploding womb,
or whatever it was that male athletics administrators thought would
happen to women if they ran ‘too far’.
She was also the first woman to run the Comrades Marathon. Mavis
sneaked around the regulations by running unofficially, starting
an hour before the official time so that she was – technically – just
running on the same road, but not on the actual course of the race.
While Mavis was a serious competitor, she was always the ultimate
amateur. She’s never had a coach in her life, has always eaten
whatever she fancies, what was around, or what people fed her,
and – in contrast to most professional athletes – absolutely failed to
specialise. She’s competed – at the highest level – in walking races,
discus, javelin, shotput and running races from 100-metre sprints to
100-mile ultramarathons, and including cross-country.
The consummate professional
Back in the 1960s, most people (including professional golfers)
thought that all you needed to play golf was good hand-eye co-
ordination, sufficient fitness to stroll across the fairway, and lots of
practice making that little white ball go where you want it to go. But
South African golfing legend Gary Player figured you also needed
Dephne Belt
to work on strength, flexibility and aerobic fitness – and the results
showed then, and still show now. Generally accepted to be one of
the greatest golfers to ever have lived, Gary attributes a large part
of his success to his fitness regime. (And, of course, some natural
ability and almost superhuman hand-eye co-ordination.)
At the age of 83, Gary Player does a few hundred sit-ups every day,
can remain for ages unsupported in the horse position – that squat
that martial artists do but that most of us struggle to hold for a few
seconds – and can run, bend, twist and lift. In short, he’s what retired
Irish rugby player Brian O’Driscoll calls ‘arguably the fittest 82-year-
old in the world’. (That was a year ago on a YouTube interview.)
For Gary, fitness was an integral part of his life, and also his livelihood.
As well as regular aerobic exercise and flexibility, he concentrated
on core strength – and still boasts rock-hard abs most 20-year-olds
can only dream of. He was also way ahead of his time in watching his
diet. While his competitors packed away burgers and beers, Gary
thrived on a mostly plant-based diet, and has done for decades.
In short, he is, as he says in the YouTube interview, ‘reaping the fruits
of hard work – and intelligent work.’
Build it, and they will come
So the bottom line is, when building a retirement village, keep the
bowling green because bowls is fun and sociable, but don’t skimp
on the gym and the running, walking and cycling tracks. Staying
fit after 60 is not just for the black knights and galloping grannies:
anyone can reap the benefits of exercise.
Gary’s take-home message for us mere mortals is ‘the best exercise
is walking – and just do some squats.’
And, as Mavis says, ‘you don’t grow old. Only when you stop growing
are you old.’
Jennifer Stern
I
She’s competed in World Masters Games in Sweden in 1977,
Germany in 1979, Japan in 1993, Spain in 2005 and Brazil in 2013.
When asked how many kilometres she’s run in her life, she just
shakes her head and confesses she has no idea – hundreds of
thousands probably.
Not one for clutter, Mavis created mosaics and mosaicked clocks
out of her hundreds of medals, and gave them to friends and family.
But the feat that earned her the delightful sobriquet of ‘The
Galloping Granny’ was her long multistage runs. She had always
wanted to run across the USA, so she started off running between
Joburg and Durban, Joburg and Messina, and Pretoria and Cape
Town. And then she fulfilled her ambition to run across America from
LA to New York, which she did at the age of 53 in 1978, in 69 days,
two hours and 40 minutes – a record that still stands. A few women
have come close to equalling it since – and they’re all in their thirties!
And then, because it was there, she ran the length of Britain from
John O’Groats to Land’s End.
L I V I N G