by Tom Watrous on February 1, 2010
I can’t seem to run as fast as I could. I have aches and pains in my joints. How much of my problems are a part of aging, and what am I willing to give up?
A few years ago I was half way up Mount Rainier. I thought I had prepared myself adequately. I was 56 at the time. I didn’t make it and it was one of the few times in my life I missed a peak. Rainier was an important to me. I had planned on this summit for years. Now I was there and this was the time. The few weeks after that event caused me to learn a very valuable lesson.
I had pain everywhere. The bottoms of my feet hurt. My ankles hurt, my knees and hips hurt. I was so disappointed that I didn’t summit on Mt. Rainier, I was determined that I would do what I could to continue hiking and climbing regardless of the cost. Was I just getting old. Was it time for me to adjust my expectations for myself?
I lived in the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon along the western edge of the Wasatch Mountains (upper east bench of Salt Lake City). I decided I would revisit as many of the hikes I had taken and peaks I had climbed over the previous years as I could. I began hiking the easy trails in Millcreek and Big Cottonwood canyons. Before each hike I wrapped my ankles. I purchased insoles for my sore feet. I placed warming supports around my knees. I took a couple of ibuprofen and started out. I did this for four weeks. What happened next caught me off guard.
About four weeks later, I started feeling pretty good again. I realized that I had strengthened muscles that had grown weak and flabby. As these muscles started doing their work again, my aches and pains slowly disappeared. I took out the insoles, quit wrapping my ankles, and stopped wearing the knee warmers. By the end of that year I was hiking pain free and pushing myself as hard as I had twenty years earlier. I recorded that year on my Maintain Fit personal journal. My last hike that year was a winter ascent on Mount Olympus between Christmas and the new year. I recorded 80,000 vertical feet and 180 miles of trails. Along the way I summited 37 peaks.
What if I had decided that I was too old and that my body was telling me to slow down. To this day I would still have those sore feet, and probably several more problems. The pattern is all too clear. One problem cascades into several. We don’t always know when we can work ourselves out of a problem, or whether it truly is the end of an era. But we will never know if we don’t test it. I am older now. I really am slowing down, but I have tested the theory again this past six months. I broke my femur in July. Once again, I worked hard to get back to my best level of performance (whatever that is, not what it was) and my body is once again responding to hard work and consistency. I don’t hear people talking about this miracle of recovery, especially for older men and women. I may never get back to the tough peaks, but I am on the trails, in the river, walking, hiking and climbing again.
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Photography by Elise McLaughlin
by Tom Watrous on February 1, 2010
It is January. I have been surprised at how busy the gym is. I usually go when fewer people attend so I can enjoy the relative loneliness of a workout. I realized that it is January. Each January and into a little of February people are still working on New Year’s Resolutions. In two more weeks the gym will be quiet again. The larger question is how to stay motivated. Whether your personal choice is running, hiking, weights, aerobics, etc, how do you keep from burning out? Look to your dreams.
My preference is trails and peaks. I love to gain altitude and feel my heart pumping and my lungs taking the punishment. Unfortunately, I broke my femur in July. During my recovery, two dreams have driven me to recuperate. The first dream is one I have had several times in the last twenty plus years. I am running on a trail. It is autumn; I am in the oak brush and mountain maples. The ground cover of tall grass and low bushes is turning yellow. The trail is winding with small spurts of ups and downs and I am running. I feel great. I feel strong and my running is effortless.
Can you imagine a better motivator? That is why I must go to the gym, and get up on the trails. I am too young to give up that piece of my life. I am reminded (in three dimensional full life images with every sense fully engaged) that this is what I love. And I don’t want to give it up.
The other dream is quite opposite. We all have dreams that are somewhat similar. The common thread in these dreams is weakness. I am trying to run from something frightening but I can’t. I am in slow motion grabbing the cracks in the concrete to pull myself along. Since my accident this dream has adjusted to fit my scenario. My accident has left my legs weak, especially my thighs. In my dreams now I fall to the ground but I can’t get up. I am struggling to push myself to a standing position. Last night I was being chased by a huge cinnamon colored grizzly bear who talked. As he approached me I knew that he was going to come after me. I asked, “Is it my turn?”. He responded that it was. The weakness in my legs was enlarged in my dream.
Once again, what a powerful motivator. Each time this dream, or similar one occurs, I wake and remember why I can’t slack off. I am reminded from the depths of my own brain that I must and I will keep working to have the personal strength and health to perform at my best levels. I got up this morning and went for hike. An inch of new snow covered the already two or three feet on the trail. I only got a mile up the trail, but I was on a trail.
I will be on the trail or in the gym next December with a small handful of other diehards. These dreams are even motivating me to run, which I dislike. I am up to one and half miles now. I am so grateful when I am now on a trail, or walking along a stream, or kicking through the fast water that I am back doing the things I love.
I know you have dreams and some of them are like mine. Use their power to keep you doing what you love.
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Photography by Sara Moses
