I live my life in the 30/60 syndrome, coasting along with the dreams and goals of a 30-year-old-woman when I’m actually in my sixties. This I believe to be a common syndrome experienced by both men and women of a certain age. Support groups in the form of gyms and sports clubs can be found around the country.
When I was younger, I scoffed at the wrinklies who said, “I’m 75 but I only feel 25.” I can remember the forced smile on my face as under my breath I muttered, “Yeah, right Grama!” And as a thirty-year-old, I had cringed when the mothers and aunties of my friends joined us on nights out or wanted to tag along with us to the gym or join our netball team. I scoffed and rolled my eyes at the oldies mixing it up with the ’30 somethings’ but now? now I totally get it.
It’s not that I am clinging on to my past or that I’m looking for that elusive elixir of eternal youth but I am trying to reverse away from the grave and enjoy every day that I can, being as active as I can. That said, you might find me in a gym but you will never find me in a nightclub, that I will definitely leave that to the younger generation.
The active older generation is a growing movement if you go to your local gym you will find a great cross section of the over 50’s, bizarrely flexible and with stamina that defies their age. With steely-eyed determination, they keep lifting, stretching, running, cycling and swimming their way to that holy grail of an impressive ‘healthspan’. My equestrian career came with its own intense workout, so I have always been relatively fit but in 2009 my life took a turn in a different direction.
Late in the day of Christmas eve 2008 I was told that I had triple negative breast cancer and that I should take it home for Christmas and go back when the festivities were over. My treatment lasted throughout 2009 and into 2010 and was pretty gruesome, taking me a while to navigate my way through it and around it (mainly in my head!) I am sure that it was my fitness level that helped me through the worst of the physical stuff and since then, I have tried to maintain a life of regular activity,
It took a while to get back to where I felt strong enough to consider taking on a challenge but when I came across a charity that was organising a bike ride from London to Paris in aid of women’s cancers, I knew it was the right time and this, despite not having ridden a bike since I was about 12, was the right challenge for me. And so, in September 2018, I will be setting off to Paris on two wheels with a head full of questions and a heart full of hope.
Like a true Gemini, I tend to flit from idea to idea, hobby to hobby and this blog site will reflect that. There will be no tomes or hypothesis on anything in particular, I’m not that clever and my attention span just isn’t up to it. Of course, years on I’m still blaming my memory lapses on ‘chemo brain’ because obviously, it can’t be my age can it, after all, I’m only 30!
Apart from waffling on here, you can also find me on
http://www.instagram.com/Slippers_and_Lycra
and on
Thank you for looking in and I hope you’ll pop by again soon. I might even bake you a cake!
Jo x
