Why We Do This: It's Got Less to Do With "Body Beautiful" and Everything to Do With Life
You're Too Old to Spend the Rest of Your Life on the Couch: Let's Adventure!
If we want to play late in life we get to work for it
The fire line stretched from the edge of the cool Lower Salmon river waters to the shade offered by a large canopy. Between the canopy and the boats was hot, loose sand, some beach rocks, and us.
“Us” was a line of mostly over-seventy oldsters. We were on the river for a Road Scholar trip, seven days of adventure, river floats, kayaking and seriously badass fun.
The trip is one of many run locally by Oregon River Experiences.
This was the less-than-fun part, where we are asked to help with the schlep. The boats carried our gear downriver, big red waterproof bags full of our tents and personal goods, sleeping pads, chairs and the like. Some of it quite heavy.
At each stop, the guides would secure the boats and get right to work unstrapping the gear.
Their job was to get busy making our food for lunch or dinner. Our job was to get the gear up to the shade where we could grab our kit and set up our tents for the night.
Here’s what that looks like:
The sand is hot, the air is hot. Frankly, people would vastly prefer to go sit in the water or under the shade and watch the guides do the work. Don’t blame them. Daytime temperatures on the Salmon in August can spike to 104. Once off the cooling sprays of the river, it can be brutal.
But the unloading has to be done. The fire line reduces the burden on all of us so that the guides can get busy making our dinner.
This is one of the parts of the trip I love. We sit most of the day, have the occasional short hike, but this is where we earn our calories. I love labor, physical work and the challenge of carrying heavy things up slippery inclines.
The sand, above, is deceptive. It’s steeper than it looks and it’s soft and loose. Carrying big things takes hard work, but trudging uphill, through hot sand, with a load? That will definitely give you a workout.
I love slinging a bag or two and carrying them myself, rather than do the fire line, because it’s hard.
Because it’s hard.
This has nothing to do with showing off. We get lovely long days of sitting on the rafts, some of us ride an inner tube or paddle an inflatable kayak. Most of the trip involves enjoying the river’s force and beauty as we maneuver the currents, rocks and landscapes with expert guides.
I hit the gym at least four times a week to earn my strength and maintain it as I age. Maintenance gets a whole lot harder if we slow down. If I shirk the work, my body and overall health pay the price for it.
I’ve had to slow down a lot these last seven years because of too many surgeries, surgeries which cost me strength, endurance, explosive power and bone density.
This kind of work allows me to earn it back step by slow step. Some options may well be gone forever, but if I want options at all, they are doing to take work.
I was inspired to pen this today because of this Note from
:Most of us think about recovery from injury or surgery as a matter of willpower. Push through, do the rehab, and you’ll bounce back. But biology has its own rules.
A new study looked at what happens to muscle in late-midlife adults (men and post-menopausal women) after just 7 days of leg disuse — the kind of downtime you’d see with an injury or post-op recovery.
The results?
Muscle protein synthesis dropped by ~25%.
Strength fell by 17–24%.
Muscle fibers shrank measurably.
And while a week of rehab helped, it only partially restored strength and muscle protein synthesis. Full recovery will take much longer.
The lesson: every bit of reserve capacity matters. The stronger and fitter you are before illness or surgery, the better your buffer against the inevitable losses. And the sooner you move again (safely), the more you can claw back.
Aging doesn’t just change the rules… it raises the stakes. (author bolded)
When I started the surgical journey at 65 in May of 2018, I was in ridiculously superb shape. While I’ve lost a chunk of that, to Luks’ point, had I not had that reserve of muscle, VO2 capacity and more, I most assuredly would not be doing this kind of adventure right now.
That’s why I bang this drum, support Luks and
and all the others who encourage us to do the work. I very much want you to have options as you age, mobility, strength and endurance. We cannot take them for granted; they take maintenance.As I get ready for a seven-day bike trip with Road Scholar on the Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes, just a few minutes sitting on my bike trainer reminds me that I’ve not biked for a few years, and my big leg muscles are going to be sore. My butt too, but that’s a whole other issue.
I’ve been working out, but the muscle and power loss I’ve experienced due to those surgeries is very real. So is the availability of the comeback.
By the time you hit my age, 72, if you’ve been active, you’ve likely been injured. Many of us sport new parts, many of us have had plenty of surgeries, some of us have had strokes or disease. Each of us dealt with what was dealt us differently.
Often people who have athletic careers and who strongly identify with the power of their youth can have a very rough go when the body inevitably begins to change.
tells the tales of many oldsters who just won’t quit and who continue to push, while learning the key lesson of negotiating terms with their aging bodies. If you’re up for inspiration, I strongly advise his Substack.I didn’t truly develop my real athletic capacity until I hit sixty. Even so there’s plenty of evidence that some things are out of my wheelhouse forever. That didn’t stop me from trying new things.
This was just before I had surgery on both hands, and may well be the only time I ever look this epic just before a spectacular face plant on the mat:
Some of the people on our trip had been through a very rough go. Ray, a dentist, had had two strokes. He was bent over a bit, but still active and engaged, perfectly able of pulling his wet wife Deborah back on board when she was in the drink. That takes strength.
Others had clearly stayed active. Linda (in black) was giving one-on-one yoga instruction to Chen, a friend she had met previously on a Road Scholar horse riding trip:
Nobody on this trip had the Perfect Body Beautiful. Frankly, without airbrushing and AI, who does? We were all well along, grey and plenty of wrinkles on many of us. But able. Able and engaged and active and participating.
This is the part about Road Scholar that I like best. On the more active trips you get to see people your age or older doing all kinds of things that society strips from them by fifty.
The idea (GASP) that older folks are perfectly capable of physical exertion, that they can hike, bike, raft, ride, cycle, you name it, seems soooooo CUTE.
The inimitable Helen Mirren has plenty to say about such condescension.
There’s nothing “cute” about 70+ folks shooting Class II and Class III rapids right behind our paddle boat. That’s not cute. That’s badass. Some of them are hurled into the waters, they promptly get pulled out and immediately want to get right back in and keep paddling.
Not a damned thing “cute” about that.
Plenty of folks far younger who wouldn’t dare try such a thing. I watched people in their seventies take on the Lower Salmon for six days straight. The more people gave it a go, the more others gave it a go.
Here, our Lead Guide Rylin gives instructions to our paddlers just before going into the rapids:
There are big rocks, fast-moving water traps and real dangers on these rivers. It’s not Disney World. When people paddle through, the risks are real. That’s what makes the adventure so inspiring.
There is something wildly aspirational about watching people your age take on something that scares them, or show you their easy skill with a sport like Marty and Peg, who kayak all the time. For them it was second nature.
Readers like
have gone on Road Scholar trips, many others can attest to how communities and friendships swiftly form and continue long afterwards. For my adventure dollar, while my personal preference is for a bit more wild-hair kinds of adventures, this kind of carefully-choreographed trip is perfect.For those who have never done it, there are guardrails, encouragement and solid professional guiding, should you want to give something new a try. For those already engaged in sports, they can play hard, play high and provide an admirable example to their peers to just go do it. Now.
My role on the Road Scholar trip is as a journalist. I love getting roped into the support work when someone struggles with a tent or a heavy bag. That way I get to hear more of the personal stories and walk away with deep, abiding appreciation for how outdoor adventures change lives.
There is nothing stated or implied that you should do an adventure like this. It’s an invitation to see what other people of a Certain Age are willing to do, and the joy that awaits them when they are tested and not found wanting.
That said, I continue to be convinced that rafting is among the very best gateways for older folks to experience the wild, to get inspired to do more, and energized about getting in better shape so that their options expand instead of contract.
No matter what you decide to do, please do your due diligence. Above all, make sure that the operator for your trip specializes in the older traveler. Not all do.
Guides who specialize in older travelers need patience, extraordinary safety-consciousness and a sharp eye for potential hazards for the older traveler, as well as a considerable sense of humor for the inevitable on trips such as this.
For my travel dollar, I’ve now been out on five trips with Oregon River Experiences and have even been on a guide training trip. I’m not only satisfied with the quality of the training, but am pleased with the brand-new crop of young guides from that training trip who are now out on the river or on the biking trail with us oldsters.
I hope all this looks like serious fun. I want you to consider trying something new and different, but above all I want you to be in the kind of physical shape that allows you to play hard, play high, right up until our tickets are punched.
Let’s play.
Heartfelt thanks to
and the many fitness-conscious folks who remind us that life is short, let’s live it well. Thanks to all my subscribers and readers. Please consider:
Holy cow...the numbers from Dr Howard after 7 days w/o opposing gravity w/our bodies. YIKES doesn't begin to capture my eyeballs widening.
As usual, you hit it out of the park, and as usual, your adventure on the Salmon makes me jealous hell! Thanks for the reference to Geezer Jock (I thought that was MY moniker—oh well). And thank you for another inspirational piece !😎💪🏻