Fit After Fifty

I never really worried about fitness until I turned fifty. Even then, it wasn't foremost in my mind.

I had the good fortune of enjoying an excellent Physical Education program at my High School. We had one hour of gym class every morning, five days a week, plus an hour of voluntary after-school sports, Monday through Thursday. We always practiced a different sport each month of the school year. My Southern California church youth group organized activities such as snow skiing and water skiing that I probably wouldn't have had a chance to participate in otherwise. My friend Pauli had horses we rode, and our family did a lot of camping and hiking. In college, I fulfilled my P.E. requirements with gymnastics, volleyball and sailing! So I had always been fairly fit.

Then it got down to the nitty-gritty of life. Of course, you get a lot of exercise carrying around toddlers and lugging baskets of wet laundry out to the clothesline (no dryer for me where I raised my children). And what about that wonderful up-and-down motion of bending down to pick up each piece of laundry, then reaching up to hang it on the line ? And surely ironing an average of two dress shirts per day must help develop the triceps!

But no, I was never really concerned about fitness for all those childraising years. I had too many other things on my mind.

With best wishes for a long and healthy life,

The Jogging Grandma