If you think your age is reason enough to ditch your fitness goals and settle instead for the odd rousing game of lawn bowls, these super-fit 50-plus gents should inspire you to think again.
Some people seem to have been born with a fitness gene that kicks into action from an early age and motivates them to maintain a lifelong regimen. Others put exercise off until later in life, taking it up in a bid to stave off age-related diseases, or to tackle a physical challenge that’s always tickled their fancy.
Whichever camp you sit in, we’ve rounded up four men who prove it’s never too late to up your fitness game. After reading their stories, you’ll be chomping at the bit to hit the gym.
Don Wildman
Three days a week at his private gym in Malibu, Don Wildman leads a famously gruelling workout known as ‘The Circuit’, which he typically follows with a mountain bike ride in the hills behind his home. He’s also into stand-up paddle boarding and heli-snowboarding. But what’s most telling is that one of his regular training buddies is big-wave surfer Laird Hamilton; at 51 he’s a mere bub compared to ‘The Wildman’ who next month celebrates his 82nd birthday. So how does this octogenarian keep pace with men decades his junior? After serving in the Korean War, Wildman began a lifelong commitment to health and fitness. He built a health club empire and has so far knocked out several triathlons, a nearly 5,000km bike race, both the New York and LA marathons and more. “My father gave me a piece of advice once,” Wildman says, “He said, ‘Never walk. Always run.’” Clearly doing things by halves is not in his make-up.
Marco Olmo
A living legend of extreme running, 67-year-old Italian Marco Olmo started to run at 26 but had to wait until his fifties before he won anything – how’s that for perseverance? Born into a peasant family, he served out most of his working life in the quarries of his native Robilante, Piedmont. In the documentary Il Corridore/The Runner, he explains what drives him, “In my life … I’m a loser. I run to take my revenge, I run for vengeance.” This determination to balance the scales, combined with his love of beautiful landscapes, has seen Olmo complete numerous ultra-marathons across both mountain and desert terrain, winning multiple editions including the 168km Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc two years running. But while his competitors depend on trainers, running tables and special diets, Olmo prefers to rely on his instincts. “Alone with my heart beats [sic] – I feel well and happy,” he says.
Yuichiro Miura
If you’d like to know what it feels like to stand on top of the world, Yuichiro Miura is your man. He’s been there – the summit of Everest that is – three times. Not in what would be considered the prime of his life, but at ages 70, 75 and 80, twice earning a place in the Guinness World Records as the oldest person to climb the 8,848-metre peak. An extreme skier first and foremost, Miura has skied down the highest mountain in each of the seven continents. And despite having undergone six heart surgeries, he shows no signs of slowing down. “I want to ski down Mount Cho Oyu [8,201m] in the Himalayas when I am 85,” he says. No slippers and cardi for this sprightly grandpa – to his grandkids he’s ‘Super G’.
Cyril Baldock
Proving Australian seniors can mix it with the best, Bondi man Cyril Baldock conquered the ‘Everest of swimming’ for the second time last August to become the oldest person to swim the English Channel three months shy of his 71st birthday. He lost the title just one month later, but then he never did it for the glory. He was fulfilling a promise to his former coach Des Renford who gave up his own aspirations to achieve the record after a heart attack. “I told Des that when I got to that age I’d have a go at it. But little did I know over that 30-year period the oldest went up 10 years,” he says. The only living member of the Bondi Surf Bathers’ Life Saving Club to have a patrol named after him, Baldock is something of a local hero – and rightly so, particularly given he was scared of water as a child.
While you may not aspire to be the next ‘Wildman’ or ‘Super-G’, these men clearly show us what’s possible. And as their stories attest, age really is just a number, not an obstacle to achieving your goals.
This story first appeared on former NRMA site Livingwell Navigator in May, 2015.
