This morning I ran hard ... 6.34 kms in about 42 minutes. I could taste the salt and feel the sweat running down between my breasts and my shoulder blades. My eyes were burning as the sweat trickled into them. My nose running with heavy mucus, as it seems to be when I push, that I must snort out to the side, into the grass, taught to me by my dad, clearing the passages of my breathing. It feels good to push my body and know it can take it. It feels satisfying to know my heart is beating, my lungs are breathing and my legs are working hard. This body, 59 years old, is meant to work hard, meant to sweat, meant to strain and push.
Isak Dinesen (1885-1962) was right. "Unlike men, who are often getting a little shaky as they approach their sixties or retirement age, many women are feeling more independent, more optimistic, more powerful." (Younger Next Year pg. 4) Women can come into their own as they reach their wisdom years and I am living proof. Seems like just yesterday I was a young woman of 26 with a baby in her arms heading to the doctor. The baby was only weeks old and I was struggling with body image and dropped to a frail 105 lbs before realizing I was killing myself.
Women have a lifetime of change. Biologically we go through so much and endure hormonal changes with or without grace. We either welcome these changes as a woman's journey and embrace it spiritually or we fight kicking and screaming, angry to the core. Either way, as we hit our wise years there begins a journey of understanding. We begin to realize how mother earth nurtures us and we begin to embrace the feminine of our being. I am there now, at 59 years old I begin the one year preparation to move into the second half of my life. I have decided to live to 120 years of age and do it with grace and with strength. This comes from 59 years of dragging and struggling with fitting into the world when I have come to realize I am to stand out. I am choosing to shoot for the biological stretch, of what the human body is capable of, and live to well over 100 years old.
Just in the past year, I have witnessed what my body is capable of taking on. In March 2017, right after my grandson was born, my daughter was beginning her journey back to strength. Her words, "you should train with me Mom!" Those six words changed my life. I have always been fit and continued a life of strength training and group fitness classes, but had dropped off consistency or any sort of plan. By her encouraging and, more-so, challenging me I stepped onto the road and began.
Last year, I completed five long distance running races and three triathlons in my first year of training. That was where it started. The seed was planted and my desire to grow this challenge began. Today I ran 6.34 kms in about 42 minutes. Yesterday I rode with the Barrie Baydogs social ride 42 kms in 2.25 hrs and on Thursday last week I swam 500 meters in open water at Kempenfelt Bay.
I choose to continue to grow and listen to my spirit. I choose to be healthy and let go of the stresses in our world. I am caring about my own needs and bringing them to the forefront of my life and ensuring I am taken care of, because if I don't take care of me, who will?
Walk with me on this journey. Stay beside me and let me encourage you ... Can you put yourself first for a change and let go of the world, just for a minute?
"The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea." Isak Dinesen
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