70 plus and still going

I've got a few more years until I hit 70 but my plan is to keep running, biking & swimming etc until I drop, there are lots of older runners that are still racing and turning in good times.

Maryselina wrote: »

Wow that’s great lot of interesting exercises I’d always wanted to row but only got to do this in the gym. Bet it’s great flying up the river or is it across the sea? How far have you gone / go?
Sadly I’m a coward when it comes to horses though. You are a busy girl what does your weight training entail?

I'm not the person you asked, and I'm 'only' 63, but do row on water in season, usually 4 days a week. It's very fun. I usually row a double with someone else, and my most frequent double partners are women who are each 72. Occasionally I row a single, quad (4 rowers, 2 oars each), four (4 rowers, one oar each), or 8 (8 rowers, one oar each, always with a coxwain to steer). (There's a guy in our club who's well over 80 who's still rowing daily, including in Winter when ice-free. He usually rows a single by himself . . . especially in Winter! We've had people as old as 81 take our learn-to-row class in Summer.)

Watching rowing is a little deceptive: If you want to "fly up the river" at speed, it looks graceful and easy when done well, but is an intense, heart-pounding level of exertion, as hard as you want to make it. I shoot for max speed sometimes (usually as intervals, occasionally distances, used to race occasionally but haven't in a few years), but spend a lot of time at steady state (mid-aerobic) kind of pace, which isn't all that fly-y. (It's a bit faster than canoeing or kayaking.) We usually row 7K +/- a kilometer or two, in a bit less than an hour on the water, which includes some water breaks and slow bits for direction changes, docking, etc., and row 4 days a week if weather allows. (I spin two other days, and do some other miscellaneous stuff irregularly for fun (biking, walking, etc.). I've rowed for several hours a day at rowing camp; I think the farthest one-session row - semi-continuous, i.e., with water breaks - was probably around 12K. I've raced distances from 1K to 3 miles.

Right now, where I live, it's (sigh) rowing machine season, and specifically Concept 2 Holiday Challenge season. For the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, I aim for around 8K a day plus a bit, about 6 days a week, usually as 4 x (2K row, 2-3 minutes drink & sweat-wiping break), plus a little cool down. That's about 40 minutes of actual rowing, usually. Spin class is still 2 days a week. I usually add some weight training in Winter, once I get through the Holiday Challenge and back off the machine rowing to a more moderate level, and try to throw in some swimming (I hate swimming, but a rower's gotta swim!) occasionally.

In more direct response to the OP, I don't run. I'm deferring surgery for a torn meniscus, and have some knee OA. Those things don't much appreciate exercise that involves impact or knee torque, but rowing and cycling are doable without too-annoying discomfort. I hope to keep rowing . . . forever, I guess.

I had a neighbor who did Jazzercise three times a week when she was well into her 90's. I once asked her if she had been athletic all her life. She said she never worked out until she was in her 40's. Guess it's never too late to adopt healthy habits!!