Take the Challenge from 50k Active Athlete Challenge on Vimeo.

Diane Jones-Bolton of Nashville, Tennessee joined the 50-k Active/Athlete Challenge after a friend forwarded her information about the Facebook group. She joined the 50-k Challenge because she loves a good challenge, and expects the Challenge to motivate her and help her be accountable. Diane is a Master Of Many (M.O.M.), and works hard to fit her training in with all her other responsibilities. She belongs to a group called Marathon Maniacs (www.marathonmaniacs.com), and has the goal of running 30 marathons in 30 different cities in a year. As you can imagine, this entails spending lots of time and energy just making the arrangements, and Diane gets tons of support from her Maniac friends. Diane has been a super recruiter for the 50-k Challenge, and enjoys encouraging and inspiring people to adopt the healthy habits the 50-k Active/Athlete Challenge promotes.

The 50-k Active/Athlete Challenge promotes the adoption of 5 healthy habits of athletes.

- finding an activity you LOVE

- setting a goal

- making a plan

- be accountable

- get out there, follow your plan, and have fun!

Over the next few weeks I'll be writing more about what these mean and how to accomplish them. As for Diane, it is clear that she LOVES marathons. She has a goal of running 30 marathons in 30 different cities this year. She has a plan, which beyond her training, involves working out the logistics of getting to and from 30 cities to run the races. Diane holds herself accountable by belonging to the Marathon Maniacs group, and making her goals public and shared. She definitely follows through on her plans, and she posts her progress on facebook. Diane is having a great time pursuing her goal, enjoying the company of her Maniac friends, and celebrating her accomplishments with all her friends. Diane is taking the Challenge seriously and being fabulously successful. Join me in congratulating Diane on a great job!

Jim Broun (far right) Taking the Barriers Head On

Jim Woolvin Broun is a 57 year old hurdler, who lives in Sarasota Florida, and who once toured the country with the Woolvin James band, opening for artists such as Hank Williams Junior, Johnny Paycheck, and Alabama. Besides being a musician, Jim played various sports for as long as he can remember, including football, baseball, water skiing, snow skiing, cycling, and track. Jim’s elementary school was very close to the high school, and Jim used to love to go watch the high school hurdlers when they practiced. The high school hurdlers adopted Jim as a sort of mascot, and he learned to hurdle when he was in elementary school. Jim hurdled throughout high school and college, until he got a recording contract, and went on the road with his band.

In 2003, Jim by chance saw that a friend of his from college had won the master’s world championship in the high jump. Jim stumbled across masterstrack.com and saw the vibrant community of master’s athletes, and decided to hurdle again. It was a long road back for Jim, as he was carrying close to 200 pounds on his 5’9” frame. Jim worked his way back, and in 2006 won the world indoor hurdle championships. Getting back into hurdling has changed Jim’s life, and he absolutely loves master’s track and field.

I want to thank all of you who have either contacted me to participate or agreed to an interview. I am amazed by the stories that I am hearing from people as I get to know a little bit about them. So far I’ve heard from people who participate in track sprints, hurdles, in-line skating, handball, field events (high-jump, javelin, and pole vault), distance running, extreme unicycling, swimming, and cycling. I’m amazed at the high level of achievement I’m seeing. More than a few national and world record holders. I’ve heard from people from across the US, and I’m also excited to have the opportunity to interview someone from the Netherlands! I’m extremely excited about this project and I hope you will all be interested in hearing how things develop.

As for my story, I still recall the medical check-up that I had in my mid-thirties where I complained to my doctor about my lower back pain, acid reflux, and a few other small ailments that were bothering me. When he responded to me half jokingly that I was “on schedule”, I started to realize that maybe I needed to take better care of myself. Turned out that with a little physical therapy and a tweak to my diet, I began feeling better. In fact, by the time I hit 40 years old I felt better than I had since my late twenties. The insight I gained was that I needed to employ different strategies than I had in my twenties.

Now that I am in my mid-forties and still very passionate about my sport, I am looking around the bend to my fifties and beyond and thinking about how I can continue to enjoy this important part of my life. Casually looking around and seeing more and more athletes in their 40s, 50s,60s, and even beyond makes me believe that one can continue to make progress and yield big returns from sports well into what many would consider over the hill. Examples like Dara Tores who competes at World Class levels beyond forty are not just a curiosity, but an outcome of a growing awareness that with the right focus, our bodies are capable of more than we expect and that age is not just chronological, but can be modulated by the lifestyles we choose. Two sites that are worth checking out are http://www.geezerjock.com/ and http://www.masters-athlete.com .

I’m giving the first interviews this week, and will be posting summaries and takeaways later in the week. In the next post, I’m planning on sharing some things that I have learned through research I’ve been doing into why age matter for us athletes. Stay tuned!