He's got way more hair than me 🙂
love being a grumpy old man, love not giving a monkey's what I look like and what people think
That's mostly my outlook too Tony 🙂
[i] It's better than the other option.[/i]
Age reversal 😯
Yeah, getting older, it aint exactly a barrel O'laughs.
Knowing that ageing and Death are essential to the evolution of our species, doesn't help.
Yay for happy, happy, joy, joy threads.
😉
I'm 46 and not that bothered. in fact, i'm as fit as I was 20-odd years ago, give or take, I'm lighter, I've got two great kids that keep me young, some good bike riding mates.
On the negatives - with all that ^ comes responsibility, and the stresses of mortgages and pensions and work, and parents that are getting older and will inevitably need more looking after, and there are definitely times when the news announces that life expectancy is now 80-something or whatever it is, and i frankly think that i can't take another 35-40 years of this shite.
And the biggest negative to being 46, is that my wife is 43. And she was 22 when we started going out. 22..... with the body of a 22 year old...... and......
Wrote something long and rather personal. Thought better of sharing it.
40 next year: some things going well (career, beautiful daugher, still in love with Mrs North). Other things going less well (health, hole in my life when I had to give up cycling, working too hard).
Summary: feeling sorry for myself for the last 3 years. Need to follow my own advice to change that.
Guy at work is having his 40th birthday. Feels a bit odd, I'd always thought of him as about 25...
40s great. Excuse to triathlons, ultras and other crazy things rather than other mid life crisis things
50s worse. Too many people dying, kids' lives more serious, aches and pains take longer to disappear. But at least there was an excuse to buy a bike given that only a few years of proper MTB left! And finally reading glasses ....NO!
Oh yeah - forgot about the glasses for DSE use. Struggling to read small print unaided now too, unless it's at arms length and in strong daylight!
Omitn - sorry to hear that.
40s great. Excuse to triathlons, ultras
Yep.... tri done .... got my first Ultra in about 6 weeks
What hit it home was visiting the doctor.
Late-30s, got piles, went to the doc, got prescription for cream, sent home.
Early-40s, got piles, went to the doc, got told he would like to send me for a colonoscopy to check for bowel cancer.
WHOOOAAAAA, WHAAT?? I felt I hadn't changed/aged at all during those visits, but yet it seems just in passing a random number of days of life I am now declared to be at risk of whole new list of things. Old people things. So no, I only occasionally feel my age, I still look younger than I am, and I can still keep up with my teenage nephew over distance running. But it's little things that make me realise I am old. How I always have an anecdote of experience to delight youngsters whatever the situation, that teachers and doctors look far too young to be old enough, how I remember the originals of today's remixes and remakes, and the fact I have a pair of jeans in the cupboard that have been in, gone out and come back into fashion.
went to the doc, got told he would like to send me for a colonoscopy
Oooooh! Picolax 😯
What a bunch of whingers. Just get on with it Ffs. 🙂
Another 43 year old. I'm pretty sanguine about my advancing age and eventual oblivion, I could do without the injuries though, they piss me off. In my 20s and 30s I'd get hurt and just drink through it, these days I'm an invalid for a week every time I stub my toe.
My target is to stay fit enough at 50 to still have the ability to spend the following 5-10yrs yomping through hills and mountains around Europe when the kids are old enough not to need me around all the time.
Very low aspirations then! I've met 60 and 70 year olds out walking and biking in the fells quicker than the average 20 yr old. If you keep exercising, the age related decline is minuscule.
41 here and hating the way that my body is starting to let me down. I go to a gym where the average age is below mine and just cannot keep pace with the youngsters. The new people coming into my unit are younger than me and I hate not being able to whupp them in PFAs.
It just takes so much longer to recover from serious exercise these days and there's more pain whilst it is happening.
It sucks
48 on Sunday, two six year old daughters and a 39 year old wife. I feel relatively fit and am of a slim build still, but don't like my grey hair (at least I have hair I guess) and don't like the fact I now need bifocal glasses to work properly.
I can't help but feel my best days are behind me and one day I will wake up, take ill and give the whole family a scare (family history of various ailments)
60 next birthday and I'm busy every day, plenty of indulgences, travelling lots and going surfing next week. Lost a stone and a half since giving up selling my labour power. Live in the moment.
I felt pretty good up to 60, couldn't really feel any dramatic changes happening. Get aches and pains now, noisy knees, housemaids elbow. Coming downhill off Blencathra via Hallsfell Ridge the other day was seriously hard work. I would have jogged down a few years back. The bike is much gentler on joints. Apart from that I still feel fairly fit, curse at all these young, slow people getting in my way strolling through town, eat and drink much as I always have. Never done ciggies or drugs though.
Turned 37 this year...
Work/Life balance is good (decent job 3 mins walk from my house)
Reasonably CV fit.
Reasonably strong.
No nasty health issues that I'm aware of.
Nice bike.
Awesome wife and kids (7 and 5 year old boys who like bikes)
Generally happy but WT actual F is ear/nose hair and bristly eyebrows about?
Ear hair because you have no need to hear anyone else past 45 - you know it all.
Nose hair to enhance the effect of your shit being odourless, obviously.
Eyebrow hair is still a mystery.
I'm 47 and probably just hitting my prime as far as an all-rounder, mind and body thing. I was probably stronger 10 years ago but my mind just wasn't there. Had about three years of aches and pains due to injuries but now back on track and not suffering at all from the usual oldman groans when moving.
Old age doesn't bother me. To be really frank, I didn't ever see beyond 30 anyway as I was going to top myself. Some days I'm kinda glad I didn't...
Back issues for years & cartilages on both knees repaired. Gall bladder removed & cataracts sorted. Arthritis in my knee makes walking down the fells rather painful but manageable.
Did my first mountain bike ride in the Yorkshire Dales last weekend after a year off with my bad back. Surprised myself that I actually rode some of the hills I thought I'd be pushing. Also work 3 days a week which is nice too.
Can't really complain looking at the state of some of my friends & colleagues. Been to too many funerals in last few years 🙁
Btw I'm 68!
50 years old and been retired for the past two years, time rich, money poor. 11 years as a type 2 diabetic with some related issues and trying my hardest to recover fast from a torn rotator cuff and subsequent frozen shoulder. Despite healing slow which goes with the territory of age and diabetes, I'm alive, I feel like I'm about 36 in my head and have learnt to take much better care of myself and have found I am a lot more chilled out than ever I used to be. Dramas and crisis can always be sorted out and possessions are only luxuries.
I've even started running again (18 years after packing up running when I retired from playing rugby) for pleasure with MrsS who has taken up sport after 49 years of avoiding it.
I may not be able to hang onto the bars on anything decent off-road at the minute but the hills will be there next year once I'm healed as will my bikes so hey, what's the point in stressing....in the meantime bring on the next international standard wheel size.....
Hating it and feeling grumpy all the time. Now 66 and lost a lot of the fitness I had at 56 and can't seem to get it back. Since move to Scotland 11 years ago have ridden much less and now climbs are a real strain, balance not so good now so struggle with technical sections. Hearing going, eyesight going (now wear varifocal specs which are a pain).
Worst thing is that I can see myself looking more and more like my dad who is 87 and in a nursing home.
Mixed feelings for me. I've just turned 47 and on the whole I've enjoyed my 40s more than my 30s and 20s, I'm reasonably fit, just spent 4 days mountain biking in the Alps with Mr Pea and 2 friends. We have a cute little house, nice bikes and a lovely family. We still go to rock concerts. I don't care about having a few grey hairs and not being able to drink alcohol.
On the other hand, I have a stressful job, and I suffer from both migraine and recurrent depression for which I have no effective treatment, and my parents and all their friends seem to be in very poor health which is a bit grim.
[i]Turned 37 this year.[/i]
You've got [i]ages[/i] yet. Toddler.
Worst thing? Knees. Weak knees. I was only saying after football on Monday how I sometimes see people on TV dropping to their haunches and bouncing back up again. I'm so jealous of that. And that lad that jumped off the railway platform to get his phone - all I could think was... shit, I used to be able to jump like that.
If I hadn't just knackered by ageing back, it'd have been me being swept
This Saturday I'll be sweeping the Speyside Way race, having ridden 120 miles to get there on Friday
Every day/week/month that goes by has me thinking that I'm running out of time.
This^
Too much to do and so little time to do it. Don't like getting slower as well.
Somebody please stop time!
I'm 72 and must say the aging process does indeed suck, but all-in-all, glad to still be here and, after 25 years at it, still on the MTB at least 2 days a week.
Ride slower, less high-risk, technical stuff and take more rest stops-----but so far still making it back to the pickup each ride.
As Drac says ^^ better than the other option.
58 last May and after cancer a few broken bones in the past and cancer treatment a couple of years ago it doesn't get any easier. 🙁
This kind of sums it up for me. I got on better as I got older.
Yet another 43 year old here, 44 in a couple of months, and I'm not too worried at the moment - I spent 6 hours this morning running and hiking around some of the local mountains, done 2 ultras this year... I'm probably fitter than I've ever been 8)
42 and things ache that I didn't know could before. Food is starting to disagree with me, or rather stuffing myself the way I used to is. Bowel doesn't behave quite so perfectly, though odd regularity to things now 😀
So that's physically how I feel.
Financially lets me spend more on bikes though and go more places which is a bonus. Then again I've broken and injured way more things in the last 5 years or so than in the rest of my life, and I don't just bounce off the ground like I used to 😀
As for age though. It's that point where you think 40s could be half way through life, maybe less for a bloke going by average life expectancy. Though I'm hoping by the time I'm 60 average will be 100 😀
Does focus your mind on wasteful time though. I was nuts on films, collected hundreds of DVDs, spent all my spare time watching them, went to the cinema often. Now I find sitting down for a couple of hours to watch a film seems like a waste of valuable time. Riding the bike for a couple of hours seems more rewarding. Less enthusiasm for work though as hours sat at a desk is just ticking towards death, though it is earning money.
Have a listen to Bill Frankland on Desert Island Discs:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b064x7dv
World renowned allergy expert, still consulting and working with patients in private practice, published 3 scientific papers in the last 3 years.
He's 103.
I got id'ed in a restaurant last night. I could have kissed the early 20s hipster waiter. I'm 30, and not especially happy about it.
49 here, and diagnosed with prostate cancer exactly a yr ago. However no prostate now and doing more riding and swimming than ever before. Everything aches much of the time tho 😯
Robert Marchand set a new age category hour record of 26.925km at 102
[img] 
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He celebrated his 103rd birthday by climbing a 10km col, but he's only planning to keep racing until he's 105.
I'm bloody loving life now at 52, more than I have done and I've already had some bloody great experiences and as many very low periods. I imagine it as being like a sine wave with good ups and proportional downs.
Age and experience is enabling me to deal much more effectively with the downs, to the point where I'm now recognising some of the triggers and at all times endeavour to live with three words:
Mindfulness, acceptance and attitude.
Adopt any two and the third will follow - for me anyway.
Together with cumulative experience and wisdom ( by which I mean, applied knowledge ), I am able to lose my fears and have gained a strong faith - in everything.
Nowadays, I would be more than happy to live forever ( having spent far too many years wanting to be dead ), yet I now hold no fear of my own eventual death and as such, am trying to wring as much as I can out of each and every day, in terms of a healthy attitude and just being grateful for two working arms, legs, eyes, etc etc - bearing in mind that I can get it wrong as much as I can get it right, which is where my acceptance comes in. My mindfulness keeps those two at the forefront of my intent and actions.
One last word from me, to you, all of you: We make our own world. 8)
46 years old.
Back is dodgy, shortsightedness is gradually being replaced by longsightedness. Struggle to keep up with technology and an 8 year old and a 12 year old. And my parents are starting to make demands at the other end of the scale. And I have no job/career worth talking about.
But I'm riding (for me) faster and further than I ever had, and I'm using my experience to try and guide my kids away from some of the mistakes I made.
Life is still good though, way better than the alternative.
It's all very well pointing out a few people that are in their 90's or 100's that are still enjoying an active and purposeful life but likelihood is that most everyone they knew in their youth will have died some time ago. These people are the exception and positive attitude aside they've made it to that age by sheer blind good fortune.
[i]busydog - Member
As Drac says ^^ better than the other option.[/i]
Err? no. That was a silly comment.
[i]spursn17 - Member
Every day/week/month that goes by has me thinking that I'm running out of time.
This^Too much to do and so little time to do it. Don't like getting slower as well.Somebody please stop time![/i]
Not at all. I can still spin up to 40mph, on the bike. The only difference now with "[i]then[/i]" is as a Man in his twenties, I'd have seen double after such an effort. Where as now, I know I'm more likely to see the Devil.
He'll be waiting for me, holding an empty fire extinguisher with my name on it!
I'm 50 now - between my 40th and my 50th I had my own parking space at the hospital roughly every two years I was having an operation or being admitted because of an OTB incident.
In fairness I am probably fitter but recovery time is increasing especially from a night out with the boys
I just turned 37 - I got ID'd a few months ago. Mind you my knee has been hurting a bit recently...
It's the health problems that are the worst part
I've had crappy health throughout my thirties and now into my forties
So, yes, I'm not a fan of ageing
I haven't really got over reaching 30 yet, I'm 37 now.
I lie about my age all the time, my FB page actually gives my age as 34 - it's not a vanity thing, I just don't want to be old - I feel the same way about becoming 40 as I did about becoming 10 there's something about the decade milestones that makes me think you have to completely change your feelings about everything every 10 years, when I became 10 I wasn't 'little' anymore and I knew puberty and 'girls' would come next, 20 meant I wasn't a 'kid' anymore and had to act like an adult, 30 was worse - sensible grownup, sounds fun doesn't it?
40 is worse though, it's 'middle aged' I hate middle aged people, they seem to give up joy and excitement in return for fear and loathing - **** that.
Ive come to realise that 'middle aged' isn't a specific time, it's a state of mind, and one I hope never to reach, I intent on being optimistic and happy for the rest of my life, however long that is - I'll never sit cowering behind net curtains worrying about when my neighbours put it their bins or what my house is worth - **** that. I'll just keep smiling and try to enjoy the little things.
Shhh (I'm actually 38, but my wife thinks I'm 37 😉
I love everything except burying my friends and family.
