..is what I was shouting out this morning on my run for anyone awake at 2:00 am to hear. I didn’t punch in my usual and customary 165 minutes of physical activity yesterday because my online personal training business is taking off and if I ever want to get off the government cheese….

So this morning I was so jazzed to hit the street I almost left my dog in the courtyard. I should take more days off so I can feel this refreshed. It was 65 breezy degrees. Heaven.  I was sprinting, zigzagging, running backwards, making a damn fool out of my happy, youthful, ass.

Then, as usual, I think about my age. This is my 73rd year on the planet. Whoa! I slow to a walk trying to compute such sobering information. Though it never takes me long to snap out of that mental restriction. Then I’m back to my interval training and whoop-de-do.

These day I often wonder if folks know how much vitality is left in our bodies as we cruise into retirement and beyond. I’m certainly no genetic superior and I’ve been blowing my own mind physically these last three years. Physical health always spills over to mental health and these are the years we need fortification.

Retirement isn’t for the faint of heart. We need muscle, bone and fortitude. We need the kind of resilience and stamina that comes from careful, well thought out conditioning and a nutritional strategy that will keep us off statins and diabetes medications and also ensure the freedom of mobility through our declining years. Think sick and imprisoned. No, thank you.

Yes, it is possible to feel like Superman in the morning. Every morning. Yes, it possible to side step diabetes, heart disease, depression and even cancer. We just need to cooperate with the “physician within.”

We were made to move, to struggle, to best our attackers and to die in our sleep.

These are the years we’ve worked so hard for. A pot of gold that hopefully isn’t empty.

To be senior, relevant, confident and free of pain is not a wild wish. It’s reality.

Up, up and away.