I learned a very valuable lesson over the last five years. That if your body goes, everything goes. Mine went.

You can’t fight, you can’t fuck and you can’t feed yourself.

By not training your body and readying yourself for later years, you are inviting catastrophe.

You will become attached to things like walkers, wheelchairs, oxygen bottles and IV drips.

You open the door to cancer, heart disease, diabetes, dependence and early death.

You will become a problem not only to yourself, but everyone around you. You are now a burden. You burden your family, your friends and the healthcare system.

You lose the freedom to remove yourself from desperate situations and possibly become a ward of the state.

In most cases, you will be tucked away and forgotten until your estate runs out of money. Seen it, first hand.

You will become mediocre. You have a body nobody notices, respects or lusts after. And it will cost you money you don’t have just to keep it running. Resulting in inferior treatment.

Your internal med doc, your chiropractor, your podiatrist and your cardiologist all have a vested interest in keeping you barely afloat. Because barely is better.

You want your golden years? You have to train for them. You need strong muscles, tendons and ligaments that can support your aging frame and to keep you upright.

You need to be able to subsist on your own in case you lose everything. Been there, too.

If you have to re-enter the workforce, you will need to be resilient and marketable.

I call it being re-marketable. Re-Marketable.

You will need to be an elder athlete to remain relevant and independent , unless you like bagging groceries.

As an elder athlete you may gain greater immunity from a flu shot than people who are less active.

People who work out often an moderately tend to catch fewer colds and other viruses than sedentary people.

You catchin’ my drift here?

It’s not about longevity, it’s about quality. It’s about self respect and going out without a whimper.

I want them to find me on a desert trail at sunrise…..with my running shoes on.

As Bette Davis says, “Aging ain’t for sissies.” And this current pandemic is culling the herd of the most vulnerable among us. Could that be you?

Your body is the engine of your survival, take care of it and it will take care of you.

Welcome to the jungle