"Whether you think you can, or think you can't, you're right." Henry Ford
If you think about it - age is just a number. As the earth completes a rotation around the sun, it adds an additional 365 days to one's accumulated time clock, and for some this seems to determine their level of physical activity. As the number of years increase, the level of activity tends to go down.
I am of the opinion that it is one's atitude with regards to age that determines one's level of activity rather than the accumulation of years, that and living a wholesome lifestyle.
My wife knew her great-grandmother. When she turned 80, she decided she was through, didn't have to do anything more.
"Grandma, we're going on a picnic, do you want to come? Nope, I'm 80, I'm just going to sit here."
I've always liked Henry Ford's statement about atitudes, he said: "Whether you think you can, or think you can't, you're right."
And amplifying Ford's statement is Stephen R. Covey's statement, "Begin with the end in mind," which means, develop a clear vision of just what you expect the end result to look like, and then do the things necessary to make the project a reality.
I've always believed I could accomplish whatever I set my mind to; I just had to visualize what I believed the end results would look like and then set about acquiring the necessary information needed to accomplish the task. My age was never a part of the equation.
Consider the following activities I've been fortunate to participate in:
From age 46 to age 49, every summer I rode my mountain bike across America - from the Pacific to the Atlantic, 4,000 miles.
At age 58, I rowed my garage-built ocean rowboat across the Atlantic Ocean, from the Canary Islands to Miami, Florida: (I was shipwrecked on a small island in the Bahamas, and came up 350 miles short of Miami.) a distance of almost 4,000 miles.
At age 70, I hiked the Pacific Crest Trail: California, Oregon, Washington, a distance of 2,650 miles.
At age 72, I hiked the Appalachian Trail along the east coast: Georgia to Maine, a distance of 2,200 miles.
In a few years, I'll turn 80: my health is good, and my body is strong and I'm still making plans to hike the Continental Divide Trail: New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana to the Canadian Border, a distance of over 3,000 miles.
I've not a abused my body and this undoubtedly has contribued to my overall health and well-being. I've never tasted a beer, never had a cup of coffee or smoked a cigarette, although in high school, I once tried a cigar.