Uh, oh: long-answer alert. Exercise is a soapbox topic I consider vital to
mental and physical well-being well into old age, followed by a short
transition from vigor to rigor.

My sports are down to one now, largely by choice. For decades they included
riding and racing dirt bikes and snowmobiles at near-pro levels, plus some
skiing and a few lesser dabbles, plus intramural football and volleyball
into my mid 30s. I pursued one or more of them 4-6 days a week into my
mid-40s, when they all succumbed to one, obsessive, highly addictive,
all-consuming (if ya do it right) and FAR less painful sport: windsurfing. I
now live near the best windsurfing spot in North America, the Columbia River
Gorge, where we can sail in high winds (20-60 mph) and good terrain (3-5
feet is common, the great days will hit 8, even 10, feet) up to 100 days
over 9 months each each year.

Because of its high doses of adrenaline and exercise and plain old fun, its
wide range of ways to do it (many prefer milder winds and flatter water),
and its near-zero injury rate, I consider windsurfing a marvelous sport to
carry us into doddering old age, and a way to postpone and condense the
"doddering" part. MANY nurses over the decades have expressed surprise,
sometimes even alarm, at my low pulse rate and blood pressure, not to
mention my physical condition, and I can sail for hours more per day than
the vast majority of "kids" 1/3 my age, because they're SOFT. If I had to
rely on a gym to stay fit, I'd be a couch potato. But try to take my sports
away from me and you have a major battle on your hands. I manage to use my
Bowflex to get me through the winter now that I've given up dirt bikes and
snowmobiles, but then it's history until next winter.

There's just one catch: windsurfing interferes with a career. I walked away
from my engineering career at 45 because the wind wouldn't confine itself to
weekends. That's OK; I consider 16 years of an engineer's salary an
acceptable price for all the thrills and exercise and sheer JOY I've had.
NUTHIN' -- not an anniversary, not a meeting, not elective surgery -- gets
in the way of a windy day; they're too precious.

But the bigger message is this: exercise improves our mental and physical
health and longevity, and for the vast majority of people, exercise must
have an INTRINSIC reward if they're to permanently integrate it into their
lifsetyles. We should all strive to find a form of exercise we'd do even if
it were not beneficial. Think kids play because "it's good for them"? Of
course not; they play because it's fun. Then they grow "up", are told they
must stop playing and start working out, recognize the root word of "working
out", decide THAT'S no fun, settle onto the couch, grow old and sluggish
and/or fat, and spend the next decade or three dying. Now THAT'S what's no
fun! Or they try many forms of "working out" -- weights, jogging, machines,
etc. -- sporadically but never keep any of them up because . . . Ta Da . . .
they're not fun.

My 55 years of hard play is its own reward, and the physical condition it
leaves me in made the surgeons not just willing but EAGER to try this dual
surgery on me at 61, helped me become able to comfortably pick up something
from the floor (by any of three methods) 2-3 days post-op, and will have me
back on my toys by the day the doctors allow it at 6 weeks post-op. If these
damned cancers will leave me alone, I hope to be keeping up with those
20-year-old kids when I'm FOUR times their age. Some other 80-year-olds can
come close, so why can't I?

Or any of us? Geezers benefit more than young people from starting to
exercise because they're in such poor shape, many geezers have plenty of
time, and it's about time they put some fun back into their lives.

Sorry, but you asked. ;-)

I.P.