This morning, I did something I know most guys my age don’t do. I ran eight miles. I don’t say this to brag, because I don’t consider myself an athlete. I didn’t run in high school or college. I only picked it up in my thirties when my weight was creeping up on me and my father-in-law poked my doughboy’s belly!

I say it because it is possible to be active in your fifties and beyond. This came to my mind when I read this Runner’s World article the other day:

5 Runners who Prove Age is Just a Number

In this article, it quotes a study that claims people felt they were too old to start exercising after they turned forty-one years old. Yet the article had five runners who began to run between the ages of fifty and eighty-four. Let that sink in! An eighty-four-year-old decided it was time to start running!

We put too many limits on ourselves. We’d like to start something but we make all kinds of excuses like:

• I’m too old
• I’m too young
• I don’t have the money
• I don’t have the time
• I don’t have any talent
• I don’t know anybody
• The timing isn’t right

We claim we don’t want to be a number, yet do we allow numbers to limit ourselves? Do we give in to society’s expectations that are neither correct nor fulfilling?

Check with your doctor. If he or she gives you the okay, I encourage you to start exercising. It’s made a big difference in my life since I began this good habit.