Birthday Fitness Challenge Ahead, Maybe

My birthday is later this month. Since it’s one of the “milestone” years (like being old enough to vote or to drink legally), I’ve been thinking of how best to mark the occasion of being old enough to start collecting early Social Security (at a reduced rate, and if I weren’t still fully employed). Several of the TGs have done the birthday fitness challenge – swimming, biking and running various distances based on their ages. For example, a 26-year-old would swim 2 miles, bike 26 miles, and run 6 miles – all in the same day for gold, in three days for silver, or one week for bronze. If I were 26, or even 46, I’d do this challenge without a second thought. But I’m going to be 62 – that’s 2 miles of running, 6 miles of swimming, and 62 miles of biking. Certainly, I won’t be going for gold or silver, but I am contemplating trying for bronze.

The run will be the only part I’ll be able to do all at one time. The swimming and biking parts will have to be done in segments, and I’ve been trying to plan a schedule for them. That I’ll be in Iowa the week before my birthday complicates the planning, as that means the next week will be hectic at work. Swimming a minimum of one mile per day for six days should be doable, even if I have to break it up into ½-mile chunks – one in the morning and another one at night.

The bike ride is a whole other matter. Timewise, I won’t be able to divide it into five or six short rides during the week. The most efficacious plan would be to do it in two days, on the weekend after my birthday on Friday. That means 32 miles on Saturday and 30 miles on Sunday – a daunting endeavor, since, to date, I’ve never ridden more than 20 miles at one time. A more practical plan would be one 14-mile ride and two rides of 24 miles each, which I can manage, if I can find a third day to ride during the week.

After I finish the challenge, or attempt to, I’m celebrating with a lemon drop martini, or maybe two since it’s a special occasion.