Do you consider yourself an athlete? Wikepedia defines an athlete as: a person trained or gifted in exercises or contests involving physical agility, stamina, or strength; a participant in a sport, exercise, or game requiring physical skill.  I like to add to that: a person who is focused, dedicated, and disciplined.

Are you aging? Of course, we all are. Wikepedia says: advanced years.

I like these definitions because it allows for each of us to define for ourselves that we are an aging athlete.  We like a sport or physical activity and continue to train at some level as we grow older. Also we didn’t have to be young high school athletes to start.

So, What is an aging athlete blog?   It is a place to share much of what I have learned over the years with others with a similar mindset.  I like talking with other aging athletes to learn more about what they do and why they continue to train as they age. 

I didn’t start seriously training in anything until I was 31. I had a childhood injury that kept me from taking phys ed in high school.  The injury corrected itself as I grew up and I ended up being fine when Uncle Sam called upon me in 1969 to join the military.  I enlisted in the Marine Corps and struggled, but got into the shape I needed to graduate from boot camp. After getting out I dabbled in different activities but nothing really grabbed me. I wanted to get into a routine of some sort.  I happened by a karate dojo in NYC and decided to watch a class.  I joined and my new life as an athlete began.  The conditioning, the skills I was learning, and the philosophy changed my life.  I eventually left NYC and decided that I worked too hard to get where I was to lose it and resolved to keep training for the rest of my life.  This has been 33 years at the writing of this blog.  I have come up with different routines over the years to keep my skills up and to stay in shape.  I love moving.  I’m sure if you are reading this you can relate.  It may be a different athletic or sport, but you like what you do and like the feeling of being in shape and the quality of life it brings.  I found that as I aged my body did not respond to conditioning as it once did and I had to change things.  These changes are some of the things I’ll be sharing with this blog.