Get Swoll

Sarcopenia is the loss of muscle mass with aging.  This process begins in your 30's and speeds up as we enter our 40's and is particularly fast (3-5% per decade) for inactive adults.  I hit the 40 mark this past summer (and celebrated with a 1745 mile bike ride down the coast).  After we returned to Colorado from our amazing 6 weeks of biking and enjoying the beach, I got busy with the new school year, coaching cross country, projects at the house and . . . a wedding . . . which was amazing:

So life has been wonderful and pretty full (which is my excuse for the absence of regular blog posts). Running, training and fitness have been further down on my list of priorities.  Then back a couple months ago Micah, my 17 year old son who is quickly approaching adulthood, asked me if we could hit the gym together for a workout.  Glad for the opportunity for some quality father/son time and eager to combat my own muscle atrophy I quickly agreed.  Micah and I have been meeting at Raintree Monday and Wednesdays for 8 weeks now to do some cardio and go through some sets of upper and lower body exercises on the machines and free weights.  It has been a lot of fun and after some pretty acute soreness the first couple weeks, we are both noticing some increases in strength and overall fitness.  Last week we added a Tai Chi class to our routine and that's been a whole new learning experience- more on that in a future post.  I'm not quite at the strength level that I had when I was personal trainer and spent 10+ hours a day at the gym and was 15 years younger, but I think that I could get back there and I'm hopeful that the added strength will provide a needed boost to my running.  And I have been running more lately too.  Nora and I signed up for the Red Hot Moab race in February and we have committed to getting out everyday through the winter to prepare.  It was a rough start, but over the past couple weeks, I feel my running legs coming back to me.  I may be in my 40s now, but I am pretty confident that some of my best running and racing performances are still ahead of me.