In my younger years I coached three seasons of high school running. I easily spent twenty hours a week with teenage girls. I knew all the songs and all the popular TV shows. I was also infused with their energy and zest for life.
My twenty years as CHS Girls XC Coach were wonderful.
During most of those years, I was teaching elementary school special education. I spent my days with antsy, active, anxious children. They were awesome! My time was spent creating ways to engage them and help them learn. I often say a ten-year-old with ADHD is my spirit animal. At day’s end, I had spent almost twelve hours with children, none of whom were old enough to vote.
Are you a kid or a grown-up?
My niece Kelsey once asked me that question. I was around thirty and she was around three. I often describe myself as a wrinkly kid. In the years since Molly died, I’ve withdrawn socially. Those who know me now would still say I’m social, but I no longer go out at night for dinner or drinks with friends. I don’t go to movies or events. I am a homebody.
Maybe this is because I’m almost sixty.
Having a child at 57 has plopped me right into the world of the thirty-somethings, and I love it. Every generation has its own ideas about parenting and diet, activities and social norms. I teach and learn in every conversation. I’m learning to live in the moment, to practice mindful thinking. This gives me space to observe and participate in motherhood in a very different way than when I had Molly and Gracie.
Although I’m twenty-five to thirty years older than most of these mums, we’re more similar than different.
There’s something beautiful about being part of this quiet movement of women in their 50s getting fit after baby — women rewriting what motherhood and fitness can look like later in life.
One of my closest friends in life is Bethany. I met her when she was seven, a student at Walker School where I was teaching. We run Barb’s Track Camp together. We share struggles and celebrations. I could be her mother — and in fact, I’m close in age to hers. I imagine I’ll have more women in their 30s and 40s in my life over the years. Jack will be in school and sports, and I’ll be there, his mom, older and strong.
My body and the mystery of age
The obvious difference with age is physical ability — especially as an athlete. Female bodies are hormonal machines. First comes puberty, then the menstruation-ovulation dance begins. After that, the baby-growing and lactating years, and finally menopause with its frantic rollercoaster of hormonally caused symptoms. As an athlete, these shifts have to be managed and worked with, not fought against.
I’ve had a strange relationship with my hormones. As a pre-teen, sexual abuse caused a pause in my development. I didn’t start my period until almost fifteen. As an elite distance runner, I maintained a very thin body. Many of my teammates lost their periods due to that, but mine stayed — heavy and consistent. Birth control helped and was part of my health routine through my twenties and thirties.
Then I turned forty.
Creating, growing, and nursing Molly and Gracie came easily to me. I’ve never been as amazed by my body as I was during that time. As I approached fifty, I noticed subtle changes — slower recovery, a little belly, softer muscle tone. I honestly believe I would have sailed through menopause had Molly not died. The trauma of that loss changed everything, physically and emotionally.
Through it all, I remained a high-level CrossFit athlete. Compared to women my age, I’m strong and fast. But me being me, I like to compare myself to those thirty-somethings. I do alright! I was an elite runner as a young adult, and while speed declines with age, strength and endurance evolve differently. That’s one reason I love CrossFit: it’s about functional strength, not perfection.
Since I started CrossFit at forty-seven, I don’t have times or weights from my twenties to compare to. But I do have perspective. And I’m proud of that.
Motherhood at 57: fitness and hormones
Being able to have a baby at 57 was perhaps my biggest challenge yet. Not the pregnancy itself, but preparing my post-menopausal body to carry life again — infusing it with estrogen and progesterone, then growing Jack. Two years out, I’m still nursing him, and my body does it all naturally.
I often think about how many women in their 50s might want to move, lift, run, and mother again — or for the first time. Returning to strength training after a late pregnancy isn’t about proving anything. It’s about trusting what your body can still do.
So then, what does age really have to do with it?
For the most part, nothing. We’re all different. Not all fifty-seven-year-olds can have babies. Not all seventeen-year-old girls can break five minutes in the mile. Not all sixty-year-olds hang out with women in their thirties. Age matters in that it shapes our physical and emotional landscapes — but it doesn’t define our limits.
I’ve always said I was gifted the perfect soul house. This body I live in is ideal for the life I’m meant to have. Sometimes I look my age, sometimes I don’t. I outperform most of my peers, and I love pushing myself next to those smooth-skinned muscle machines with their younger joints and endless energy.
At the end of the day, I just love being me — a wrinkly kid closing out her sixth decade, still lifting, still mothering, still learning.
Maybe I’ll go deadlift 250 pounds.
This blog is an updated version of the original published June 10, 2023.
One Response
You sooooo ROCK!