“Are you skating with teens?” my daughter asked, curious to hear about my recent figure skating comeback. “Yep. They are all 16 and under, at least,” I said.
“Are you the worst on the ice,” was her next question. An honest question to be sure and one I didn’t know how to answer. I knew enough to know I wasn’t terrible, but I also knew enough to know that I wasn’t great either. “Well… I ain’t as good as I once was…but I am good once as I ever was,” I said. The joke was lost on her as she jumbled up her eyebrows and skipped away, apparently done with the conversation.
The return to skating had me reflecting on the next chapter in my life, the one titled, “The Aging Athlete.” Yep, as I finish off my fourth decade of life, I can tell yeah my athletic prowess and priorities have certainly changed.
When I was young I dared to dream that maybe just maybe some national title was in my future. It was a pipe dream to be sure, but if I worked hard enough, maybe a lucky break would get me the rest of the way. Truthfully, it was never skating that was going to get me any notoriety in sport. If there was any nudge to elite athletics it would have been for waterpolo. But, I loved skating. Hence why, at 40 years old I am now the geezer in the changeroom, heading back to sharing my winters with the arena and a gaggle of teenage girls.
I may be in the same place as I was at 16 but many things have changed; my back doesn’t bend like it once did, I am 20 pounds heavier, I am in it for longevity not for accolades, the risk of injury is real and recovery would be slow, and finally, I am finding l have to use my brain more than my body to overcome all of the things I just mentioned.
Although I could only seem to find one Olympic figure skater who podiumed at 40 years old, the sport seems to be getting more inclusive towards older adults. Skate Canada has a number of adult skating competitions, and camps. However, where I find information lacking across sport is how to train an aging adult. What I have been able to cobble together was from years of coaching experience, reading books on endurance training, and listening to podcasts on longevity and aging.
All of this “research” hasn’t led to a formal training program but an intuitive/data driven approach to training – as if that makes any sense. Let me break it down. Collecting and interpreting data from my heart rate monitor helps me to develop practice plans that favour low heart rate zones that don’t trigger muscle soreness and joint inflammation. It also gives me feedback on high heart rate activity so I can minimize the amount I do in any given practice. So gone are the days when I’d spend the better part of an hour doing double jump after double jump, now most of my skating practices are spent on footwork and conditioning, and very short jump sessions.
The intuitive component means that no practice week is set in stone. The workouts are fluid and depend on what the rest of the week looks like. For example; last week I skated on Tuesday, lifted weights Wednesday, did some trials dirt biking Thursday, swam Friday morning and skated Friday night. Many of these workouts favoured a high heart rate zone (it is just the nature of the sports), as a result I buffered my week with low slow endurance activities like going to the pool with my kids, or just couch rest.
As an aging athlete, there isn’t any room for ego, you have to have a body first attitude. My current workout pattern is variable, and wouldn’t pass muster for elite athletes, but that’s not what I am.
I am an aging athlete who is entering the back half of my life and I just want to skate. I’d like to do it without hurting myself.
