Climb every mountain, ford every stream?
Tamae Watanabe, 73, has become the oldest woman to climb Mt. Everest. According to the article, this should be an inspiration to us all.
My hat is off to Watanabe, but it makes me a bit weary. Now it’s not enough that as we age we are required to look younger, courtesy of cosmetic and plastic surgery and the relentless drive towards visual perfection. Now we are required to contemplate undertaking feats of athletic prowess that would shame the young.
I do exercise, and hope to keep doing so. It makes me feel better. But many of my activities have injured me, sometimes badly. Swimming—which is supposed to be so relatively innocuous—led to about twelve years of disability and severe chronic pain, as well as lifelong milder pain and limitations. Ballet is notorious for injury, and I sustained quite a few when I was dancing (including and especially a bad back).
Even the elite athlete runs into trouble at any age, but perhaps especially as he/she gets older. A swimmer featured in the article, Dara Torres, who at 45 is still swimming at an Olympic level, has had her share:
Torres has had multiple surgeries, including an innovative procedure after the 2008 Olympics on her left knee to regenerate cartilage. Before that, she couldn’t walk without a limp, and the muscles in her leg were atrophying.
Could it be that for most people, old-fashioned moderation is the key in this, as it is in so many other things?
[NOTE: Re the title of this post—boy, is this a static scene:
I much prefer this:
How does one get injured swimming?
Julie Andrews is hot. I heard it through the grapevine.
Occam’s Beard: This is how.
Do I love you?
My oh my….
Rivers Deep
Mountain High!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agq2g5nYxAs
I wouldn’t make a huge deal out of a 73 year old woman summiting Everest since she had Sherpas carrying her equipment, setting up camps and three Sherpas assisted her Summit in ideal weather conditions on a well established path. If she’d done it all herself, then I’d be impressed. Anyone willing to throw down tens of thousands of dollars can make it to the top of Everest today.
My hat is certainly off to Tamae Watanabe. She must be an incredible speciman. Just to do the trek to Everest base Camp is a major undertaking for people in their fifties, much less climbing the mountain. I am in awe. And she does inspire me to keep on trying to keep on trying.
The song, Climb Every Mountain, was a favorite of our son. He planned to climb Everest one day and was well on his way to accomplishing big things in the world of technical mountaineering. When he died doing what he loved, we played that song at his funeral. I cannot listen to it without sadness, but also a feeling of pride in his ambition and courage to reach for the summits; to be all that he could be.
I planned to try to climb some of the mountains he had his eyes set on. For 12 years I strove to balance work, family, and climbing. At fifty-five my body began to rebel. On climbs up Half Dome and a couple of other Yosemite test pieces I was barely able to complete the climbs and regretfully began to accept that what I had accomplished to that point would have to do. Backing off to backpacking, hiking, and fishing kept me outdoors and in the mountains where I love to be. Now, 24 years later, I no longer sleep out on the ground and hiking five miles is a workout. It has been a slow process of decline. And I have had to let go of many things that I once enjoyed. I have tried, as Max Ehrmann wrote in The Desiderata, to: “Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.” But I have also tried, insofar as I know how, to fight the forces of gravity and decay. I’m pretty sure that Tamae is of that same mind.
Damn, neo, those shoulder injuries sound like those of … pitchers, who almost all have either shoulder or elbow problems. I’m amazed that swimming can cause similar types of injuries, since owing to the difference in density and viscosity between water and air, one cannot possibly move the arm through water with the same violence of a ballistic motion in the air, such as throwing (or serving a tennis ball). In terms of arm speed, swimming is closer to tai chi than it is to throwing.
It’s especially surprising that divers, of all people, also suffer from shoulder problems. A few seconds with arms overhead, exerting essentially no force, and that generates shoulder problems? Amazing.
The problem for many young athletes (including dancers) is that they are so strong and competitive, they can do serious damage to their bodies.
Better to conserve your body for when you are older, which is when exercise is more beneficial. That’s my theory and it has worked for me.
Occam’s Beard: quite a few things can lead to swimming injuries. One is that water provides a great deal of resistance. Another is that swimming strokes can lead to repetitive motion injuries, because swimming involves the same motion over and over again without a rest. My injury came from a combination of those two things, plus a congenitally narrow passageway through which the nerves of the arm pass. I had the same injury in both arms, although my right was worse than my left (and I’m left-handed).
From my solid experience in mountain trekking, it is more question of stubbornness and fortitude than anything else. And Japanese ladies have lots of these qualities, probably, more than anybody can imagine.