I know where you’re coming from. This type of situation has made me reconsider futures plans. In the last 18 months I’ve lost my mum (77), Uncle (65), a father figure (67) and my two best mates (45 & 50). All either unexpected or after a very short illness. Makes you reflect on what’s important.
Middle aged life
- Thread starter tres
- Start date
Problem many don't know until its too late.
Those younger years, smoking, drinking, bad diet thinking your body is Superman. Until you hit 40, all those bad habits start creep up and you cant reverse the damage
Problem many don't know until its too late.
Those younger years, smoking, drinking, bad diet thinking your body is Superman. Until you hit 40, all those bad habits start creep up and you cant reverse the damage
We also used to claim that surviving past 25 on a motorcycle was likely to mean you were unlikely to kill yourself on one, two friends sadly did not. However as you say the other deadly sins in youth can catch up with you in later life.
Soldato
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“Born again bikers” being able to afford Yamaha R1s and the like after 20 years of driving a family saloon has been a very unfortunate thing for a while now.
I did briefly toy with the idea of getting a bike out here, but it takes my body a month to heal a small scape these days and my local rural roads are 50% gravel, 50% mud and 50% tractor.
Soldato
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Middle aged life "sucks". The end. I'm still 16 in my head but despite being 59 my body us actually 83
Retirement age is so high now you can't count on that. It's to old to start doing stuff.
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I gave up bikes in my mid 20's, i figured if anything was going to finish me off it would be the combination of an R1 and me thinking i was cut from the same cloth as Karl Fogarty! The final decision came after trying a few laps of Oulton Park as a sidecar passenger with a family friend who needed someone to partner with for the IoM TT, i've not been back on a bike since........
I'm 52 now, my mates passing especially has really hit me hard, they were probably the 2 fittest people i knew (1 thought it was fun to ride the Coast to Coast in a day, the other regularly ran sub 20 minute park runs every week), so i'm now on track to retire by 57 and working hard to invest/reduce that to as early as possible.
Health/fitness is a funny thing - I know someone who is probably the healthiest person I know, never smoked, never drank, very disciplined diet, regularly runs, swims and rows and competitive sports, etc. and so on - had a stroke/heart attack at less than 40 (survived), the doctors reckon (long term) dehydration was a major factor - despite a reasonable fluid intake it was probably insufficient for their specific needs.
Though thinking about it while posting I wonder with the timing whether COVID was in any way involved.
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I think most of it is genetics.
My opinion anyway.
Sure, if you try and stay reasonably healthy, eat well exercise, all in moderation, it's going to help, and visa versa with the other stuff.
But ultimately I think the overriding factor is genetics, you get lucky or you don't.
When I turned 40, me and my cousin who turned 40 a few months before. We was at the pub, saying now we are 40 we need to keep our fitness levels up as the remaining years will be crucial to our wellness as we age.
The following month, out of no where he had a stroke with bleeding on the brain and lost function of his left arm. He played in a band, a pro gamer at Street Fighter 6 going to tournaments and an self-employed developer My cousin was fit and healthy like me, did climbing and running.
So you can imagine losing the use of his left arm, his job and hobbies came to a stop while he recovered. Thankfully his wife was there to help him.
After 2 years he's more or less recovered but the doctors told him, he had one of worse strokes a person could have but because my cousin kept himself fit that rocked his chances of survival and recovery. If he lived the life of unhealthy person, he would have died within days of having the stroke.
You can be fit and healthy and still get hit with bad luck but its keeping yourself fit in the first place is what increases your chances of surviving if the worse ever happened.