The challenge behind RAAM is not just the hard training before the race, the six hours on and off for 9 days, in the night with no lights, in the cold or the hot and in the rain. The real challenge for our Serpentine Golden Girls goes beyond the Race Across America. It is an everyday challenge, it is a universal challenge. They want to show that age is just a number and that is never too late to start exercising.
Eddie Brocklesby is 76 years old, the oldest team member. She said she started exercising at 50, when she did her first half marathon. From that time she found in physical excercise a sort of liberation, a “feeling-good factor” which encouraged her to keep going and challenge herself. She has spent the last 20 years taking part in marathons, triathlons and Ironman races. A couple of years ago, at the age of 74, she completed a Lanzarote Ironman, getting the nickname of Irongran as the oldest British woman finishing an Ironman.
But Eddie is not the only example. Margaret Sills told in an interview with RAAM that “there are a lot of women who are feeling a lot fitter understanding that they CAN challenge themselves and they can take up things that they never thought they have been able to do.”
This is the same thing that many older people discovered after having joined SILVERFIT, the charity supported by our Golden Ladies and founded in 2013 by Eddie.
Silverfit wants to bring people together, keeping them healthy and active, creating friendships and combating loneliness.
Carole Wright, 53, has been coming to SIlverfit for four years. “I go to the gym session of London Southbank University of Thursday morning, Nordic Walking on Tuesday and Brockwell Park in the afternoon. I would not become smiling and fit; I would not be able to do four miles under an hour. I have nothing than love and pray for these people.”
Marjorie Barnes had a back surgery few years ago and since she joined Silverfit, two years ago she found out how fitness helped her recovering. “Silverfit is still amazing for my health. I took part in two half marathons I never thought I could do, just starting with the Nordic Walking.”
And finally Silverfit is great for socialisation. It is common that when people are getting older it is more common they get isolated, which is bad both for physical and mental health. But Silverfit has a lot of group activities preceded by a coffee or a light breakfast together and followed by refreshment, which everyone can join.
Michael West is over 70 and has been joining the Nordic Walking at Burgess Park every Tuesday for the last three years. “I enjoy these sessions because of the social part. You would walk further than you normally do alone.”
Silverfit is the ultimate challenge and dream beyond RAAM for our Golden Girls, and it needs every opportunity for contribution and help to get our ageing population to be more physically active and, why not, to enjoy ageing more – having fun, together!
(Stefania Dall'Armi)