Life is Like a Road Trip

Having a Kansas Moment

I hate driving through Kansas. I can see many heads nodding in agreement.
But I do love road trips. I’ve driven out to Colorado several times. Three times in one year during the pandemic. It took my back six months to heal up from those road trips.

Why do I dread driving through Kansas? First, it’s almost half the distance to Colorado.
Then, it’s mostly flat, mostly straight, and mostly boring. Listening to Audible helps.

Recent Road Trip

I drove out to Colorado this past week to take a car that my wife and I had given to my granddaughter, to help her during her college years. So, I get to fly back. Yay!
On this trip, when I was having those Kansas Moments, I could hear a voice inside my head saying,

“Keep moving Mark, eventually you’ll get there.”

Of course, I’ll get there barring no breakdown or road construction. I was driving a Honda CR-V, so of course I made it to CO.

My Plan A during my visit also included a backpacking adventure with my son, daughter-in-law, and two granddaughters, 17 and 11, into Canyonlands National Park. We drove over to Utah and the weather went from Spring to Winter. Our first night of camping was in the low 30s. We agreed that we needed a Plan B, so we decided to do a road trip to the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, and Mesa Verde National Park and Great Dunes National Park in Colorado, and to no one’s surprise, we had several of those Kansas Moments during our road trip. There really is a lot of nothing out west.

I kept telling myself, “Keep moving, eventually we’ll get there.”

OK, so I’m going to compare that “keep moving” voice in my head to aging, you know a metaphor, and I don’t think it’s a complete stretch. Aging is like a road trip.

By “keep moving,” I mean exercise, both aerobic and resistance training.

And by “getting there,” I mean being strong and stable during that last 10 years of your life.

Some refer to the last 10 years of your life as your Marginal Decade.

It doesn’t have to be marginal; it could be a decade of relative strength and stability. How do you prepare for the last 10 years of your life? Keep moving. Exercise.

I don’t know, maybe this message isn’t really necessary; keep moving and you’ll get there.

But I look around and see many, many overweight, weak and unstable, older adults.

Don’t get me wrong, I run into Movers as well. I was at the bouldering gym recently and ran into an older man doing V3’s and V4’s. He had just completed a V1 easily, that I had attempted several times, but failed to make it to the top. Mind you, at the time I’d been bouldering six months. We are both Movers, but he’s a 74-year-old Mover. It takes a lot of upper and lower body strength, and hand strength to be a Climber. By the way, strong hands are a predictor for lowering the risk of all-cause mortality.

I run into Movers because I’m a Mover. There are many who practice the slogan, “If you keep moving, eventually you’ll get there.”

I tried to think of a word that characterizes people who stop moving, or just never kept moving as they aged. Maybe Parkers. So maybe you have Movers and Parkers. Which are you?

Peter Attia

I listen to several podcasts that support the idea of “keep moving.” Peter Attia is one I follow. He’s a doctor and has written the book, “Outlive: the Science and Art of Longevity.” I’ve read it. It’s excellent. When asked, what is the one thing he wants people to take away from his book, he answers, exercise.

What Moving Looks Like

Exercise every day. Walk. Hike. Cycle. Use a rowing machine. Use a recumbent exercise bike, and or a treadmill. Use dumbbells and a bench press. Do squats, lunges, arm curls, upper body, and leg workouts, three times a week. Stretch at least one or two times weekly. Challenge yourself to walk faster and longer. Challenge yourself to lift heavier weights. Do more reps and sets. They call that increasing your volume.

Rest From Moving

If you have a really hard workout, take a day off. Sometimes, I’ve had to take a week off, but then I start moving. I can’t stay in park for long.

Rhonda Patrick

In one of Attia’s podcasts, called The Drive, his guest was Rhonda Patrick. She is a nutritional researcher and one of my favorites. In this episode, she shared research about sleep and exercise. She reported that if you don’t get seven hours of sleep per night, it increases your risk of all-cause mortality, in other words, premature death by any cause. But, if you exercise regularly, you eliminate the increased risk of all-cause mortality from not getting seven hours of sleep. You can outrun (moving) poor sleep habit. I believe you can “outrun,” almost any negative-lifestyle habit. Not smoking, of course.

If you asked Andrew Huberman from his podcast, The Huberman Lab, what is the one thing that will help you get through your last decade, he would answer, muscle.

Movers have muscles, and muscles are instrumental in preparing you for your marginal decade by increasing your stability and your overall well-being. We need muscle! Movers have muscles.

Life is like a road trip.

If you keep moving, you’ll eventually get there.

Exercise creates strength and stability that will prepare you for that last decade of your life.

Be Your Own Personal Trainer

There are lots of books about moving, lots of podcasts. Here is what many are saying now: It doesn’t matter what you do, just do something, just keep moving

Day Hike into the Grand Canyon

As a part of our road trip, we were able to do a day hike down into the Grand Canyon to Ooh Ahh Point. My younger granddaughter isn’t a seasoned hiker, so we knew this hike was going to be a little challenging. It can be challenging for most people. Once you hike down into the Canyon, you have to turn around and hike back out.

As we got toward the end of the hike, she started sputtering, and maybe even a little whiny. Sorry, Harper.

What do you think we said to her as she was getting closer to the top?

“Harper, just keep moving, and eventually we’ll get there!”