I’m fitter now than I was in my 20s. Granted, this is not that difficult, seeing as my 20s were spent in a blur of parties and travelling and drinking rather large pints of beer in foggy pubs. But I always had this assumption that it was all downhill from 40 and we may as well just give up on our physical fitness and lie on the couch in tracksuit pants forever until we die.
An interesting thing happened this weekend at the life saving competition my daughter entered. The conditions were fairly nasty. There was an icy cross-shore wind. Various strong rip currents and very short breaks between sets of pounding waves. She’s a pretty strong swimmer, and she can handle herself in the ocean. There are safety officers all around monitoring them, and if they ever get close to being in danger, they get whipped out of the ocean super fast.
I thought it was high time for a blog post explaining all my recent activities, because training to become a surf lifeguard at the grand old age of 40 could be seen as a very obscure thing to do. Even more so for me, because I am a creature who loves her little comfort zone. It’s cosy in my shell and warm – everything is safe here. But here’s why I took the plunge recently and trained to become a lifeguard: