Today I’m excited to welcome Angela White aka The Running Granny to the Seasoned Athlete Podcast. Angela started running at the age of 53 as part of a series of ‘small steps’ she took to improve her health and quality of life. A friend then introduced her to the world of ultra running and she became fascinated with what the human body can achieve when asked.
Since then she has completed events of varying distances including 50 miles, a 100 mile race and the 190 mile Northern Traverse and a number of 24 hour races as well as taking up cycling and swimming. A former surgeon, Angela has a passion to inspire others to take their own ‘small steps’ to adopt healthy lifestyle choices throughout life and has set up a social enterprise to encourage and motivate people to improve their future health.
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We discuss:
The beginning of her athletic journey.
Why it can be hard (but so important) for people to get active in their older age.
The ways society makes it harder to get started based on assumptions that aren’t true.
How becoming an ultra runner changed her lifestyle.
How you need to think of athletics differently when you do it later in life.
… and more!
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Here are some highlights.
How she started getting into athletics and how it made her feel at first
“I started walking, that was the first thing I did. I would take myself out for a walk in the evening for about 15 minutes and I felt totally guilty doing so, or because I was doing... I was being selfish, I was doing something for me, because there were things to be done, there were dishes to be done. It is a bit of a vicious circle.”
How she got into ultra running
“I saw an advert that a lady had put out for setting up a mature ladies ruling group, so I thought that might be interesting. It took me three weeks before I could pick up the phone but I made note of the phone number. [Thoughts like] ‘who do I think I am, I'll be at the back, I'll slow everybody down, people will laugh at me, I'll look absolutely ridiculous, what will family and friends say’ [ran through my head] but eventually I did pick up the phone and I met a really inspiring lady, who herself at that time was 67. So I joined her small running group. and early on in that time, I discovered that she was training for one of our leg district mountain challenges, something called The Just Nailer, which involves first hiking 48 miles, visiting 30 peaks, 3 summits, 17000 feet of ascent, and she was doing all of her wrecking on her own. I thought that sounded rather a little bit unsafe, so I offered to go out with her, having no idea whatsoever what I’d gotten myself in for. So I bought my first pair of fell shoes and I joined her.”
Why curiosity matters
“We need to continue to be curious. I want to try and change perceptions of older age and what our expectations of our own older age is, because despite the fact that there are very few people, or rather fewer people these days in their 60’s who are sitting in rocking chairs, society still has a way of linking this stereotype to people once they get to 60, and that has a way of influencing how we as individuals set our own expectations of ourselves.
If most people sat down with a pen and paper for five minutes, they could probably write down at least a dozen things that they have said in their life ‘if I had my time over again, I would do such and such.’ And I would say, ‘You don't have to have the time over again, you can do it now. Be curious and just go and inquire. Find somewhere where you can get information on how you can do that now, and then you'll feel a lot more fulfilled. Cause at the end of the day, you really don't want too many things on that list when they're about to put you in your box.”
To find out more about Angela and The Running Granny:
Facebook and Instagram @therunninggranny
Twitter @running_granny
If you’d like to make a donation to support Angela’s social enterprise:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/62-62-in-62
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