How I Still Walk 5Ks Every Morning at 70

6 min read

The morning is a system

It starts at six. Rusty stands at the bedroom door doing that low hum that dogs do, the one that is technically not a bark but carries the same message. I do the calves before my feet even find the slippers. Then the loop: out the side gate, past the school, down the hill, past the bakery as it opens, home. Five kilometres, rain or shine.

People ask how I still do it at 70, like there is a single answer. There is not. There are ten small answers and they all happen in order. That is the secret if you can call it one.

The first answer is the alarm. The second is the dog. The third is the stretch at the letterbox, then the proper ones in the backyard when I get back. The walk is the bit everyone sees. It is only ever the half of it.

My knees get the evening

The other half comes at six o'clock tonight. The legs have spent all day reminding me what the morning cost, and the evening is when I pay the bill. Kettle on, compression sleeve from the freezer, slides on like a sock. Cold that reaches the knee properly instead of melting on the outside of a tea towel.

The walking is only half the story. What you do after is the whole habit.

Ten minutes while the news runs. No ice bags to balance, no second trip back to the freezer when the first lot melts, no wet patch on the couch for my wife to find later. It just reaches where it needs to reach and stays there.

This is the one part of the routine people do not expect. Everyone asks about the walking, the dog, the breakfast. Nobody asks what comes after. It is the sleeve that has made it possible this past year.

The sleeve itself was nothing extravagant. About $89.95 for the Large, which suits the knee. It does cold from the freezer, and if you wanted warmth it would do that too from the microwave. I have not needed the warmth. I need the cold and it does its job.

The whole list, in order

If you want the actual answer, here it is. Alarm, dog, letterbox stretch, five ks, breakfast, cup of tea on the verandah. Then in the evening, ten minutes with the sleeve on each knee while the news runs. Then dinner. Then a reasonable bedtime. Every morning for a decade has been built the same way, and the sleeves have been in it for the last year of that.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is not being honest about the second half. The dog and the sleeve. That is the answer.

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