"I Want to Die Running"

Joy Johnson, of San Jose, Calif., starts her morning training regimen with a brisk block-and-a-half walk, and then shifts gears into a steady trot. Training this summer for the New York City Marathon, she totaled 50 to 60 miles per week of road work, supplemented with hill training and bleacher work. In a Minnesota running camp, her coaches also ran her through stomach crunches, push-ups and hovers.

Johnson is 81 years old.

She will participate in the 80-90-year-old division against four other women, facing stiff competition from Bertha McGruder, who finished the Marathon last year in six hours and 15 minutes -- good for a third place finish in the 75-79-year-old women's category.

"I've told my friends if I die here on the track do not call 911 because I do not want to revive," she says. "I say, wait half an hour, maybe 45 minutes, then call the mortician. That's the way I want to go."

Johnson is profiled today by the Wall Street Journal, which notes that the octagenarian is representative of a larger phenomenon: More older Americans are exercising regularly than ever. Seniors today are undertaking strenuous activity that previous generations never would have contemplated at their age. Since 2003, writes Matthew Futterman, "the number of finishers 80 and above by all road races has risen 23% compared with 16% for all age groups."

While the WSJ does not put a "generational" spin on the story, the implications are clear. Women like Johnson and McGruder provide role models that the next generation, the Baby Boomers, will follow in mass numbers. Boomers, already obsessed with maintaining their physical vitality, will transform today's rivulet of octagenerian athletes into a foaming river.

Bold Boomer Project prediction: While economists fret over the bifurcation of wealth -- the increasing number of rich and poor, and a shrinking middle class -- the United States also will see a bifurcation of health. Increasingly, the elderly will sort themselves into two groups: those who worked diligently to maintain their health over the years, and those who didn't; those who run, play tennis, and practice yoga and pilates, and those who let get obese, contract diabetes and let their arteries harden; those who live full lives then drop dead, and those whose lives stretch into a long, unfulfilling twilight of increasing debilitation and incapacity.

(Photo credit: Jonathan Sprague for The Wall Street Journal.)

Will Boomers Make 60 the New 60?

As we mentioned earlier this month, The Boomer Project is now writing a regular Op/Ed column about Boomers and their quest for the Fountain of Vitality.

Here is this week's piece on Boomers and health (of lack thereof).

Boomers Put "Old" on Hold

Today's Washington Post includes a special section about "Fifty Plus," focusing on Baby Boomers.


We're interviewed for a segment about Marketing to Boomers.


Also interviewed was Nora Ephron, the Hollywood producer and writer, who shares her thoughts on the downside of "getting older" (and she cautions against using the word "old," saying that using "older" is better and less painful to hear).

Dr. Leo Cooney, chief of geriatrics at Yale University School of Medicine, is another expert interviewed about life after 50. He is more encouraging than Ephron.

Recently, we spent time with Dr. Richard Lindsey, an accomplished geriatrics physician in his own right, who told us an observation from his years of work with older adults.

It's sobering news for ever older Boomers: Dr. Lindsey's experience is that once people over 50 start having health issues, especially with some sort of illness or physical limitation necessitating surgical or medical enhancement (think knee replacement, stent for an artery, blood pressure medicine, etc.), you never go back to a better state of health and fitness before your health issue began. In other words, you'll have a new "normal" and you'll spend the rest of your life trying to maintain it.

We think this will be a difficult reality for older Boomers to accept. Helping them through this stage could turn into another business for "coaching." We can see it now -- Health Coaches to help Boomers maintain some level of vitality.

Wait, it's already being done (by Bob, of course, but it feels more like a guru site than a real health coach). The folks over at myHealthCoach.com present a better case, but you can't try it out before you commit your first $45. We bet business isn't "booming" yet.

Actually, this could be great consulting gig for retired RN's paired with Nutritionists and Personal Trainers. Anybody heard of a good example in the marketplace? Let us know.