A friend of a friend (FoF) — the only way the best stories get told — had some trouble in his marriage. He spoke about it one night on a trekking expedition, by the side of a camp fire, guard down, spirits up. When the group met for another mountain meeting the following year, the FoF was asked if things were looking better. He said indeed they were. He now got up at 4.30 am to run 10k before heading out to a 10-hour work day. Over the weekend, he’d joined a cycling group that did five-hour trips to the outskirts of town. There was no time for ‘discussion’, making the marriage sail along smoothly.
If you are a member of any WhatsApp group that swims, cycles, or runs, you’ll realise couples are rarely on these together. Nor is it a bring-a-friend-along kind of party. In fact, it’s a space you leave your day-job and real-life roles out of — a getaway from home, family, social circles, bosses — all that is boring. Most people on these groups are over 35, working, and running/cycling/swimming. Some, of course, do all three. Or more. The Everest Base Camp has become the local hangout for the mid-lifer. Tell me you know at least two people who’ve been there, done that.
The clichéd mid-life crisis revolves around sports cars, super bikes, designer bags, booze, an affair — something to get the excitement back, to feel that high again. At 40, there’s no rush from love or a boss’ 4-star appraisal. There’s got to be something more to life — to take away the jadedness of a job, the dullness of children doing homework, or worse, the realisation that perhaps life will go on quite smoothly without you.
But because we share space with the millennial generation, we have become conformists, slightly lazy, and don’t really cry out for resistance or risk (so an affair is highly avoidable, and one does have college fees to pay, so a super bike is too).
Fitness is safe — it’s what the cardiologist and the diabetologist ordered. Your partner will be proud when you do a half in Leh; your parents will discuss it over tea and biscuits; your children will have something to boast about in school.
But it’s not just married people. Another FoF, who’s single, puts in marathon miles around the world because she says at 40, she has stopped waiting — for marriage, for kids, for life to happen. It’s also the only space where the single and the married mix easily, because neither seems to bring their baggage from relationships along.
Sporting events are wonderful places of camaraderie, of positivism — you get a finisher’s medal and get told you that it really is the hard work you put in that matters. People are friendly, and you’ll see the finisher at two hours and three hours in a 21k sit side by side and eating a banana, sharing a joke. It’s niceness in a world not known for it.
Then there’s the bucket list, the new preoccupation of the privileged mid-lifer who has everything. Anything you put on it must sound many-layered, almost impossible: so ‘run the Boston marathon’, ‘swim in the world’s largest swimming pool’, ‘conquer the seven summits’, are all things people are working towards. It’s also something to look forward to, because your child’s wedding is no longer a goal.
Today, instead of a bike, you get to buy all that gear, even if your father cringes each time he sees you wear Lycra. And you get to talk about it to the office crowd. Better still — you can simply cycle to office and then carry the Brompton up the stairs, displaying it in your cabin. Then have your chauffeur pick you up in the evening. And no one — hell, no one — will tell you to grow up and go home.
