When competing in any athletic or recreational sport there is a battle of wills and bodies to achieve success and be the ultimate warrior. We learn this from an early age in the schoolyard and sports field. We then take this into adulthood and our careers.
It teaches us how to relish our victories, but also how to bounce back from setbacks and disappointments, which we can also translate into our professions, ambitions and corporate boardrooms.
I have worked in sport media and production for nearly 30 years. For many years I worked at CBC TV Network Sports as a producer and had the privilege of working on 13 Olympic Games, many other multi-day sporting events, World Cups, and championships in almost every sport.
During the last 10 years, I have taught sports journalism and production, and I’m the Program Director of Sport Media in the RTA School of Media at Ryerson University. My creative and research interests focus around resiliency and diversity in sport and media.
Ageism and Sport
A recent article and study in Zoomer magazine looks at the toxic effects of ageism in the workplace and society and addresses how it is bad for the health for those over 50, and for the younger millennial set who face a disconnect about getting older.Sport as Resiliency
Come race day, we found ourselves in a sea of millennials, many sporting the different colored Tough Mudder headbands that indicated how many you had previously completed—the badge of honor. I knew the goal was to walk out at the end of the day with one of those headbands.We were clearly the oldest team competing, but that did not sap our energy and enthusiasm. In fact, we let that fuel us. We knew we were old enough to be the parents of most participants, but as we went through each obstacle and “earned our way in” we would catch the looks of surprised staff and teams who must have thought we somehow ended up on the course by mistake.
But with age sometimes comes some wisdom. Through some climbing and water obstacles, we were also able to point out smarter, faster ways of working. A couple of our teammates were the first to easily mount “Everest”—a half pipe snowboarding obstacle which required you to run up the curved wall, grab the top and throw yourself over and straddle. They were able to grab onto and help over many younger competitors that struggled getting over the lip of the half pipe.
Yes, we were all older and our bodies definitely not as lean, muscular, or imposing, but we were there slogging through Tough Mudder just like the rest of them.
Crawling through one of the last and most challenging obstacles, “Mud Mile,” was definitely the moment I thought “what am I doing here?” But we persevered and finished the course.
Getting through Tough Mudder turned out to be one of the proudest physical achievements in my life. At the end of the day, as we tried to shower off the never-ending mud in the huge communal outdoor showering area, I let the water wash over me and I felt euphoric.
Is 50 the halfway point, mid-life? This is what I have heard from many of my friends as they attempt to make me feel better about getting older. Previously, I would disagree: “How many 100-year-olds do you know?”
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