I am gutted to hear that I missed ‘Age Without Limits Day (AWLD) 2026’. I have written it into my diary for 2027 otherwise I am bound to forget.

In reality I am surrounded by such positive 60+ role models that I rarely think about age. My friends are climbing mountains, wild water swimming and visiting the Sex Garden (sorry, ‘Aphrodite’s Hot House’) at Chelsea Flower Show. They all seem to refire rather than retire. Although our algorithms try to flog us collagen and retirement homes I am surrounded by lovely people whom I would happily look and act like for many years to come.

I only read about the ‘AWLD’ because I am trying to relax my body and stay off my feet. After years of running, one of my legs has gone on strike. Since I just gritted my teeth in denial and continued on with my schedule – I made things much worse and my leg finally decides to show me who is running the show. (sorry). Instead of keeping my ‘Local Legend’ status on Strava (albeit for a tiny stretch of path that no-one else runs on), for the last few weeks I have attempted to amuse myself and become an armchair expert on IT band, sciatica and psoas ‘hacks’.

While distracted by couch potato woo woo advice that sends my glutes into an angry mess, I read that on ‘AWLD’ I missed out on a showcase of activities such as circus skills, pole dancing and anti-agism protests – at least I could have participated in the later – pole dancing and circus skills, not so much.

Although not able to run, my mortgage has nudged me to limp around the school during my duty slots and to actively curse at the number of steps on our large school site; I am gracious enough to feel relief that my timetable is at least on ground floor level. In my lessons I resort to sitting on a cricket ball until I have a close shave with a Year 10 student with his eye on my massage tool to demonstrate the sound of leather on willow. I just want him to stay seated and to complete some creative writing. Fair play, at the end of the lesson he tells me that I look tired and offers to carry our books back to my office. ‘None of us are getting any younger Miss’.

I ‘treat’ myself to a couple of deep tissue massages and am told by my sports therapist that I need to relax – and that he has never seen a client with such a poker face. He says I am allowed to give in to the pain and that there is no need to fight against it . On the first session I take this as a compliment, but after being a little previous in attempting to get back running, I cry my eyes out when I am forced to limp back to his massage table. I try (really hard) to relax into the pain.

Without wishing to sound overly dramatic, I find it hard to relax my body when I feel in so much pain, I allow myself a long pity party and then acknowledge that I know enough about yoga to know that eventually I will just have to surrender.

I decide that some self-regulation is in order and impress myself by limping down to my usual yoga class and lying on a bolster for a yin hour to the dulcet tones of a gong meditation. My facia finally feels like it may trust me enough to relax a little and, as directed by the yoga teacher, I ‘float’ the question, ‘what does my body need right now?’ The answer comes, ‘ a lift back up the hill to my cottage at the end of the class’, but I am too proud to ask anyone to drive me back and I know I will never be able to get into a car anyway.

I start sleeping on the floor with my legs balanced up against a wall to fool my body into feeling safe and relaxed. Unfortunately each morning I lose my body’s trust when I attempt to stand upright. Apparently swearing is not compatible with a sympathetic nervous system and I start each day in deep muscle spasm punctuated with some impressive Old English lexis . Each morning I also contemplate swapping my car for an automatic so that I can ignore the clutch on my daily commute.

A few weeks of this and I feel I may not be the best advocate for pro-age activism. I have been referring to myself as a ‘dinosaur’ and an ‘old duffer’ and in one pastoral conversation at school find myself shocked to realise that I am older than one of my student’s great grandparents – on the basis of this, I feel it is justifiable to ask him to stop calling me ‘mate’. I would honestly prefer ‘sweetheart’ or ‘granny’ which – according to the AWLD website I should be protesting (actively) against.

The only bit of activism I do undertake is to break the news to the senior leadership team that their usual Senior Citizen Sports Day relay race recruit will need to be benched this year. They have always counted on my senior years and my impressive array of running shoes because the first leg of the relay is measured out in terms of age – the older you are, the shorter the distance you need to run. My age – rather than my wisdom – has been of value to the team in this frenzied sports arena. Even though I now have a pronounceable limp, my colleagues clearly think I am shirking my ‘duty’; they may change their tune when they see me steer clear of the teacher dancing – and the stairs – at the Year 11 prom on Tuesday.

I hereby acknowledge that I am a stubborn old boot (also banned lingo on the AWLD.com) and that it is only since admitting that I am in pain that I have started making some progress. Favourite Daughter humours me this morning with a slow and gentle jog – nothing Local Legend worthy but enough to merit a ‘welcome back’ on Strava. She then takes me for a walk by the river and a strong coffee – yin and yang – and it seems to be working. I order myself a yoga bolster so that I can sleep comfortably again and reassure my nervous system that I am on its side and intend to be open hearted and relaxed… sadly I think the delivery driver has just left this parcel at the bottom of the thirty steps up to the cottage…I only wish I had attended that Circus Skills class on ‘Age Without Limits Day’. There is always next year. They tell me that age has no limits.