"You are too old to run."

"You're too old to run."
Those were the words I heard from the neighbours when I was about forty years of age and jogging through the residential area towards the rubber estates and back, giving me five or six kilometers of exercise each day. If I had listened to them I would not be as healthy as I am today. Thank God, I made use of the brain he gave me and the knowledge I had acquired on the human body, organs, muscles, tendons, tissues and joints, to decide to continue running.

What would become of me, had I listened to those neighbours and stopped running. Well, the tendons and muscles of my legs would have shortened through a shorter stride, unless I switched to some other exercises such as yoga where stretching the muscles and tendons happen each time yoga poses and movements are performed.

So, fortunately for me, from the knowledge I had accumulated through all those years, I understand very well that joints remain healthy only if they are moved so that the synovial fluid in the discs are replenished and thus keep the discs strong and pliable, thus ensuring that joints are able to perform their tasks. I know that muscles will waste away to become smaller and weaker, gradually replaced with fat if there is no exercise. These muscles and tendons will shorten with inactivity resulting in shorter strides as we are no longer capable of stretching them to satisfactory lengths. And having seen some fifty-year-old who shuffle along in very short strides, I knew we need not have to walk like them if we exercise and stretch our muscles and tendons consistently each and every day.

So, I told those people who discourage me from running that I would stop running when I am forced to, when I am no longer able to run. Until then, I had better make full use of the wonderful limbs God had given me. I love to run. I just hope to be able to run until my very last day on earth.

I believe nobody can ever be too old to run if he/she were to exercise sufficiently to keep his body strong and healthy unless the person had been crippled due to some unforeseen circumstances. Thus, whether we would still be running or not depends upon us. God gave us a brain to make us the master of our bodies. How we develop it, strengthen it, care for it to maintain it at its optimum capability depends upon our parents and us. How much we can enjoy or get out of the potential given us depends largely on us, our body and its health. Neglect it and it will neglect you in your old age. That is the price all of us will have to pay for not appreciating sufficiently the only body God has given us.