Happy birthday @Midlife_Trisis
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Happy birthday!
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Don’t start that sh*t again 
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Reaching 30 - ‘shit - I’m not young any more’
Reaching 40 - ‘shit - I’m middle aged, half way through life and the best bits are gone’
Reaching 50 - ‘shit - I’m old’
Reaching 60 - TBA….
40 was the most traumatic……
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I’ve really never had any thoughts about certain milestone birthdays.
I don’t really give a sh1t about any birthdays and just think I’m a day older than yesterday, like every other day of the year. People think I’m saying that to cover up but I’m really not.
ETA - the only ones that really meant anything were 16, 17, 18 when you can legally start doing new things.
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Reaching 30 - pretty traumatic, but work was cr*p at the time, redundancies happening every few months, eventually got the boot myself - was a huge relief
Reaching 40 - hardly noticed, work and homelife in a good place
Reaching 50 - in the middle of the pandemic, just feel tired all the time.
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50 was a difficult time for me - my ankle problems had stopped me from running and I was at a low ebb.
I did the Scilly Isles swim that year which was great but put on a lot of weight.
At 51 I decided to embrace cycling and haven’t looked back, just turned 57 and still loving it 
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Penblwydd Hapus! 
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30’s and 40’s were fine, hitting 50 felt ok but almost feels as if I peaked that year!
Honestly never felt so tired, fat, unfit and just wanting to chill in the house with the wife and dogs so much as I have over the last 3 years.
Really needing to give myself a shake and get back to that fit, confident 50 year old me!
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50, 51 I felt brilliant. Sub 10 IM, still getting cycle TT PBs. Ageing - pah, that’s for the other guys in my AG.
52 Plateau.
53,54 Can really feel the physical slide, strength and power going, run speed dropping. Overall just mentally not as tough and committed, less able to suffer. Bit like a rollercoaster going over a hill, think the slide is going to really start accelerating.
55 TBA. Made some like changes, got a coach - trying to deploy my limited and dwindling resources in a smarter way.
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I could have absolutely written that!
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I thought I was 52 this year but it turned out I’m actually 51. I feel like I gained a year!
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Result !
For me, this is the big thing and it affects different people in different ways and comes on at different ages. For most, time becomes a bigger and bigger factor with work, family … even dogs!
When I was recovering from my (very badly) broken ankle in 1991, I realised that I was going to have to suffer to carry on with sport but, in my mid 20’s, this didn’t seem like a big issue as the alternative was to stop doing things I wanted to do.
Faced with the same challenge at 50, I didn’t have the mental desire to run through pain.
At some stage, you have to have realised that you’ve either achieved your ‘goals’ (my personal situation) or that you’re not going to get any better.
At that point, it seems to me, you either have to modify your goals or modify the challenge.
for me nowadays, the challenge is to enjoy myself - to which end I’m off into the Welsh hills for a few hours this morning! 
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There were two major events in my life that questioned whether I carried in, one was when I had my bad accident in Sydney (some of that was 'do I want to ride again as well) and I did manage to overcome that within a couple months of recovering.
The second one was all the spines ops which straddled the period from when I was 48-51. I’d had lots of issues years before in Oz with it and it was ongoing but it was those years that seemed like I was under the knife continually.
Each operation needed another mental reset and months of rehab and each one just got harder and harder to get going again, especially mentally. I got some decent results and achieved most of what I wanted, with the exception of a sub 3.30 marathon post operations and a 100 mile ultra.
Age and operations loaded the gun but I reckon Covid/lockdown pulled the trigger, especially concerning HIT workouts and speed. You aren’t fighting the clock after a certain age, you’re fighting your body and mind.
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age 50 - apart from having the single best day’s skiing of my life on my birthday itself - I started on this journey of long distance running and triathlon. I had a marathon “itch” I needed to satisfy so did my 1st (London) and following Mrs FB’s “itch” to do a triathlon, I also did my 1st in September (sprint)
51 - more marathons and tris, including 1st Middle
52 - 1st IM (Switzerland)
between then and my 60th I did many more tris and marathons (and ultras) but did my last IM aged 59 (Wales)
I probably peaked in 2007 age 54 when I got my IM PB
frankly, I started too late on this journey and look back to what I might have acheived had I started a lot younger but I was having too much fun playing rugby then.
I hit 60 and the descent into decrepitude really started - the body slowed and my mojo went - so since then apart from a few sprint tris and 5ks I have done no real competitive events, but turned to becoming a better TO.
I keep fit for health now and not to compete against anyone apart from myself
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I’m we’re you are now at 53.
I started tri very young and have raced intermittently over the last 30 odd years.
I’m an in or out person.
When I’m in I’m hugely motivated and as others have said made very good use of quite limited genetics tri wise.
When I’m out I have little interest but will watch IMUK from the roadside somewhere.
Some good results on the way especially at 40 and 50 but the fire has gone out now, I’d love to do a hyrox event but get injured every time I start training for it, we live in hope though.
We are all very fit people still compared to our average non sporting peers.
I do fancy a serious challenge this year I have crazy amounts of time off but nothing has sparked an interest …… yet.
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Is escape from Alcatraz Tri still running? Reckon that would be right up your street @Mungo2 
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Shark phobia would be in overdrive on that one I think?!
It’s an iconic race and a good call but the challenge wouldn’t be tri related at all, not as it stands now.
More likely to be a serious endurance gym challenge?!
Or a very long swim possibly ( not the Chanel )
24 hour turbo? No!!!
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There will always be events that you never get to do. Even 25 years after I stopped climbing at a high level I still hanker after some routes I never got round to doing.
These days it’s the swim/run events in Snowdonia and the Lakes that I wish I could have done … and Otillo Scilly Isles
No doubt when I stop cycling there will be things/hills that I never got to
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