From start to finish, it lasted 15 minutes. He complained of chest pain one Sunday morning, and a quarter of an hour later, he was dead. A heart attack at 37.

Anecdotes do not make significant statistics, but it seems we hear these stories more often, and the victims get younger. Stress in the clamour of our cities is particularly unmitigating; a chronic, low-grade fever; a constant hiss of background noise.

Heart attacks at 37, strokes at 24, diabetes in your teens, and yet, the attitude around me towards being active into older years can be worryingly archaic.

Recently, my former cycling coach in the US, whose email group I’m still on, sent around a mail about one of his cyclists — let’s call him Sam—who was able to put out 292 watts of functional threshold power, or FTP. This is a measure of the hardest you can ride for a certain period. To put Sam’s output in perspective, some pretty fast, dedicated riders in my age group (that would be 35-40) have goals to increase their current FTP to 220 or 230 watts.

But there’s more. The email went on to say, “Oh, for those of you who don’t know, did I mention that Sam is 70!”

And Sam is not the only senior rider in this group — people in their 70s and even 80s who are not only on bicycles, but racing in their age groups.

Recently, a 49-year-old registered on an Indian cycling forum, and introduced herself, talking about her cycling and long-distance running, including training for a triathlon and for ultra-marathons. The response from some quarters was predictably annoying.

“...at 49 you are huge inspiration and certainly proves that age is just a number which cannot be applied to body or mind,” went one. A few others gushed in a similar way about this person being an inspiration because of her age.

I’m not taking away from this 49-year-old. Running an ultra (an event greater than 42.2km, marathon distance) is commendable at any age, and yes, more so when you’re in your forties and older. And whether you’re 15 or 50, finding the time and motivation to be active is something to cele-brate. But if the reaction to a 49-year-old is so fawning, what would these people say to Sam, the 70-year-old watt machine?

Cause for puzzlement

It has often struck me, and strikes many of my fellow cyclists, just how low the bar is for physical activity. Cycle rides of a mere 12km cause eyes to fall out of heads (when training, 40km is a short ride). The awareness for running is a bit higher, but on the whole, apparently, running 5 or 10km isn’t something you should do more than once a week, if that.

And sometimes, anything in even the vicinity of good health is cause for puzzlement. For instance, when training, it’s important to eat meals on time, as getting hungry interferes with recovery. I could see this caused consternation in some circles, and I thought, “Really? Wanting to eat lunch at 1 instead of 2.30 or 3 is a loaded choice?” (These are the circles that call for work meetings at 12.50pm.)

Similarly, going to bed early can be a real social handicap—after a while, friends just stop asking you to come out. But as the medical horror stories get more common and the ages of the fallen get lower, awareness improves, the bar is set higher.

I’m looking forward to a day when a young Bangalorean proudly tells his friends that over the weekend, his grandmother won a bicycle race in her age category.

Gautam Raja is a journalist based in Bengaluru, India.