This is the best podcast I’ve listened to in a long time. This story, about an 83 year old super athlete, is amazing. I suspect people of all ages may be able to learn something from this guy. I may not want to ever live in a bus, but he does prove that longevity and health can be achieved on a pretty minimal budget.
The limitless mind and body of an 83-year-old super-athlete
“Never let anyone tell you that you’re old,” says Dag Aabaye, an 83-year-old super athlete who defies age. He runs two to six hours daily in B.C.'s Okanagan Valley, where he lives alone on a mountain. For him, running is “life itself." Blizzards, heat waves, even running 24 hours straight
Until he met Aabaye, Brett Popplewell used to dread growing old. But now the sports journalist says he has reframed his thoughts about life, death, and the limits placed on us as we age. Popplewell chronicles Aabaye’s life from childhood to being a stuntman and extreme athlete in his book, Outsider: An Old Man, a Mountain and the Search for a Hidden Past — winner of the 2024 Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction. Last month, Popplewell accepted his literary prize and delivered a public talk at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario.
The speaker here in the podcast has written a book about the guy (10 years ago) - and it sounds really good, so I’m going to read it. Details below:
https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16143607-the-limitless-mind-body-83-year-old-super-athlete
A video on the guy:
Some stories about Dag:
He doesn’t get lonely up on the mountain, says he’s too busy to. He’s up at 4:30 every morning and his days are filled with running, chopping firewood, reading and clearing his trails.
“It gives you an inner thoughtfulness,” he says. “You become a person that enjoys your own company.”
He eased into this simple life as one might relax into a pair of old boots.
The Book:
British Columbia has long been a magnet for eccentric new settlers with mysterious backgrounds who come here seeking to reinvent themselves. Thanks to an investigative journalist from Ontario, we now have another whose fascinating back story has been captured for the record: Dag Aabye, a ruggedly athletic, 82-year-old mountain man from Norway who lives in a school bus on a forested hillside near SilverStar outside Vernon—a man who, until he was 75, competed as a long-distance runner in the brutal, 125-kilometre Canadian Death Race.
Buy on Amazon: Outsider: An Old Man, a Mountain and the Search for a Hidden Past: Popplewell, Brett: 9781443457859: Amazon.com: Books
