FIT AND FAB

"For last year's words be­long to last year's lan­guage and next year's words await an­oth­er voice and to make an end is to make a be­gin­ning." T S Eliot

There is some­thing about the start of a new year. It is a turn­ing point, a sym­bol­ic mark on life's jour­ney that al­lows us to gath­er our thoughts, to plan for what we hope to achieve as a new year un­folds. The past with all its joys and sor­rows, mis­takes and dis­ap­point­ments, re­la­tion­ships lost and hur­dles sur­mount­ed is gone. While each day of the year marks a new be­gin­ning, there is some­thing about turn­ing that leaf in­to a new year that brings a note of fresh­ness and op­ti­mism. Any­thing seems pos­si­ble!

What can we do bet­ter? How can we re-emerge and redi­rect our fo­cus to be the best that we can be? What have we still to do? What dreams and as­pi­ra­tions re­main un­ful­filled? But the close of an old year can al­so be a time of self-judg­ment and re­crim­i­na­tion. Be­neath the cham­pagne bub­bles and the laugh­ter, there is of­ten a shad­ow side, a hid­den voice that nags at us. Did I live up to my ideals this year? Why did I fail? Did I take care of my body?

We need to still that self-crit­i­cal voice and be grate­ful for all that we ex­pe­ri­enced in the year gone by. We are here. We are alive. So let us give thanks for the old year with all its chal­lenges and set­backs, its tears and laugh­ter. Let us learn from our mis­takes and step bold­ly in­to a new year. May these words from Pope Fran­cis guide us: "To be hap­py is to stop feel­ing like a vic­tim and be­come your des­tiny's au­thor. It is to cross deserts yet to be able to build an oa­sis in the depths of our soul. It is to thank God every morn­ing for the mir­a­cle of life."

My guest to­day, Chris­tine Reg­is start­ed run­ning at age 40. Many years lat­er she re­mains a for­mi­da­ble force as a run­ner, a tes­ta­ment to the fact that age is lit­er­al­ly just a num­ber. Her com­mit­ment and dri­ve show us that noth­ing is im­pos­si­ble. It's nev­er too late for new be­gin­nings. "Dreams are re­new­able. No mat­ter what our age or con­di­tion there are still un­tapped pos­si­bil­i­ties with­in us and new beau­ty wait­ing to be born."—DrDale Turn­er

Chris­tine Reg­is:

I start­ed ex­er­cis­ing in the gym af­ter I had my last child. I need­ed to lose weight as I had gained too much. I found that I re­al­ly en­joyed train­ing, es­pe­cial­ly the aer­o­bics class­es. That was over 30 years ago. I con­tin­ued work­ing out, even en­ter­ing the aer­o­bic burnout com­pe­ti­tion at Jean Pierre Sta­di­um where I placed third. Be­fore class, I would go on the tread­mill and run for al­most one hour with ease. A friend en­cour­aged me to join a run­ning club and it didn't take too long for me to make the tran­si­tion.

I joined Ath­let­ic Cen­tral in Cou­va and start­ed train­ing with coach Al­lan Ba­boolal and Ram­s­ingh Boodoos­ingh pop­u­lar­ly known as Ram­bo. When I first start­ed I didn’t have a car so get­ting to and from train­ing was a chal­lenge. Hav­ing to get a ride to train and then hav­ing

to trav­el at night was re­al­ly dif­fi­cult but I was de­ter­mined not to give up.

I be­gan a run­ning pro­gramme which helped with my speed and I was en­cour­aged to en­ter a few 5K races. I re­mem­ber dur­ing my first race I got tired and start­ed to walk and Granny Luces

passed me. That's when I got re­al­ly se­ri­ous and de­cid­ed I need­ed to place more em­pha­sis on

my speed. I trained re­al­ly hard putting in long hours and my ef­fort paid off.

When I start­ed en­ter­ing 5K races I found my­self in the top three fe­males and that mo­ti­vat­ed me to con­tin­ue train­ing even hard­er. I tran­si­tioned to 10K, half marathon and fi­nal­ly to a marathon.

In 2007 I had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to rep­re­sent my coun­try abroad in Udine, Italy, at the world half marathon. It was an awe­some ex­pe­ri­ence.

It is im­por­tant to men­tion that I start­ed run­ning in my 40s so it was def­i­nite­ly a

chal­lenge keep­ing up with the younger run­ners. That was what re­al­ly drove me to im­prove and

I placed sec­ond in 2016 and 3rd in 2017 in the T&T Marathon. What an ec­sta­t­ic feel­ing that was! Run­ning has helped me in every­day life in so many ways. Most of all, it has helped me not to fo­cus on my prob­lems. Be­ing di­vorced can be ex­treme­ly de­press­ing at times. On those down days I would go and run for hours by my­self and that helped a lot with my stress re­lief. Run­ning is def­i­nite­ly a great form of heal­ing for me and it has kept me healthy. I would en­cour­age any­one to start, even if it’s just to walk. I have a fan­tas­tic train­er named Tony Maxwell Hatt who push­es me to be the best that I can be. I be­lieve the key to stay­ing in­jury free is prop­er stretch­ing, warm­ing up and cool­ing down af­ter work­outs, and of course, rest when nec­es­sary.

2018 was re­al­ly hard for me. I was in­jured and this kept me out of run­ning for al­most an en­tire

year but I don’t in­tend to give up. I will con­tin­ue run­ning as long as I have health and strength,

maybe not as fast as be­fore but I won’t be stop­ping any time soon. I would en­cour­age any per­son who would like to take up any kind of sport to know that you are nev­er too old to start. Once you put your mind to any­thing it can be achieved through de­ter­mi­na­tion and hard work. Re­mem­ber, age is just a num­ber. Cross­ing 55 plus is more fun now than ever.