Real Fitness in Real Life
Key to Staying Fit...
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Have Fun
ladys Williamson, 93 and a Health Alliance Medicare member, swims twice a week at the Four Seasons Fitness Center in Bloomington. She competes in the National Senior Games, winning several gold medals. She also swam twice in the 1.2-mile Central Illinois Open Water Swim, receiving awards each time.
children who also became swimmers. For a while, neighbors called their private pool the Kappa Swim Club, where they hosted fun swim competitions. It wasn’t until her late 60s that Gladys started swimming competitively.
“I don’t go for speed,” Gladys says. Typically she swims freestyle for her competitions, but last year she decided to try the 50-meter backstroke. She Gladys grew up on a farm, so being active and living doesn’t know how to do the fancy flip turns at the end of each length, but she doesn’t mind. She adds, healthy was natural. “I always wanted to learn to “It’s about having fun and not letting it feel like swim,” Gladys says, “but opportunities were rare.” work.” She’d go every chance she got, and by the time she was in college at Illinois State University, she was a “The key for me,” she says, “so I stay motivated, is regular swimmer. to put my swimsuit on right when I wake up.” That way she is ready after her morning coffee and she’s Her husband was an avid swimmer, too. So, not likely to make excuses. Swimming is easy on she says, “It was sink or swim.” They raised four her joints, and she credits it as one of the reasons she’s so healthy. “People say I am inspiration to them, but I don’t know about that,” Gladys humbly adds. Then she jokes, “I have motivated so many, I now have to go early in the morning before all the lanes fill up.” Following her lead, her children recently started swimming competitively, too. She encourages friends and others to keep moving. It doesn’t have to be much, but, “It should be something enjoyable.”
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