Fit at fifty

Original: Essay

I’m indie writer Teague de La Plaine, author of the bestselling Sea at Sunrise and other stories. This is my weekly newsletter, where I talk about writing and self-publishing in addition to my own life. I keep the newsletter free, because I prefer you spend your money on my books.

Once upon a time, in the summer of 2024, I turned fifty. A dozen days earlier, my wife gave birth to our fourth child, a beautiful and healthy baby girl. And just two months prior, the Marine Corps selected me for transfer from the Reserves back to the Active Component for full-time service until retirement. It was a lot of change in a short period.

Once the madness settled a little, I automatically started reflecting. Of the many revelations I had in the weeks after my fiftieth birthday (look for separate articles in the future!), a big one was that I was no longer the fit tough guy I (thought I) was at half my current age. I had traded strength, agility, combat skills, and high-risk work for wisdom and a desk. Which is probably a fair trade, as many other older men might agree. But I wanted to change things up. I wanted to integrate the wiser man I had grown into with the tougher, younger me I had been.

I turned to what I knew: the Marine Corps and the Special Operations community. Thankfully, the two had become one with the creation of the Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC), colloquially known as the Marine Raiders.

Marines have been cycling through the Raider Assessment and Selection (A&S) program since 2008. A&S is a multi-week course that tests a marine’s fitness—both physical and mental—and his or her suitability for service with the Raiders. The process is challenging and attrition rates are high. Some marines just can’t make the cut. But sometimes a failure or drop from the course holds more subtle reasons behind why a marine might not make it through, such as injury and other preparation-related issues. Over time, MARSOC recognized that if they better prepared the candidates, more qualified marines might make it through A&S and into the Raiders. And if they developed an ethos around fitness (physical, mental, and spiritual), the Raiders thought they could keep qualified Raiders longer while increasing mission effectiveness.

This follows my own leadership philosophy: people first, mission follows. Meaning, if you take care of the people in an organization, they will work more diligently—and even happily—toward accomplishing the assigned mission.

To that end, MARSOC developed the Performance and Resiliency (PERRES) ideology. “By focusing on mind, body, and spirit, PERRES ensures that Marines not only are physically strong but also possess the mental focus and unconquerable spirit necessary to persevere under the extreme stress of a high operational tempo and through the unknowns of asymmetric warfare.”¹

I thought this sounded exactly like what I was looking for. I downloaded the PDF, printed it out, set a date, and took off running—literally.

The program assumed a certain level of baseline fitness. Even at fifty, I could complete the exercises of the first week. But I was definitely sore. And I hated most of it. Especially burpees. And planks—they kept sneaking in throughout the workouts: a minute here, thirty seconds there. After the first week, I had my doubts. After the first Saturday ruck (a mere four miles), I relished Sunday’s “rest, stretch, hydrate, and recover” mandate.

I had enlisted a friend as an outside motivator. Even though he later dropped off because of injuries, his initial participation pushed me to continue. And after the fourth week, nothing could have stopped me. I reveled in the pain and discomfort. I smiled at the slow weight loss and clear muscle gains, the general tightening up of my previously not-so-firm areas. In short, the program became exactly what I wanted—and needed. It was transformational, driving me to grow both physically and mentally.

Rather absurdly, I decided during the fifth week to join a Marine Corps Martial Arts class simultaneously. For three weeks I was doing double-workouts, starting my Raider fitness at 0445 and then changing (still sweating) into cammies, boots and flak for more physical training abuse followed by getting thrown around by marines both tougher and more skilled than I.

By week ten, I was automatically pushing myself harder during workouts, living the concept of input equals output, that the more you put into it, the more you get out of it.

The final event was a 12-mile ruck in under four hours. The previous Saturday, I had completed ten miles in two hours and thirty minutes, so I was confident I would succeed. I woke at 0440 and limped downstairs to don my desert MARPAT uniform and Danner Reckoning boots. A bit out of uniform, I rolled up my sleeves twice, revealing my smartwatch on one wrist and my Strenuous Life motto wristband on the other that reminded me: DO HARD THINGS.

Downstairs, I swung my pack over my head and onto my shoulders. It weighed 38 pounds, but always seemed to weight far less than that at the beginning—and far more at the end. I started a “Walking” exercise on my watch, checked that it was connected to my iPhone’s GPS, and took off.

I love early mornings. Especially when the moon is out. Or the skies are so clear you can see every part of Orion’s belt and sword sparkling overhead. By the time I was half way, the sky was starting my favorite show: the sunrise. It’s especially wonderful here because my hike takes me along the shores of Tampa Bay.

There’s nothing better than the sea at sunrise.

I kept the pace I’ve learned for myself: walk a mile, run a mile. I try to keep my walking pace around 14 minutes per mile and my run around 11 minutes per mile. I average out to around 13 minutes per mile by the end. I’m not sure how far I could go doing this, but there’s an 18-mile Norwegian ruck next spring I plan to attend—so I’ll let you know.

In the end, two hours and fifty-eight minutes later, I was done. There was no fanfare. No parade, no accolades. But I had the strangest thought: I could keep going. But here’s the other thing: It wore me out. I knew I would be sore later (my right knee and left foot were definitely talking to me!). And I was completely soaked in sweat. But I felt good…and I was a little disappointed it was over.

Maybe more telling is this: I discovered halfway through the program that MARSOC had updated everything in 2023 and the new workout is better (and harder) and I am starting it tomorrow. This time, you can all follow along in the chat.

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1. From the “MARSOC 10 Week Workout Log,” 2018.