I earned my doctorate just before my 51st birthday.

I finally got a cell phone that had a decent keypad (similar to a Blackberry) for texting when I turned 51 (I've had a dumb phone since the days of the bag phones). My graduate students really appreciated me upgrading, although maybe not when I have to resort to texting them when they ignore my emails). Two years later I moved up to an iPhone and handed down my old phone to my husband. We've both found it convenient to send short text messages to each other. When I'm off doing my long endurance activities (biking and hiking), I'll periodically check in with him.

I started my bucket list item of hiking the entire Ice Age Trail in Wisconsin (~1200 miles) one segment at a time when I was 54. I want to finish all the segments by the time I turn 65. I've done close to 300 miles thus far, but those are the segments closer to Illinois. My drives are getting progressively longer and I now need to plan to be up in Wisconsin for at least 3-4 days to make it worth the travel.

I did my first brevets last summer at age 56. I did 2 @ 200K. I'd previously done invitational century rides with the longest one coming in at 108 miles. Between the brevets and other century rides, I had 6 rides of 100+ miles last summer which is more than I'd ever done in a single year before.

I'm currently chasing a P-12 which is a challenge living in the Chicago suburbs as you never know how much snow and cold we will get. 2018 started off pretty brutal. I hope to get P-4 done this Friday. I'm running out of January.