I am 50

I am 50. I actually turned 50 a few weeks ago. It doesn’t upset me or stress me out in any way. I’m actually quite proud and happy to be 50. I’m fit and healthy – partly through luck I know because some people just get unlucky and so far I’m not one of them. And partly because I go running five days a week and walking every day. Being active keeps me happy and healthy.

When I turned 30 (I was heavily pregnant with my second child and in and out of hospital), my mum said to me that the time between 30 and 50 goes very quickly. She wasn’t wrong! A lot has happened in that time. I had my baby four weeks later, then another one two and a bit years after that. We moved house twice. I gave up working in an office and went freelance. And now I’m a mum to two adults and one nearly adult.

That is a lot of change in 20 years. But, as the cliche says, the days are long but the years are short. I know it is 20 years, but it has gone pretty quickly. A lot quicker than the time between 10 and 30. And I certainly hope the time between 50 and 70 doesn’t go as fast!

My 50th birthday was lovely. My younger son was at home in the morning, but then had to go back to uni. I went for a hill run with my husband and sister. I don’t normally have time for running up the hill, so that was really nice. Then I went out for lunch with my husband, parents and sister. We went to The Beefy Boys, which is a very popular restaurant locally and was on TV recently. I ate so much that I struggled when I went out to eat again in the evening with my husband, eldest and daughter!

My husband and I had a joint birthday party the next day. He turned 50 in June and we’d considered having the party between our birthdays, but that would have fallen in the summer holidays and would have meant lots of people couldn’t come. So we ended up having it the day after my birthday, which was just perfect.

We booked a venue which used to be a restaurant. The restaurant was quite special to us – we’d gone there the day after our wedding, we’d celebrated my sister’s A Level results there and I’d gone for a meal there with my friends to celebrate my 40th. We blew the budget on a live band and they were worth every penny.

The party was even better than we’d hoped it would be. I haven’t had a party since I was about 9. I’m not sure that we will ever have one again, but we will always have happy memories of our 50th.

Then I rounded off my celebrations a week later by heading for the birthplace of parkrun – Bushy Park.

And now I’m just settling into life as a 50 year old.

The main thing I’m excited about is my running. Being 50, ‘good for age’ places at races have become a real possibility for me. The good for age pace in my 40s was too quick for me, but the goalposts shift at 50 to something I might be able to manage. So I’ll be continuing to enjoy running – whether that’s races, running on my own or doing parkrun. And if I can maintain my pace, that’s great. If I can get a bit quicker, that would be even better.

Apart from that, I’ll be trying to ignore the fact that my nest will soon be even emptier and focus on the positives as much as I can. I’ll be spending more time with my husband, just the two of us, and Hetty will keep us smiling.

Being 50 is pretty good.