By Mark Cantrell

Ah, the Golden Years. Nothing to do but spend your days playing shuffleboard or checkers in the park, visiting with grandkids, skiing down the sheer face of a mountain, jumping out of an airplane ... >> Well, perhaps the last two aren’t typical activities for seniors. But for a growing number of Americans, retirement has become a call to action, as reduced commitments and increased free time allow for pursuit of long-held athletic interests, exploration of new and fascinating hobbies, and just getting back into shape.

Phil and Merj Shrout pursued their lifelong dream in 2002. The couple, 57 and 55 years old respectively, embarked on a cross-country bicycle trip that took them from Oregon to South Carolina — in summer, no less. Fitness is one thing, but why pedal across a continent?

“The idea was instilled in me by an article in Boy’s Life magazine about a 14-year-old Boy Scout who had done it,” says Phil. “I remember reading it in my parents’ house when I was 11 and saying, ‘Boy, I want to do that someday.’ ” Of course, many have childhood dreams, but for Phil it became an obsession. After 40 years, with the children grown and Phil in semiretirement, the time had finally come.

“I always assumed I’d be doing it by myself, but I was pleasantly surprised when Merj said she wanted to come along,” he says. There was just one condition: no camping. That was fine with Phil, so the two struck out on the road, averaging about 50 miles a day and stopping at motels each night. The couple had trained by riding about 500 miles before the trip, and it paid off. Unsure how she would cope with the daily grind, Merj found herself much more capable on two wheels than she had imagined.

“She was getting stronger as we got farther east,” Phil says. “We decided she’d be out front to set the pace, and there were a couple of days when I wanted to say, ‘Hey, why don’t you slow down a little?’ But my male ego wouldn’t let me.” After their odyssey, the two wrote a chronicle of the journey — America at Twelve Miles an Hour — which was their average speed on the trip.

Turning over a new leaf

It wasn’t a boyhood fascination but some troubles in adulthood that got Tom Twitchell back into the exercise game. At the age of 41, the Korean War veteran was on a fishing trip with some friends in Quebec, Canada, when the tipping point came. “I was carrying a canoe up a little footpath that became a steep hill,” he remembers. “It just knocked me out. When I got to the top I just had to lie there for a while. I was way overweight, and my blood pressure was high as well. When we got back that night I told the others, ‘Boy, I’m gonna start running when I get back.’ And that’s what I did.”

Twitchell made running such a part of his life that he went on to run the Boston Marathon, not once but twice. “I also ran the New York Marathon, a local one here in Syracuse, and another in Rome, N.Y.,” he says. “During that period I was covering some 2,500 miles a year.”

Now 75, Twitchell still runs with the Syracuse Track Club and some friends in his neighborhood. “I’m pretty slow — people can walk by me,” he says with a chuckle, but it hasn’t stopped him from getting out there. Last year he swam 1 mile in the Long Island Sound for the Swim Across America initiative, sponsored by the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, in memory of a nephew who succumbed to the disease.

Determination is key

Emily Kimball is one of those people who can’t help exercising. Her love of the outdoors has kept her outside and active for all of her 74 years. “I just love the freedom of being out on the trail with a pack on my back,” she says. That’s why she decided in 1962 to hike all 2,160 miles of the Appalachian Trail. But a stress fracture six weeks into the trip took her out of action temporarily, and her doctor advised her against returning to the trail.

“I decided I’d go back every year for a month in the summer,” she says. With a can-do attitude like that, it’s no wonder she reached her goal. Today, Kimball is still an active hiker and helps motivate others by speaking about the importance of regular exercise.

“I think when you’re older it’s important to [determine] what’s most important in your life and what gives you the most joy,” she says. “I’ve had breast cancer, sciatica, and osteoporosis. ... But my strength always comes back, and I continue with my passion. ... So do the things you love, and it will affect your years. I sure as hell want to live as long as I can and have a good quality of life.”

You’re only as old as you feel

When Ralph Manley gets a chance to engage in his passion, he jumps at the chance — literally. The 81-year-old is part of an airborne parachute demonstration team based in Frederick, Okla., and jumps from a C-47 during air shows. The plane is just like the one he parachuted from over France on the night of June 6, 1944 in support of Operation Overlord. “With all my demolition gear, I weighed 417 pounds,” he recalls. “It was unbelievable.”

Manley’s job on D-Day was to wire bridges and locks with explosives in case the enemy tried to capture them. He went on to fight in the Battle of the Bulge and Operation Market Garden then returned to the United States to become a builder.

But he never really got parachuting out of his system, and after retirement Manley finally decided to answer the call of the silk. “[My] wife and family were against it, but after I finally got the kids through college, it was time to jump again,” he says. Asked what it felt like to jump out of an airplane again, he had just one word: “Exhilarating!”

Some like it cold

There’s no jumping out of airplanes for Lou Batory. At the age of 94, the retired mechanical engineer is really going downhill. In fact, he’s been going downhill his entire life.

Born in Hungary and raised in Switzerland, Batory practically grew up on skis — and he has never stopped hitting the slopes. When asked why he still does it, Batory counters, “Why do golfers keep hitting the little white ball? I love it, it’s fun to do, and it’s still a thrill.”

The holder of several gold medals from NASTAR (National Standard Race), the largest recreational race skiing organization in the world, Batory has no plans to slow down. He still rides his bicycle up to 18 miles daily and skis several times a week when there’s enough snow. “I don’t ski with some of the frenzy of when I was younger,” he says. “But sometimes when I’m out there early in the morning, the hill is perfectly groomed and the sky is a pure, crystal blue, and I look down the hill ... all sanity goes out the window, and I take off flying.”

The stories these extreme seniors tell are remarkable, but any of them would be quick to point out that you don’t have to live on the ragged edge of danger to stay active. Even if you have no desire to leap from a plane, the importance of getting regular exercise cannot be overstated.