Dorothy Dickey was not pleased. She'd just finished a race, and her time was “Pathetic. 17 seconds slower than I should've done”. She took up masters swimming about 40 years ago. What kept her coming back was more than the competition. “Once you get down there, you have a cup of coffee afterwards, a chat with everybody and that's where the fun is.” Her summary of the whole enterprise was "fun, fitness and friendship". Fitness being flanked by two things most people happily get out of bed for. People regularly participating in a recreational activity have an explanation echoing Dorothy’s. The water. The light. The camaraderie. Nobody gets up at dawn for their future self. Mornings add up, though.
HABIT OVER EFFORT
Researchers found that people who kept to roughly the standard recommended amount, year in and year out, had lower rates of chronic disease than people who did a lot in some years and little or nothing in others. The steady ones came out ahead of others who, on paper, had done more. Those active through their forties and fifties reached their sixties with 10 to 28 per cent less chronic disease, depending on the condition. It can't prove steadiness did the work but it points somewhere useful. A separate study that those who packed most of their activity into one or two days did about as well as those who spread it evenly.
Surfers have been running this experiment for generations: you go when there's swell, and you don't when there isn't. Put the two together and a pattern shows.
What happens between Monday and Sunday matters less than what happens between your forties and sixties. The diary is forgiving, the birthday candles aren't. How good people feel after excercise, the glow everyone talks about, makes little difference. How the activity felt while doing it is what counts. Enjoyment looks less like the reward for turning up and more like the reason you return. Bob McTavish changed surfing in the 1960s with his boards. The legend was asked at 70 why he still surfs.
“It's incredibly refreshing. It stimulates your brain. It keeps you joined in with Creation.” Not a word about fitness, or staying young, or the long game. “I kept surfing and shaping hard,” he said, “and I never stopped.”
At 81, he's still shaping boards in Byron Bay.
Mark Richards putting in the hours and loving every minute. Photo by Ethan Smith
THE EXTRA INGREDIENT
Jacquie Chambers has surfed since she was 17. In 2025 she won the over-50s Australian longboard title, and she's blunt about where her surfing is now, saying “My ocean skills and knowledge is better than it's ever been. But because I love it so much, my body just isn't keeping up with my enthusiasm”. The joy keeps you paddling out. Fitness is a byproduct extending the window of opportunity for good times. Gerry Lopez spent the 1970s making Pipeline look easy, and a good part of the decades since telling surfers to do more yoga. He's clear about which is the harder sell.
“With surfing, it's a little easier. You get that first ride and you get hooked. With yoga, it's a process. For a long time, nothing really happens.”
The bit worth adding (the stretching, the strength work, the aerobic training) isn't there instead of the fun. It's there so the fun keeps happening. None of this is proof but the pieces point the same way. Enjoyment brings you back and returning year after year seems to count for a lot. Do we really need more to convince us?
Future health might be the least deliberate motivation for a lifetime of dawn surfs, headland walks and trail rides. Instead, it's the unintended consequence of doing something you like regularly for so long, it never occurs to you to stop. Forty years in, Dorothy loves swimming enough that she can be annoyed by a mere 17 seconds. Fortunately, they aren’t the point. They never were to begin with.
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For the mornings that add up
Kit that makes the cold, wet or early start easier to say yes to, and the bit afterwards worth staying for. The years take care of themselves.
