Sally Gunnell: Hurdling Towards 60 — The Champion's Guide to Ageing Well

On this week's episode, we're joined by Olympic gold medallist and all-round legend Sally Gunnell, who, just months out from her 60th birthday, is proving that the woman who once held every major athletics title simultaneously has absolutely no intention of slowing down now.

Sally opens up about what it really feels like to approach 60 when your body has been your career, your identity, and your instrument. She talks candidly about the strange grief of losing elite fitness, why pregnancy was actually a smoother transition than retirement, and how she learnt, slowly, honestly, to stop being the centre of her own universe. Spoiler: it took a few years and three boys.

We get into the messy, relatable stuff too: the menopause weight that won't budge no matter how many walks you take, the confidence that quietly disappears, and why Sally's online programme Life's Hurdle was born from exactly that frustration. Because whether you were a world record holder or just trying to get round the Great North Run, the struggle at this stage of life turns out to be remarkably similar.

Sally's outlook, control the controllables, live in the now, look forward not back, is either deeply inspiring or mildly infuriating depending on your relationship with catastrophising.

It's never just about fitness. It's about who you are when the thing that defined you has changed and how you build something new, stronger, and honestly more fun.

Get in touch with your thoughts at podcast@htb60.com.

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