Elizabeth Emery, 55, already had a couple of career reinventions under her belt. While working as a textile designer in NYC after college, she began biking around Central Park and discovered a gift for cycling. Channeling her natural ability and intense training, she became the US Time Trial National Champion and won a gold medal in the Pan American Games in the ‘90s. After a stint as a professional cyclist (she still rides and competes today), she went back to school to pursue another love: art. She earned a master’s degree in fine arts and became a successful visual artist, now living in Cleveland.
But her restless, curious spirit wasn’t going to rest on its laurels. And, so, three years ago, she started Hear Her Sports, a biweekly podcast “where female athletes share stories of breaking barriers, speaking up, and living with power and confidence in today’s changing world.” What motivated Emery? “When I heard that 44 percent of athletes are women, but only four percent of sports media coverage was about women athletes, I started having this fantasy of a show like 92.3 The Fan, but for women athletes,” she said.
Read More: How I Found My Inner Athlete at Midlife
Bold Moves After Age 50
We love that even with no podcast experience, she launched her platform for adventurous women and now has 70-plus episodes under her belt and a growing audience. In addition to setting an excellent example of trying something new herself, Emery profiles subjects, including those who make bold moves when on the other side of age 50.
For instance, 76-year-old triathlete Sibyl Jacobson has quite a story about how she found her way to fitness. According to Hear Her Sports: “She didn’t even start competing in triathlons until she was 61! Just a few years prior, she was doing pretty much nothing physical. She was president and CEO of MetLife Foundation in New York City, where climbing stairs to the office when the elevator wasn’t working showed her how out of shape she was.” Now, Sibyl is a top-finishing fierce competitor who exemplifies that age is nothing but a number. Whether you want to gain insight into finding your midlife athletic mojo or just to steal a page from Emery’s example of reinvention, take a listen.
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