Ex-police Officer, 66, Trained With Gurkhas For Un Missions, Now Runs 5km-8km In Mornings Like It's Nbd

At 66, Adam Abdul Rashid is by all accounts a senior citizen.

But the retired police officer, who prefers to go by Adam, probably does not fit the mental image that you have of an elderly uncle.

For starters, Adam is stronger and has more stamina than his peers (heck, he has more stamina than this writer who is half his age).

This is all thanks to Adam’s commitment to maintaining his physical health as he ages.

He does weight training at the gym two to three times a week. When he’s not at the gym, he pops outside for a run, covering distances of 5km to 8km like they’re no big deal.

In a culture that promotes and prioritises rest for our seniors, Adam’s mindset towards health and ageing is counter-cultural — revolutionary even.

Adam, a self-confessed fitness nut, has been exercising regularly since his 30s to maintain his physical fitness.

But being strong and having stamina aren’t the only gains from his fitness journey.

Over the years, exercising as a senior citizen has opened his eyes to an insidious yet prevalent phenomenon: the Silver Ceiling.

A Gurkha head start

In a way, Adam’s fitness journey might not have materialised if he wasn't with the Singapore Police Force (SPF).

As a police officer, Adam had opportunities to go on peacekeeping missions; it was on one such mission to Cambodia in 1992 that provided the spark for Adam’s fitness journey.

Being deployed on peacekeeping missions overseas can be physically demanding.

The pre-mission training was rigorous, to say the least, because the volunteers had to bring up their fitness levels in a short period of time.

The officers went through — in Adam’s words — “one month of solid training” courtesy of the Gurkhas.

“Every morning without fail, it's at least 5km to 10km. You ran, you walked, you crawled. Certain days you'd be running or you'd be walking in full battle order, field pack about 10kg or 15kg…They decided the weight that you would have to carry.”

That intensive training did wonders for then-34-year-old Adam who found that he was able to cut his 2.4km timing from a persistent 11 minutes to just under nine minutes.

That “breakthrough” prompted him to invest in his physical fitness.

“Right after the mission, I felt that it's a waste if I didn’t maintain the fitness level that they brought me up to. That's when I started running and jogging regularly.”

Run, gym, rest. Rinse and repeat.

Over the years, as Adam’s work responsibilities and life priorities evolved, he made tweaks to his fitness regime, like adding strength-training exercises at the gym but the core purpose of maintaining his physical fitness was always his guiding star.

Exercising is such a core component of Adam’s life that when he quit smoking in 2005, breaking a 30-year-long habit, that decision eventually led him to start running marathons, at the age of 48.

To overcome smoking, one needs to replace it with another activity, Adam explained.

“So during my lunch break — because that is the best time to smoke, after food — I would skip my lunch and run instead. I started doing long runs in the afternoons and that’s how I started marathoning.”

He ran a total of four marathons, starting with a 10km mini one and taking on a full 42km on his third outing onwards.

Unfortunately, a persistent knee injury prevented him from taking on a fifth marathon.

“I think my body said, ‘Okay, I think you shouldn't be doing this too long.’ And I want to be kind to my body, so I decided not to do marathons anymore.”

Today, as a retiree, Adam has a more structured exercise regime: Running Day, Gymming Day, Rest Day, rinse and repeat.

A typical Running Day would see him cover distances of 5km to 8km, depending on his mood and traffic conditions.

The Silver Ceiling

You could say that keeping to his exercise regime is even more important to Adam now that he is in his 67th year on Planet Earth.

We start to lose muscle mass past a certain age.

So, it is especially important for seniors to incorporate strength training and cardiovascular exercises into their daily routines as early as possible to preserve their health and strength.

But sticking to his rigorous fitness regime as a senior citizen has opened Adam’s eyes to a peculiar phenomenon: the Silver Ceiling.

You might not have heard of the term, but chances are you might have used it on an unsuspecting senior citizen. Or two.

It’s the invisible limit that we place on our seniors when we tell them to “dress their age” or advise them to “slow down and take it easy”, essentially judging them by their age and nothing else.

For Adam, that Silver Ceiling makes an appearance when people tell him to take his exercising down a notch. It’s shockingly common.

Younger folks would say to him:

"Eh, uncle, relax lah.”

“You’re already so old, don’t need to chiong.”

He even gets it from his peers, aka other seniors:

“Slow down. Why are you still running after you had a knee injury?”

Once, Adam’s friend saw him exercising and said, “Hey you got nothing better to do?”

Adam’s response was very cool: “This is better than doing nothing!”

It's about respect

People are entitled to their opinions, said Adam, and if they wish to slow down as they age, it’s their prerogative. But it’s not right to impose a limit on others just because of their age.

It might be advice that’s given out of concern, but to the elderly recipient, it’s a tacit reminder to conform to society’s expectations of a senior citizen—to be slow and frail and never anything more.

To be clear, Adam isn’t advocating seniors to take part in marathons or run 10km every other day. Rather, he is calling for seniors to challenge the stereotypes that society imposes on them.

To Adam, it boils down to an issue of respect. Or rather, a lack of it.

“A lot of these remarks come because I think there's a little bit of a lack of respect.”

We should respect our seniors’ ability to know their limits, as well as their autonomy to pursue their passions.

This is why Adam, alongside other seniors are fronting the Agency for Integrated Care’s Break the Silver Ceiling campaign.

In December 2023, Adam joined senior personalities such as 64-year-old director Jack Neo and Team Strong Silvers member Victor Chan, 71, in a 23.69km relay run.

The goal? To break ageist stereotypes and encourage other seniors not to let their age define what they can or cannot do.

That’s not all.

Stretching from Mountbatten to Siglap, the relay route spelled out the phrase “Boomer is OK”.

It’s their way of taking the internet’s favourite pejorative for seniors and turning it on its head to show the world that being a senior citizen is neither a problem nor an obstacle.

If Adam’s story inspires you to break the stereotypes that society imposes on our seniors, check out AIC’s Break the Silver Ceiling campaign here.

Thanks to this article which is sponsored by the Agency for Integrated Care, this writer was persuaded to get off his butt for a run. Quotes were edited for clarity. Images courtesy of Adam and AIC.