Two veteran athletes on aging, identity and finding a new version of “all in.”
words :: Colin Field
For athletes who thrive on pushing limits, dialling it back can feel like losing a piece of themselves. When the body says no, the real challenge isn’t physical. It’s existential. Climber and endurance athlete Jany Mitges and dirt jumper Troy Chipman have different injury histories and different personalities. But their perspectives on aging land in remarkably similar territory.
Mitges has already lived through multiple forced resets. Cancer treatment led to a bilateral mastectomy a few years back. At 59, she’s recovering from a total knee replacement. Due to her reaction to meds, she’s doing it without medication. To say she’s a tough lady is an understatement. She’s rebuilt herself before, and she’s ready to do it again. But each time, she has to rebuild not just her strength but her identity.
“I keep reinventing myself and that’s how I deal with things,” she says. “I do know that I have to adapt to an ever-changing world.” Adaptation, she suggests, is not a weakness. It’s survival. The hardest part isn’t learning new limits. It’s letting go of the old self. “There’s a process of mourning who I was.”
Chipman describes a similar shift from the perspective of a rider who still loves jumping big gaps, still loves the community and still wants to show up. He’s a master jump-builder and is still working on his biggest set yet: a 40-foot gap jump that he’s been working on for years.
Neither athlete talks about quitting. They talk about recalibrating.
He’s 50 but feels his skills have yet to peak. Aging, in his view, doesn’t erase the appetite for risk. It makes the consequences unavoidable. The margin for error narrows, recovery stretches out and every decision carries more weight than it used to.
“I don’t want to crash,” says Chipman. “Both my shoulders don’t feel great. Both my ankles don’t feel great. Is it worth the risk? I guess that’s the question.” Neither athlete talks about quitting. They talk about recalibrating. Mitges is blunt about what makes that recalibration so difficult.
“My desire to hold on to something from a long time ago will only rob me of my joy.” In high-performance sports, identity is often tied to the sport itself. Letting go can feel like failure. Even when continuing to chase is what causes the suffering.
“I’m still willing to try hard and push, but my gains are very small,” she says. “But I do have the memory of when I could crush 5.13 in three or four tries. I do have that memory. I had an opportunity to have that chapter. So I’m OK putting out my best effort on a 5.10. Even if it kicks my ass. My ego is gone. I don’t hold on to the ego aspect of it.”
Effort, not comparison, becomes the metric. For both Mitges and Chipman, one of the most surprising shifts that comes with age isn’t loss: it’s redirection. As personal performance becomes less central, the focus naturally moves outward. Instead of being the one everyone watches, they find themselves doing the watching, encouraging and quietly making space for others to shine.
Mitges describes this transition as unexpectedly fulfilling. After years of pushing her own limits, she found that helping someone else discover theirs can feel just as meaningful. “Seeing someone thrive and blossom and gain who they are capable of being; that’s as good as sending,” she says. Cheering from the belay, offering advice, sharing perspective—these acts carry a different kind of intensity.
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“Seeing someone thrive and blossom and gain who they are capable of being; that’s as good as sending.”
Chipman sees the same dynamic on the bike. Watching younger riders progress. Clearing features for the first time, gaining confidence and finding their place in the community becomes its own form of stoke.
“It’s always about the vibe at the trails. You’re out there with your friends and everybody’s vibing together on the same thing. It doesn’t matter if you’re a 50-year-old; you’re hanging out with people who want to ride. And they could be 12 years old. But you’re friends because you share riding. It bridges it all. And to see that stoke get ignited, maybe even for the first time, you get the full-send feelings, just from watching them and supporting them.”
The goal shifts from proving something to preserving something. As he put it, staying involved means making sure the next wave has the same opportunities: to learn, to push themselves and to fall in love with the sport.
There’s also a quiet freedom in stepping out of the spotlight. Without the pressure to perform, both athletes say they can better enjoy the culture around their sports. Mitges noted that it’s “actually kind of cool to not be the one that always tries to be the spotlight,” choosing instead to “allow others to shine.” The parking-lot conversations, shared days outside and mentoring moments become the real reward.
In that sense, participation evolves from performance to stewardship. Passing along skills, values and enthusiasm ensures the sport keeps moving forward even as individual roles change. For Mitges, that means using everything she has learned, including the hard lessons, to help others navigate their own challenges. For Chipman, it means staying present in the scene even if his role shifts.
For both, involvement with the next generation isn’t a consolation prize for aging. It’s a meaningful new chapter. One where the impact may be quieter, but often deeper and longer-lasting than any personal highlight reel.
The thrill doesn’t disappear. The need to measure it against past performance does.
After surgery, Mitges found herself confronting the unglamorous reality of recovery: nausea, sleepless nights, medication side effects and slow, incremental progress. “It’s a less-is-more thing.”
That phrase could apply equally to aging athletes in any discipline. Fewer sessions. More rest. Smarter choices. Hard efforts deployed selectively instead of constantly. She doesn’t frame it as decline. She frames it as sustainability.
“Nothing is sustainable,” she says of peak performance. “You can’t keep peaking. Those valleys get steeper.”
Chipman’s experience in gravity sports reinforces that idea. The goal shifts from maximizing intensity to maximizing longevity. Showing up week after week becomes more meaningful than any single heroic effort. The drive to move, to test limits, to feel alive in motion remains intact. What changes is the definition of “full send.”
It becomes less about spectacle and more about presence. Less about proving something and more about participating. Less about chasing the person you used to be and more about protecting the ability to keep doing what you love.
“You can’t keep peaking. Those valleys get steeper.”
Mitges summed it up with clarity: holding onto the past version of yourself can steal the joy available right now. Chipman, in his own way, reaches the same conclusion. Staying involved—riding, showing up, sharing the experience—matters more than maintaining a particular level of performance.
For both, the end of reckless intensity isn’t the end of passion. It’s the beginning of a different relationship with it. Full send, it turns out, doesn’t stop. It just grows up.
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