For Them, Age Is Merely a Number

While scientists and entrepreneurs work to unravel the mystery of aging, some older folks think less about birthdays and more about squeezing as much activity as possible into their days. Here, four Southern Californians who don’t “act their age.”

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The air is chilly and it’s dark, but Vince Malizia and Chick Dahlsten aren’t complaining. They’re doing push-ups and stretching alongside people half their age, warming up for a 2 1/2-hour workout with the San Fernando Valley Track Club.

The twice-weekly sessions with track club director Laszlo Tabori, a former Olympian who was the third man to break the four-minute mile, are only part of the exercise time logged by Malizia, 82, of Northridge, and Dahlsten, 86, of Los Angeles.

“I run nearly every day and take Mondays off,” says Malizia, who started running at 73. “On Saturdays, I’ll run about 2 1/2 hours, getting in about 9 to 11 miles.” Most weeks, he logs 30 miles.

Dahlsten, who took up running at 63, normally runs 30 or 35 miles a week but had knee surgery recently and has cut back to 20 or 25 miles.

They’re familiar faces at Southern California road races, always staying for the awards ceremony to claim their medals after a 5K, 10K or longer event.

In a race, Dahlsten says he looks around to decide which other participants might be in his age category and then keeps an eye on them. “I guess I like competition,” says Dahlsten, who played trombone in the Paul Whiteman band on “The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show.” More recently, he’s appeared in commercials. He just wrapped up filming on a Snickers commercial.

Accustomed to being asked about his running accomplishments, Malizia, who carried the Olympic torch last year and in his spare time paints, offers a resume. Eleven events are listed, including two half marathons, and his setting of a world record in the 80-plus category at the Dolphin Mile in Malibu (7:58:04).

And those 12 events cover just January to October.

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It took a couple of sessions of phone tag to catch up with Beejay Janiga, but that’s actually pretty speedy contact. The 69-year-old Tustin resident spends about 14 hours a week dancing or engaging in other exercise, so she’s out and about a lot.

It might sound like a whirlwind existence, but it’s a slower pace than what she was used to as a dancer in the Starlight Ballet of San Diego, on tour with the USO. “That was oh, ’42 to ‘46,” Janiga recalls.

Now she’s got another gig--the Racquettes, 23 women over 50. Sponsored by Racquetball World, the Racquettes dance at clubs, colleges and other sites. Recently, they performed for the Marines. (Don’t expect them for your next party, if it’s any time soon. They’re booked through September.)

Janiga also teaches ballet, a chair exercise class and a class for the Arthritis Foundation called PACE (People with Arthritis Can Exercise). In between all the workouts, she squeezes in church volunteer work, tends her flowers and choreographs the shows.

“It’s when you sit too much that you get tired,” she says.

She takes multiple vitamins, paying special attention to vitamin E and iron intake. Her doctor’s feedback? “He says, ‘Whatever you’re doing, Beejay, just keep doing it.’ ”

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Leading hospital tours for prospective contributors, celebrities and families is a think-on-your-feet kind of job. And one that Marianne Doran-Wolfe of Northridge has done well for 30 years at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles.

As a docent, she first has to put people at ease. No problem for the 68-year-old redhead with elf-like energy. After one recent tour, Doran-Wolfe was unsure how it had gone and fretted about the reaction from the potential donor, who had planned a substantial gift. Minutes later, the hospital called. “He was so impressed, he doubled it,” she recalls being told. “I put down the phone and cried for 20 minutes.”

Besides volunteering at the hospital, she volunteers for six other groups and serves on four boards of directors. She also volunteers at Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times, which offers services to children with cancer. She has strolled through camp dressed like a Big Mac, complete with a cotton onion slice on her head.

During a camp stint in the summer of ‘95, she fell and broke her kneecap. When a call came the following February asking her to be an Olympic torchbearer, she was still in orthopedic rehab.

“If you could see me now. . . ,” she told the Olympic representative. A 2-inch screw was removed from her knee in plenty of time for her to complete her walk with the torch.