Katie Pahlow kept a surfboard in the shed for 43 years, then learned to ride it

The surfboard cost Katie Pahlow $50, second-hand, from a newspaper advertisement in Melbourne. She was 17. It went into the shed, and life happened around it for the next 43 years.

“When I was literally 17, living in Melbourne in the western suburbs, I bought myself a surfboard in the paper second-hand for $50.” — Katie Pahlow, ABC News

She never learned to ride it. Forty-three years later, on turning 60 in July 2023, she booked her first surf lessons on Victoria’s coast. She has been surfing since.

The “third act”

Pahlow credits Jane Fonda’s idea of a “third act” — the notion that the decades after 60 are not an epilogue but a whole new part of life with its own purpose — for finally pushing her to do it. It is a useful frame. If you think of 60 as the beginning of the end, a surf lesson looks frivolous. If you think of it as the start of a thirty-year act, it looks like a sensible opening scene.

She is not alone

The ABC’s report makes clear this is a trend, not a one-off. Pam Burridge, the 1990 world surfing champion, now 60, runs a surf school at Mollymook in New South Wales and reports rising numbers of mature women booking lessons and retreats. Surf schools built for beginners — with soft boards, small waves and patient coaching — mean the barrier is far lower than it was in 1980.

Why this story matters more than the athletic ones

We run a lot of stories about people who start late and become champions. They are inspiring, but they can also be intimidating: not everyone wants to deadlift for their country. Pahlow’s story is about something else — closing a loop. Doing the thing you meant to do. There is no record at stake. The reward is the feeling of standing up on a wave that you first imagined at seventeen.

That is available to almost everyone, in some form. The board is in the shed. Book the lesson.