BIDDEFORD — Calvin Dunwoody is just a few days shy of 90 ”“ his birthday is Sunday ”“ but that hasn’t stopped the Kennebunk resident from staying active. Although triathlons and mountain climbing are no longer on his itinerary, Dunwoody still visits the Northern York County YMCA in Biddeford four times a week, where he spends 45 minutes on the rowing machine, stationary bicycle or stairclimber and then swims.

On Tuesday, the YMCA threw a birthday party for Dunwoody.

“It’s not every day we have members who turn 90,” said YMCA spokeswoman Kris Allard about why the organization was celebrating his birthday.

Dunwoody said he has always been fairly active and spent a lot of his time outdoors. Before retiring to Maine about 20 years ago, he had a career in forestry in Rhode Island, first teaching forestry at the University of Rhode Island, than as a forester for the state, and ending up at the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management.

Early in life, Dunwoody was busy with his family. He and his late wife, Helen, had four children.

“When I got to that ancient age of 40,” said Dunwoody, tongue in cheek, “then I started running.

“I started with a mile,” he said. “Big deal.”

Eventually he decided to try triathlons. In 1981, at the age of 60, Dunwoody completed his first of these events, which include running, biking and swimming.

Since then, he said, “I’ve done two or three a year.”

He’s won national competitions in Chicago and Hilton Head, S.C.

Due to a variety of physical ailments that affect his arm and legs, and a diagnosis of prostate cancer, Dunwoody said he completed his last triathlon in March. It was an indoor event at the Biddeford YMCA.

But triathlons are just one of Dunwoody’s major physical accomplishments.

He also has climbed the tallest mountains in each of the 50 states of the U.S. He started with the tallest, Mount McKinley in Alaska. That was in 1989, when Dunwoody was 68.

Climbing and traversing Mount McKinley took him 23 days, he said. He crawled the last part because an infected injury left him barely able to move.

Dunwoody has also climbed mountains in other countries, including Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s tallest mountain. Among the other places he’s visited are China, Vietnam and Antarctica.

Attendees at Dunwoody’s birthday party included some of the young children attending the YMCA’s Camp Sokokis. The children were brought over to show them an example of what healthy living can do,  said Allard.

“We can point to Cal and say, ”˜See, look what happens when you take care of yourself. You can be like Cal,’” she said.

— Staff Writer Dina Mendros can be contacted at 282-1535, Ext. 324 or dmendros@journaltribune.com.