- You don’t even have to go running to get hurt. I woke up the other morning, stood up, and it felt like a Roman centurion had jabbed a pike through my foot. I was just lying down for 7 hours, for god’s sake! How do you get a bone injury from sleeping? Back in my 20s, I had to work up a sweat to pull a muscle. Now all I have to do is sleep. Sure, it sucks, but it is a lot less effort for the same result, right?
- It’s the world’s greatest excuse for running slower. Not that I’ve ever needed excuses, having been born with the slowest genes on the planet. But I have found that, as runners age, more and more people give them a bye. The older you get, the more amazed people are that you are even out there at all, much less that you can still break a 10 minute mile. Use it.
- You need less sleep. Which makes it much easier and to run in the quieter, more enjoyable, carless hours before dawn, once you can get used to the schedule. I mean, hell, you’re up anyway, might as well make the best of it, right? What else you going to do, brew a cup of coffee and sit under a blanket and read?
- You might actually win a race. Keep at it long enough, and you might drop into the next age bracket at just the right time to grab a gold medal before those other wannabes fall in behind you. Have you noticed how at smaller races there are like 3-4 guys in the 70+ age bracket? Bingo. Now just keep at it for another 20 years and you’re there!
- Your hearing goes. Which means you can’t hear when people who see you running through town say things like, “Do you really think his face is supposed to be all contorted like that?” or “Is that old guy running?” or “Do you think he knows how ridiculous he looks?”
- Your sight goes too. One of my guiding principles of races and pacing is that you know you are going too fast when all the butts around you look better than yours. When your vision blurs, [most] all butts start to look the same, so, just to be on the safe side, you probably ought to slow down a bit. Or maybe it means you should run faster, I forget… which reminds me…
- You can’t remember anything. Including your P.R.s. Or what you did last time out on some course you’ve been running for years. Now that’s liberating. It’s like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day – every run, every race is a new P.R. What’s old is new again. Except, well, you.
“I like to see a man of advancing years throwing caution to the wind. It’s inspiring in a way.”
– Rita (Andie McDowell), from Groundhog Day.