If you’re over 50, you’ll relate to what I am talking about. If you’re under 40, you probably won’t, yet. If you’re under 35, stop reading and enjoy your youth.
My story is every aging runner’s story. The specific years and ages may vary, but there’s no avoiding the facts. We get old. At 40, I was still “fast.” At 43 3/4, I was still pretty fast. At 44 on the nose, I got slow—-in a hurry. Fast, of course, is relative. I was never as fast as some people, and I’m still faster than some people. I’m talking about me compared to me.
I’m not vain about my gray hair and I’m not hiding from the fact that I was born in 1971, but it still took me some time to adopt a productive and positive mindset about aging. In short, I used to gauge my running by speed and my races by performance outcome. I now judge both by the amount of pleasure I get. Guess what? After I stopped feeling sorry for myself and re-calibrated my expectations, I started enjoying my running more than ever and found that I could still make gains in my training and racing.
I find the psychology and physiology related to aging and running to be fascinating.