Comedian/actor/writer/director Judd Apatow commented in a CBS Sunday Morning interview, “People ask if I’m slowing down. ‘I say I never went fast, I wouldn’t know if I was slowing down because I’ve been slow the whole time.’” Well, I was once kind of fast – and by standards of age – suppose I still qualify as kind of fast. But I can’t hide from declination’s truth because every one of my workouts and races is recorded in the running logs I’ve dutifully kept for well over 30 years. Every bit of cross-training, every workout rep or race time for distances of 100 meters, 200 meters, 400 meters, 800 meters, 1600 meters, 5K and 10K are all there plain to see.
I didn’t keep a log or record times when I was in my prime, but I remember some of my better recorded times for 100 yards, 220 yards, 440 yards and mile. The trend line is not pretty. Intellectually, we all know that we decline physically. But still, we (at least I) tend to believe we can be better than we were last year if only we try a little harder, do it a little smarter. Most of us are willing to accept that physical change is a southward movement, the part we charitably call gravity, is a part of life and simply don’t stress much about it. I am very grudgingly accepting – yet I can’t get past the idea that I can run faster this year than I did last year. Why? Well, as a retiree, I have more time to focus on training.
In some sports, golf for example, shooting your age is a really cool thing to do. In track, my sport of choice since age 35, running your age in the 400 meters is a really cool thing to do. Very few track athletes ever accomplish it. The world record is 43.04 seconds, but the odds of running 40-some seconds in your 40s is nearly nil. So the range for running your age at this distance is most likely to occur in your mid-50s through 60s. Well my window is closing and I need to shave off nearly 3 seconds.
If we are generally willing to accept physically slowing down, we are less likely to accept that we are slowing down mentally. Most of us, self included, believe that experience and wisdom gained will carry us when our brains don’t compute as quickly as they once did. There are things we can do to mitigate, or stave off the effects of aging, I won’t rehash them because we all know them by now. “If you want to live through the day stay in bed. If you want to live a long while, get out and go for a run,” was a memorable quote from a doctor in Runner’s World magazine. The Boy Scout Oath ends with the promise to “keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.” Exercising our body, mind and soul would be a good goal for everyone. Even in retirement, we should have goals and dreams, right?
We can’t escape the laws of gravity. But just as a feather falls more slowly to the ground than a rock, we can slow our rate of descent by becoming lighter, nimbler or more aerodynamic. Life is paradoxical. Maybe, just maybe, we can extend our lives and get more out of them if we expend ourselves more fully. And so I think I’ll just take a shot at my fantasy – train to run my age by my July birthday.
The Nontrepreneur 