Most distance runners experience a decline in speed after the age of 50. Joining ranks of Geezer runners, however, brings a new world of rewards and challenges.
As distance runners age and lose their appetites for the near death experience of oxygen debt, new experiences beckon. That is, if they can move beyond their fixation with the clock. Distance runners are an obsessive-compulsive lot and the very qualities that fueled the discipline to get in shape and put in the lonely training miles often become a psychological trap as mother nature mischievously adds minutes and sometime hours to marathons.
Running well, that is faster, can become such an integral part of a runner’s self-identity that they never completely adapt to the onset of geezerdom, a condition that strikes us all if we make it that far. Most mortals find that they cannot duplicate their best racing times after hitting their 50’s, even though they may be tempted to think so by the inspirational profiles in running magazines.
A seemingly inexhaustible supply of nuns, farmers, former criminals and morbidly obese couch potatoes inhabit the pages of running periodicals and share three things in common. First, an epiphany leads them to try running after years of sloth. Next comes a humiliating attempt to circle the block without passing out. Finally, persistence pays off as they discover world class ability and end up setting age group records at every distance or qualifying for Olympic trials.
Alas, most geezers must settle for the more modest option of bringing adapting one’s goals to the aging process. A lot of geezers continue to race and beginning at about age 55 make an ironic discovery. The number of participants in your age category shrinks. In local races, the 60 – 64 age group is often dramatically tiny. Having reached the big Six O, it is quite possible to run the slowest times of your life and capture first, second or third place in your age category. The stark fact that injury, illness, burnout or even death has reduced the age group to less than three competitors need not dampen your sense of triumph. By finishing with vital signs intact, you are a winner and all America loves a winner.
While speed fades, endurance lasts, at least in running. Accordingly, another geezer stratagem is: Go long. The combination of running longer and slower, of course, means that it takes more time to get where you are going, sometimes the better part of a morning or afternoon. On the positive side, gentle, rhythmic breathing in synchronicity with regular strides down a country road or along a rolling trail in an autumn forest dissolves one’s sense of time. Focusing inward actually enhances one’s awareness of the breeze on your face, the waterfall on your right, the glimpse of a spotted fawn or rust colored fox through the trees.
Eventually, the yang of muscle fatigue intrudes on the yin of the spirit, but as a geezer, the pressure is off. You are not required to black out trying to shave forty seconds off your personal best or stagger the last five miles of twisting inclines and suicidal down hills.
A number of 50K trail runs feature cheap entry fees and loop courses in scenic parks. You can run a few loops on a beautiful morning and when the fun stops, quit. You have the satisfaction of covering 6, 8, 12 or 15 miles in the woods or around a lake. The only one you need to please is yourself.
Finally, you can choose to increase the level of effort any time you want. Maintaining a comfortably hard 10 ½ minute mile pace feels about the same internally as the 7 minute pace you clicked off in that marathon 15 years ago. Only your watch knows the difference.
