I Hear Ya Bros
I haven’t exercised in over three days. That is unusual for me. A few days ago a pain started in my knee. What’s up with that? I couldn’t place a particular time or moment during some exercise session that would have caused it. It just showed up one day.
And then the Washington Post comes out with two articles:
Two Aging Athletes Confront the Ultimate Opponent: Time
Trying Not to See the End of the RoadBy Benjamin Opipari
Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, January 27, 2009; HE04I quit.
After 25 years of running, I quit. I simply couldn’t take it anymore.
Oh, that’s not “I quit” as in “I’ll never run again.” It’s “I quit” in the simple past: I ran a route that I was unable to finish. And in doing so, I realized I was jeopardizing a bargain I’ve made with myself to keep running in order to stay young.
Running is my thing, and perhaps athletes more than others notice the moments when we fail to do what we once could. But we all make bargains with ourselves, private pacts to ward off the temptations of giving up. The challenge, I am discovering as I approach my 40s, is learning how to rewrite those bargains, to adjust to reality without giving up.
I quit in Salt Lake City on a business trip, just weeks short of my 40th birthday. A colleague of mine invited me for a lunchtime run. From downtown, we headed up in his car. And up. We parked in a lot high in the mountains near the University of Utah with a breathtaking view of the valley below.
A few minutes into our run, my colleague uttered the words that no one wants to hear from a first-time running partner: “After I finished the Ironman Triathlon . . . .” About 40 minutes later, I was more Tin Man than Iron Man, my lungs and legs battling to match his stride and my arms pumping furiously until I ground to a halt.
I have plenty of excuses, not the least of which is that we were close to 5,000 feet above sea level, far above my usual running elevation of 285 feet in Kensington. But I felt like a quitter as I walked down the mountain.
And once you’ve quit because you’ve reached a level of discomfort, there’s always the future possibility of quitting — or not even getting out the door — because you don’t feel like running: because it’s cold and dark out in January and February; because you’ve had a long week and deserve a rest; because it would be more fun (and helpful) to play with your kids.
Those are thoughts I refuse to dwell on early in the morning. For now.
I’ve always been an early-morning exerciser: I wake around 5:30, drink a cup of coffee and head out around 6:15. Fear now motivates me more than anything else; I worry that after succumbing once, I’ll do it again with ease.
The same fear keeps me running on days when my feet feel glued the ground. I had this feeling on a recent run around my neighborhood. After the first three minutes, I knew it would be a struggle. My upper body was tight, my knees had no lift and my lungs were unwilling to let in oxygen. Several times my pace slowed, and I started to ease up. Oh man, I thought, wouldn’t a nice cup of hot chocolate feel good right about now? Each time I slowed, though, I had the same sense of failure that overtook me in Salt Lake City. I knew that if I stopped, I could be headed down one long slope full of ready-made excuses in the future:
Is that a drop of rain? Time to head inside!
Running is as much a mind game as a physical activity. Experts offer advice on what to do when you just don’t have it.
Many will tell you that this is your body’s way of saying that you need a break. This is sometimes true. But when you choose not to run because you just don’t feel like it, your lack of willpower can seep into other areas of your life.
Conversely, I’ve always believed that lacing up your running shoes on days when you would rather watch television gives you perseverance that you can use anywhere else. So after a quarter-century of running, my body and I have a contract: I let it go outside and exercise, and in return I expect it to keep me spry and nimble for at least 40 more years.
And how to adjust as we age, when we can’t (and shouldn’t) attempt what we once could?
A few years ago, when I was a high school track coach, I coached a girl who, as far as track times went, was not fast. But her mile time was still faster than most people’s, and that was her motivation. She told me, “I know that most of the girls on the team are faster than me, but every day I walk down the halls, look at each person and say to each one of them in my mind, ‘I am faster than you, and you, and you . . . .’ ”
The same spirit of competition still motivates me. I thrive knowing that I am doing something that I still have the willpower to do and that some others don’t.
But as I turn 40 — the age that medical professionals have deemed The Year of the Body’s Great Decline — I have to match that determination with a reality check.
And there I look with admiration at some of the people I see on my morning run.
There’s a man in his 70s. We pass every day on the same stretch of trail, raise our hands in greeting and offer a simultaneous “good morning.”
Then there’s a woman who lives down our street. If she can run in her bulky winter coat, I can surely run in my ultimate-dry, super-wick, ultra-light, power warmth running gear.
And finally there are my three young children. They see me walk out the door in my running shoes, regardless of my state of mind and regardless of the weather. And I keep on going in the hope that one day they will walk out that door with me.
Two Aging Athletes Confront the Ultimate Opponent: Time
Still Not Too Old to Play Young
By Bob Brody
Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, January 27, 2009; HE04“I got him,” the kid on the basketball court says, pointing at you. We’re choosing sides for a pickup game of three-on-three.
“Who?” asks another teenager.
“Him,” the kid says, jabbing his finger toward you. “The old guy.”
Okay, he’s got you pegged. You say nothing, even though you half-want to thank him for the vote of confidence. Oh, at 56 you’re hardly “old,” of course. But here on this asphalt playground, you’re the oldest guy on the court. By a lot. You’re at least twice as old as your fellow competitors, and three times as old as some.
As the teams are formed, you imagine how the other players see you. You’re all of 5-foot-10 and 160 pounds, balding and bespectacled, nothing discernibly athletic about you. You’re going to be a pushover, they’ll be thinking, all slow motion and arthritic joints. You’ll get your sorry ass schooled but fast, then be taken to the nearest museum for carbon dating.
No matter. You’re here on this sunny late afternoon to play hoops for pretty much the same reasons you’ve played for the past 48 years. To dash around and take shots and grab a rebound or two. For the action, the spontaneity, the jolt of adrenaline.
Now the contest begins. Right away you hit a 15-foot jumper. Then you steal the ball and pass to a teammate for an easy basket. Your team takes a fast lead. You smile over at the kid who called you old.
Damn, you think, it’s good to be old.
But then the tide begins to turn. Your defender guards you closer, forcing you to throw away a pass. Now he gets the ball and starts to drive to the basket. Your feet adjust to his move a split second later than your brain so instructs, and he blows past you for a layup. The other side pulls ahead.
A small crack appears in your ego. Have other players gotten better over the years, or are you getting worse? Or could it be both?
Hey, you think, you’re 56. You’ve racked up serious miles on those legs. It takes you longer to warm up than it used to. These days, you head home from hard games feeling as if your body just went through a carwash, but without the car. So maybe you should cut yourself a little slack. You’re still competing respectably — for 56.
Hold on, what’s this now? Sounds suspiciously like a new attitude. And it dawns on you that you’re engaging in a ploy that athletes call “playing the score.” If you’re well ahead in a contest, confident of winning, you ease up. If, on the other hand, you’re lagging behind, you push harder. You synchronize your effort with your competitive status at the moment.
Your version of playing the score is different, though. You’re rating your performance according to your age. And thereby lowering your standards.
So this is what you’ve come to. Falling prey to this handy excuse for below-par performance.
So you reassert yourself. You flick a bounce pass that leads to a score. You smack away an attempted shot and run down the ball. You’re breathing hard now, trying to catch a second wind, with a warning twinge in your lower back. Still, sweating heavily, getting shoved around, you pull yourself together. You drive the base line, hard, for a reverse lefty layup that draws high-fives from your teammates. And soon your team comes out on top.
Why you hung in there, refusing to settle for diminishing returns, is simple: Your ego still requires more exercise than any muscle you own. You prefer to live by certain standards, whatever your age. As Arnold Schwarzenegger — asked about lifting weights as he got older — once put it, “A hundred pounds is always a hundred pounds.”
Maybe someday you’ll concede an inch or two to getting older. Settle for playing a little slower, compete only against other old guys. After all, golf has handicaps expressly to level the playing field. Playing the score is human nature, yes?
Well, no, actually. For now it’s still too soon.
You’re guided in this belief by a recent incident. Last summer, after a matchup in this very park, a kid paid you the best compliment about your game that you’re ever going to hear. First, he said you played well. Thanking him, you made a rare confession: that sometimes you feel old out there. Oh, no, the kid protested. You play young.
That’s what you want above all. To play young, without letting your age define you. To forget the score.
Now the three players who waited on the side for winners step onto the court to face your threesome. “Come on, old guy,” your teammate says to you, “let’s do it again.”
And, despite your fast-stiffening joints, you’re ready for another chance to show these kids old.
It is still my goal to be able to ride a century bike ride in every decade of my life. But I might have to make some concessions to some aspects of the ride.
January 28th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
I like your goal of riding a century in every decade of your life. I am going to steal it and have the same goal. I rode my first century when I was 12 so I missed the first decade, but have done a century every decade since (meaning my 20s). Did you ride a century before you were 10?
Great stories, I might find those and give them to people I work with.
January 29th, 2009 at 7:31 am
I guess I should clarify. I wasn’t doing centuries or cycling that much in my younger days. My goal is a century in every decade since I started bicycling regularly. I may have been in my forties or close to it when I did my first century.
January 31st, 2009 at 9:27 am
Yes we may be getting older and slower, but we can serve as an inspiration for those younger. When I was in my 20s on a backpacking trip I saw an older couple — probably around 50
— backpacking. I was inspired and said I hope to be like them when I reach that age. The image has stayed with me over the years and now that I am in my 50s I am still inspired by those active folks older than me.