Running for Your Life: So OC, You Still Running?

I’m asked this question from time to time. One day at our local gym, a former runner, I’d guess maybe ten years older than me, asked if I was still running. I said yes, and he grimaced. “I miss it every day,” he said. He went on to say that he was many years a racer and that he was forced to quit. One day, he said, one knee – that had never caused him any trouble – simply gave out. Now he works out, does low-impact cardio. But, alas, his running days are over.

So yeah, I’m still running. Every other day, and on the alternate day I like to stretch and work out on weight machines at the gym. Lately, I’ve taken to wearing all-black compression sleeves, which have worked wonders at keeping me from nagging shin splints. And my sport orthotics stop the neuritis in its tracks. I don’t go out the door without my orthotics (which aren’t visible, of course) and my compression sleeves, which obviously are.

I have to admit that these all-black compression sleeves do make for some snickering from passersby. Especially if I wear them with my baggy blue shorts, which I do half the time. Remember Forrest Gump? How he just kept running, seemingly oblivious to his cornpone attire? Same thing with me.

Which brings me to dialogue that came to me the other day: an imaginary conversation between two elderly folks at an old age compound near Prospect Park at a time of year when birdlife is scant but running life is rife; circa 2042.

The scene: A man in his nineties and a woman, slightly younger, are sitting on a park bench near a jogging trail where a steady stream of colorful runners are moving past:

“Look at that one,” he says, wagging a finger.

“The girl, the one in the pigtails?”

“No, the woman in the tube top and the knee socks. Sweet stride. And such a soft heel strike.”

“Whoa, yes. That’s the way I did it.”

“That’s the way you like to think you did it.”

“Smarty . . . I like that fella there. The one with the dog. Handsome.”

“The dog or the fella?”

“The dog, silly.”

“You gotta love these runners, though. Oh, look! There’s a red one, and over there, a navy. Yellow, green, orange . . . And that one in pearl gray Vibrams, the FiveFingers. Sheesh, they’ll always look weird to me.”

“And omigod. Can you believe it? There’s a guy moving along pretty well who has to be our age. Over there, wearing those hideous all-black compression sleeves and baggy blue shorts. Still running after all these years.”

“Yeah,” the old fella says, pulling the blanket up on his legs, which are starting to feel numb. “That OC, who does he think he is?”

Next: Running for Your Life: Pioneer Park Slope