It is no surprise that the older you get the slower you become. Takes
some getting used to. Muscles are stiffer. You don’t rise from sitting or prone
positions with quite the speed and vigor that you did in days past. Clear the
sixty-year-old threshold as I have, and folks only a few years older than me,
smirk when I say I intend to keep running just like I always have. Just wait,
Larry. Your day will come too. They don’t as much as say it outright, but the
knowing look says it all: You’ll be Walking for Your Life, pal.
In my thirties, I have to admit I liked to see my reflection as I ran
past plate glass windows on urban streets. I was running, baby. Long-legged
with a kick of a pace. Eight-minute miles and under. Thirty minutes = four
miles. Then off to work, scooting along. Imagine cartoon puffs of air behind my
feet.
That was then. Now when I pass a plate-glass reflection, I see a
scaled-down runner. Not yet a jogger, shuffling along. There is still pop in
the step. Not a speedster – but a steady-ster.
I still carry that “Beat Yesterday” feeling into a run. But I’m not going
to get there again. Not even close. But in slow mo. Maybe even back to
marathoning. I haven’t given up yet. The writer and the runner combining in the
long poem: the Rime of the Ancient
Marathoner.
Next: Running for Your Life: Keeping Up the Blog
