I’ve written a lot in this space about turning back the clock.
You’d think in the years that I’ve been running for my life there has been some
slowing down. And, yes, I suppose that’s true. I’m unlikely to test that
Steamtown 2010 time of 3:33:08 ever again. But when it comes to reverse aging
that hardly matters. Performance is not measured in time alone.
Two days after April Fool’s Day I woke early from persistent
jet lag. (M and I returned March 31 from a two-week trip to Hong Kong and Thailand,
more on that at another time.) For about a week after arriving home, I found
sleep difficult. Two, three hours of hard sleep and then I’m up, wide awake at
2 a.m., 3 a.m.
I manage four hours of deep rest, but at 6 a.m., it was all over.
Soon I was out with T, did errands of various sorts, fixed myself a little
breakfast, and then, exhausted, went back to bed at 9:40 a.m. I went out like a
light but was up again at 10:20 a.m. Why? Because my body is attuned to run at
that hour. Even dead tired, barely able to life my leg up and out of the covers
and over the side of the bed, I wasn’t going to miss my run.
I did it, a modest 4.5 miles, and I felt writing in the
subway afterward like a young man. Hardly slower, hardly weaker. In fact, if as
my mother and father, who are a healthy 82 and 84, respectively, were once fond
of saying, You’re only as young as you feel, this running for your life deal
hasn’t failed me when it comes to living that saying out loud.
Next: Running for Your Life: Track Work!
