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The Aging of a Runner by Eb Engelmann

     I ran in high school (1500 meters, and also for soccer and basketball, and the very occasional, personal long run—about six miles in those days). I ran in the Army Airborne (mass, instep, group runs, 3 miles a day, six days a week, for almost three years, the last 14 months often at daybreak on German cobblestone streets in jump boots—a curiously awesome, goose bump inducing experience to me!). Then I put away my running until 17 years later at age 37 and weighing, what was for me, a bloated 183 pounds, when I decided to try it again—now belatedly as the "battle of the bulge." However, within six months I knew again that, weight be damned, I was still a runner!

     Now on the eve of becoming 60. With 575 races and 44,000 "adult" miles behind me I am compelled to think about my running from an older, more reflective perch, and especially upon my aging and running. I have some personal observations to make.

     I am slowing down, not surprisingly, and at an accelerating rate. The reasons are many, while the fallout is dispiriting and cumulative. I am inextricably caught in a downward spiral, and yet I strive to keep my head above the water and to stay focused upon the horizon. As we older runners keep telling one-another, "slower is better than the alternative."

     I have all but stopped running the shorter runs. My mile, 3K, 5K, 5mile, and 10K are all getting substantially slower. Having done 20-40 or more of each of these distances there is nothing left to discover, and I am on the far side of my peak times for all of them and falling rapidly. Strength and speed are the first to go, while endurance mercifully lingers.

     I also find as a side effect that while I can still run flats and especially downhill only modestly slower than before, I am all but unable to run uphill. Consequently, I no longer run them but march them vigorously, except in the shorter distances or in relays.

     Given the relative persistence of endurance with age, the much greater role of mental focus and tenacity in longer runs, and the relatively fewer runs I have done at really longer distances, I have essentially become a long distance specialist. In this regard, I also have at my service a key axiom garnered from personal observations made at many races over the years, "the longer the race, the older the participants". Also, as we all know, speed kills, and that is certainly true when it comes to generating injuries! It is so much more likely for a senior runner to pull or strain an aging muscle with an all-out fast effort than it is for a youngster to do so. Here then, is another contributing factor to running long.

     Not only do times slow as one ages, but perhaps even more challenging, recovery slows. This includes recovery from both the exhaustion experienced from hard training or racing and recovery from injuries suffered along the way. Where I used to run every day, I now hope to run only every other day. On the alternate day I typically walk or racewalk, bike, row, and/or do light weights and stretching. While I can still make my self run more frequently, my legs become heavy, my aches persistent, my body lethargic, and my spirit flagging.

     I also find that, as I age, my performances have become less satisfying for me and less relevant for anyone else. In spite of my best efforts, I am no longer near the front of the race. My times are becoming more and more distant from the winner's time. And who besides another 59-60 year-old really cares what a runner oi that age is doing. That is the simple fact of the matter. This further detracts from my effort's value and makes it even more difficult to keep pushing my already fading body and spirit.

     I now also find myself counting privately and anxiously just how many years I may have left to run at this point, ...maybe ten? Certainly far less than I have already been running! How many 70-year-old runners do you know? Very, very few indeed! And for the majority of those, there is little performance incentive except to finish.

     And I am now concerned that certain seminal running milestones have already silently passed me by - a 6:00 mile, 30:00 5 mile, 40:00 10K, 3:00:00 marathon, 8:00:00 50 mile, and perhaps the ability to ever again finish the Western States Endurance Run or post 100 miles or more in a 24-hour run. Can I still run around Mt. Rainier, and, if so, will the next instance truly be the last one? These doubts have a profound impact upon your dreaming, thinking, and planning as a runner. Is it becoming too late to do "x?" If you are a naturally competitive runner and person, these realities require constant, painful adjustment and rethinking of one's goals and priorities. If you love running, as I do, this is both exasperating and disappointing. It is corrupting! I am also loath to pass up an event I still feel I myself capable of doing for fear that next year I may no longer be able to I do it.

     There is also a popular maxim among runners that it is not so much the age of the runner, per se, as the miles on the runner which accelerate - the slowing process. Regardless, by either measure I am becoming a fading, slowing runner. I have both the accumulated years and miles—and yes, even the accumulated miles raced!

     Inevitably, I must simply return to an earlier phrase, "Whatever you are still able to do, it is far better than the alternative." Did you give it your best effort? Did you do the mostyou could with what you've still got? If so, that's truly all you can do. You deserve a pat on the back—at the very least your own pat! You should praise yourself. In no case should you allow yourself to berate your performance. And you should close and try to distance yourself from your one-time personal record book. Those performances belong to yesterday, and yesterday is gone. So put your best foot forward, and just keep on placing one foot before the other - as all runners must do. It still feels the same. Only the time has changed. And time always was the ultimate runner's taskmaster........