“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” - Aristotle
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Last week I was hanging out with a neighbor friend while our kids were playing talking about, ummmm...yeah...running. She's run several marathons, but runs fairly on and off. She's planning on running Phoenix RnR this January, so we were talking training as she tried to talk me into joining her in Phoenix. At some point we got on the subject of age. She's a couple age divisions younger than me (five year divisions;) and when she heard how old I am she coughed out her coffee all over the deck and said "Get out!".
I get this reaction fairly often, and I think it's my general attitude and immaturity that inspires it rather than my youthful appearance. But I'm never entirely sure how to respond - I mean, how old am I supposed to look/act? Am I so old that when someone looks at me they should think "Yep, She's old". You know the situation: You walk past a nice older couple walking together or an older runner bounding along a trail, and you think, "Oh, when I'm THAT OLD I hope I look and act like that". Well, should people running by me think that about me? Yikes, I say!
Well, I don't feel old. I don't feel the way I thought I'd feel when I was young thinking about what it would be like to be the age I am now. Sure I get all nervous about getting old, how the time passes faster and faster, and how I'm probably going to suddenly feel old one day. But this is nothing new for me - I've been feeling this way since I was 27 - my first "mid-life crisis". And yet that day, which should have come years ago, at this point is still no where in sight.
In fact I feel better today than I did when I was 27 years old. I'm stronger, smarter, happier, more focused, more balanced, and more motivated to kick my own butt in gear - after all - I can't possibly have much more time left, can I?
This is what I hear from other runners: First, there's those who say: Oh, goody, all I need to do is keep running and when I'm 50 I'll be able to qualify for Boston. Clearly the 20/30-somethings see the qualifying times for us 'older' folks as easily attainable and think it's gotta be a gimme. But wait, we're pretty schizo on this. On the other side, are some of the older runners (and mostly non-runners) I know who believe that they can't really run or push themselves the way they wish they could (or at all) and/or use their age as an excuse not to push themselves. Now, if they just don't want to, that's fine - but let's stop using age as an excuse. Age itself is not a disability or a disease. In many cultures age is respected and revered. In ours it is pitied and dreaded.
What I've found in my area of the country is that the 40 and 50 year-old women kick butt at races. I don't know why we don't notice this more. I think if we focused a lot more on what 'older' people continue to accomplish, and focus less on the "culture of youth" we would have a happier, healthier, more vibrant society as a whole. I ran two races last month, a 5K and a Half Marathon, and in both races I would have placed higher (I place 3rd in my age group, 40-49, for both races) if I had been in the 20-29, or 30-39 age groups. What's up with that? That issue may be another blog post, but the fact remains, that I can and will continue to push myself in running, and all other things that matter to me, until they carry me out feet first.
Life has the depth and breadth that you bring to it. A full life can last a full life time. Improving on my pre-masters PRs will remain my goal for a few more years. Maybe I'm a little fool and a dreamer who's in deep, deep denial. But as William James argued, in terms of our lived experience, we create our reality through our beliefs. I refuse to get old just because others tell me to.
“Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.”
― William James
The last mile and a half of the Denver Rock n Roll Half Marathon is downhill - and if there's one thing I'm not totally sucky at, it's running downhill. I've got plenty in the tank, and so I turn it on - my last mile is about 7:10 (overall pace was 7:50), and I'm feeling fine. At the very end I'm in a pack of four or five women. The crowd yells "come on ladies!" I'm not really racing them (they all look to be in their 20s), my goal is a NYC qualifier (1:44 for my age, and I came in at 1:42:49). But as usually we all duke-it-out to the wire. One young woman catches me in the last second, crosses the timing mats, bends
over and pukes her guts out!
Here she is, bottom center
"NICE job!" I think to myself - I don't actually pat her on the back and tell her this because, well, she's puking. But jeeze, why don't I ever puke my guts out at the end of a race? Why am I so weak, so wimpy, so bloody conservative? This young woman gave it all she had. I can't imagine how she must have felt in the seconds before the finish - and she still got by me. What's wrong with me? I gotta get some grit, some killer instinct.
I'm running a couple 10ks in the coming weeks - and I have to say that this distance is not my current favorite - It hurts me more than halfs and marathons - but my goal right now is to work on my speed, and I don't do that very well unless there's some pressure. So races are a good way for me to push it. But here's the problem: I'm still not really pushing it. Oh, I may think I am in the moment, but then I feel fresh as a daisy the day after a race and run a nice 'recovery' ten miler! Puking aside, if I can run 10 miles the next morning then I clearly didn't run the race very hard. When I was younger I raced with all I had in me - and the next day I could barely walk, never mind run. Can I still do that? I wonder.
So, here I say it, for all the world to see: I want to run these races 'til I puke. Well, maybe, or maybe not - but at least I want to be just a little sore and tired after the race. Clearly my belief that I'm push it is bogus. I want to see if I still have it in me to really try hard and risk blowing up, or perhaps really succeeding. I've been playing it too safe. Well, no more...
On National Coffee Day, and I love coffee, I want to announce a new national holiday: National Take Your Daughter Running Day.
Hey, why not - I mean, who started National Coffee Day, or National Speak Like A Pirate Day, Arrrrr.
I say that this day should be October 1st - Which is this coming Saturday.
Why October 1st - Well, all runners know that autumn is the season of running (I think spring ranks second). We runners love the cool, crisp mornings, yellow and red trees bright against a gray sky, crunchy leaves soften each step and make us feel like kids again - Ah, running through piles of leaves. Each footfall releases the comforting, energizing, crispy aroma of fall. And, while October 1st may not be the official first day of Fall, it still feels as though the passing of September ushers in Fall in earnest.
October 1st is also the birthday of Grete Waitz (1953) - and as a pioneer of women's running, I think this might be an appropriate honor.
There are disturbing tends at work in our culture (United States) that seem to be encouraging girls to sit back, passively and let life happen to them. It is our job to show them other, better ways. To discover and create who they are - who they want to be - to feel and know their power, their potential, their brilliance...
In a recent Christian Science Monitor article,Little girls or little women: The Disney princess effect, Stephanie Hanes notes that: "Girls are participating in sports at a much increased level in grade school," says Sharon Lamb, a professor of education and mental health at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. But, she adds, they start to drop out of sports at the middle school level when they start to believe that sports are unfeminine and unsexy.
The Women's Sports Foundation found that 6 girls drop out of sports for every 1 boy by the end of high school, and a recent Girl Scout study found that 23 percent of girls between the ages of 11 and 17 do not play sports because they do not think their bodies look good doing so.
And looking good, Ms. Lamb says, is increasingly tied to what it means to play. Star female athletes regularly pose naked or seminaked for men's magazines; girls see cheerleaders (with increasingly sexualized routines) on TV far more than they see female basketball players or other athletes...This "sexy babes" trend is a big one.
"For young women, what has replaced the feminine mystique is the hottie mystique," Ms. Coontz says. "Girls no longer feel that there is anything they must not do or cannot do because they're female, but they hold increasingly strong beliefs that if you are going to attempt these other things, you need to look and be sexually hot."
So let's all take our daughters for a run this coming Saturday - Let's show them another way - let's celebrate the energy and the magic of our girls. Let's help them discover that they are strong and can do anything they set their minds and hearts to.
