Never This Old; Never This Young Again

Each year on our birthday (mine was April 12th), we probably find ourselves taking time to think about the year ahead as well as the one that just passed.  The outlook changes as we age.  Do we have our affairs in order? How much can we effectively manage in our day-to-day lives and what is most important at this stage of life?  And for us senior runners, what are the prospects for a strong racing year as we experience limiting factors coming into play? 

The Senior Distance Running Essentials (SDRE) was conceived in large part to help wrestle with this last question. We might find ourselves scrolling through past race results and pictures, maybe 20 years ago or even just five years past and recall how a particular race or group of races felt, most likely easier and faster than where we are today.  Doing that periodically allows us to celebrate our achievements and renew the joy we felt running those races – it’s part of who we are today. 

But we know the flip side of re-living these memories – it can remove us from our current circumstances, which may be putting a lid on performances.  That said, we ideally still aim to do our best and each birthday presents a perfect opportunity to take stock of where we’re at and set goals for the coming year.  This is individual – there is no place we can go for a canned training program.  If we are truly experiments-of-one, as SDRE premises, it is up to each of us to develop a manageable training plan.  And if we’re coming off a down year, that may include improved race times and thus a rise in age-grade percentages.

There will come a time when running, or at least running as we know it, will not be an option.  We all have friends for whom this has happened and most I know have looked this straight in the eye and made necessary adjustments in ways I admire.  For those of us still running, the unknown is how long that will continue.  We clearly have a say in that.  Why wait until we’re on the brink to moderate training and racing to accommodate our aging bodies?  Pushing hard until something fails results in the choice being made for us.  I don’t like that option.

So, it’s another year in the books and another on the way.  That makes it an open book until this chapter closes.  Happy Birthday whenever that happens for you in 2024!