August 24, 2007

  Bob on Running Older
    By Bob Francis, Owner
    soundRUNNER




Now the years go rolling by and I’m rocking easily.
I’m older than I once was, younger than I’ll be
But that’s not unusual.
Lord ain’t it strange,
After going through these changes
We are more or less the same.

        —Unpublished lyrics from a live performance of The Boxer by Simon and Garfunkel


Last week, I wrote some remarks on what I like about running. I made the point that I pursued other activities as a twenty- and thirty-something. I failed to add that I ran occasionally, covering up to three miles at a time in my twenties, farther in my thirties, dropping back to three miles again in my early forties. When I got on the scale at age forty-five it said “get off.” My story is fairly consistent with the experience of lots of fellow runners. I started running seriously at age forty-five after moving to New York. At the time I needed to improve my cholesterol counts, started running for health reasons, and got asked to run on the Rockefeller University team in the Corporate Challenge series. The distance was 3.5 miles, the outer limit of my training at that point.

I remember huffing and puffing my way over the finish line in a little over twenty-four minutes, about three minutes slower than I vainly expected. The moment the finish line loomed into view, I though “this is the thing for me.” And for the next six years I trained hard, putting in the sixty mile weeks, running all my PRs in 2000 at age fifty-one. I was competitive in age group racing, but not able to match the fastest guys. The move to Detroit at the end of 2000 taught me what happens when you don’t race frequently: you slow down. For several years I whined about getting back into race shape. But I had a life to live, lived it, and never make it back to the front of the age-group pack.

In recent years I’ve been running marathons only as fast as I need to qualify for Boston, and have been choosing races for their scenic value. And now I don’t have to run any faster than 3:59 to qualify! I didn’t wear a sports watch in the last three marathons. I like to take a nap now after a twenty mile training run. I don’t run six days a week very often any more. Now it’s usually five. Over the last several years I got turned on to trail running, and with several ultras under my belt have assimilated an entirely different mindset: there are no digital clocks or mile-markers in the forest. There’s a track to follow eventually leading to the point you emerge from the woods and the finish line comes into view. I’m older than I once was, younger than I’ll be. But one thing I don’t think will ever change—the great feeling you get before the race is over, before you’ve finished, while you’re still striving to achieve, giving your all. In that, I am more or less the same—I never want it to be over.

Archive of Bob’s Lane

Issue 1: May 1, 2007: Bob on the Bash
Issue 2: May 10, 2007: Bob on Dave Parcells
Issue 3: May 24, 2007: Bob on the Branford Road Race
Issue 4: June 1, 2007: Bob on Being Green
Issue 5: June 15, 2007: Bob from the Left Coast
Issue 6: June 23, 2007: When Pain is Leisure
Issue 7: July 6, 2007: At Seventeen
Issue 8: July 13, 2007: Bob on Cities
Issue 9: July 30, 2007: Bob on Mike
Issue 10: August 8, 2007: Bob on Nature: Nature on Endurance Running
Issue 11: August 17, 2007: Bob on What I Like