Most of us 'older' fans of LetsRun may never race to personal bests again. I think in a few cases older runners can pr. So besides lifestlye,weight and too stupid to qiut why do you still run and compete? For me it keeps me feeling like a teenager and mentally I am as quick as I ever was (ie. very slow). I said I would never be a jogger but I do jog a few days a week now. Give the young runners some inspiration.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.
It makes my body sing.
Of course, it can't carry a tune quite as well as it used to.
Very well put!
Although the speed is slowing, the effort remains similar and therefore I feel as relevant as I did in the '60's.
There's a pure ego boost to knowing that I can go out and run 10 miles any old time, even if I don't necessarily do it in less than an hour anymore.
Oh, and the groupies.
For all the same reasons I started running. Makes me feel good, able to drink beer and not lose too much sleep about it, need something to take the place of basketball, etc. after all the Joe's that used to come out and play decided they were too old, want to go down swinging, get a rush at the young girls/older woman who wish their significant others should be in such shape, think I can run in the Olympics........
What's an olg guy? I don't get it. Ohhhhhhh, olD guy. How old is old? Thirty, 40, 50? My response depends on answers.
Because I can't imagine not doing it.
I remember when I was in 10th grade, and I started running cross country because my father insisted that I had to do a fall sport (because otherwise he knew I would have frittered my afternoons away). I hated it. And I used to curse him under my breath the whole way home after practices. At the time, hockey and golf were my main sports.
But over time, that changed. In college, I became disillusioned with both hockey and golf, but began to run again (non-competitively) mostly as a way of staying in shape and because I enjoyed the freedom of it. I got inspired by Bill Rodgers and decided to run the Boston Marathon (on about 40 miles per week) during my senior year (1978). Yes, I admit it, I was a "bandit." I wound up doing a lot of walking and finished in 3:32. I was chagrined and was determined to do better. I set breaking 3 hours as my goal.
I have basically been running ever since. And I have enjoyed it more and more, and feel as if have gotten more and more out of it, as the years have gone by. I am now running more than I ever have (about 75 miles a week). I still haven't broken three hours, but I think that, at the age of 46, I have a reasonable shot of pulling it off at Boston this April (I ran 3:02 in Portland this past fall). But that's not even the important thing anymore. What's important is getting out there with my running buddies every day, enjoying both the banter and the feeling of a good run in the woods. And like I said, I can't imagine not running on a daily basis. I'd do it even if I had to run every run alone.
Anyway, my father passed away two years ago and I never did really thank him enough for forcing me to sign up for cross country. I wish I had.
At 50+ and 35 years of racing I still like to go out and hammer on my competition in races.
38 years old and 13 years of running, latest PR is three years old, but haven't given up on the possibility of running another!
Money for nothin' and the chicks for free.
Cause the only other hobby that I ever had was fishing and I haven't been fishing in 26 years.
Because it keeps me mentally sharp enough to figure out what an "olg" guy really is and because that good feeling that comes from having made an all-out effort never goes away, though the disgust at what constitutes an all-out effort puts a new twist on it. And there is the beer...
No, there's the PIZZA and beer, not just the beer.
mmmmmmmmmmmmm... ...pizza and beer!
Last week some young twit started a thread about what he hated about running, and somehow that morphed into him/her bitching about not being able to have pizza and beer and that got me salivating about pizza and beer so I hammered a good 12 miler in to be sure I deserved some pizza and beer and then took my wife and kid out for some pizza and beer (before my kid's hockey game of course - and no, he didn't have any beer, just pizza, but my wife and I both had pizza and beer) and then the next day I cranked out a slow 14 miles, and then heated up the leftover pizza and washed it down with a couple of beers, and later that day my wife and son went out for six miles, and when they got back he was so pleased with himself that I congratulated him and celebrated by having another beer, and then the next morning, I went out with an "oldguy" running buddy for a "short" (<9mi) long run, and rewarded myself with a Sunday brunch that involved neither pizza nor beer, but included a healthy helping or three of eggs, potatoes, sausage, bacon, etc and then later relaxed a bit before another hockey game after which I had dinner with beer but unfortunately no pizza.
Phew!
I still run, at the relatively young old age of 37, because it makes me feel alive, gets me high and keeps me sane. There is nothing better, by a long shot!
Pete,
You've absolutely got it right. I defer to the wisdom of your age.
I do it for the same reason a dog licks it's balls- because I (still) can.
Great thread, guys! I find elements of all of your motivations and satisfaction in my running; well, fifth digit, actually not yours...loss of flexibility, at the least, prevents me from making that a realistic goal.
But sometimes I wonder: are we weird? Occasionally after a recovery day, but before my next workout, I just take off running when I'm headed some place at work. This is at a large company, and when my legs feel fresh I sometimes, without thinking or consciously intending to, break into a run down the hall. I always get startled reactions, like there must be a medical or military emergency that makes it urgent for me to get somewhere. Now a few people know I'm an avid runner and multisport athlete and, while they no longer are startled, they still react as if it somehow wasn't proper for a guy in his 50s to go tearing down a hall or across a parking lot. They'd break into a grin if they saw a five-year-old zooting down the hall, but a running middle-aged guy isn't cool. Do any of you get similar reactions to your running, just because of your age?
Anyway, I hope each of us has a great run today, and I'll lift a Leinie's Red tonight to salute the kid in all of us.
I run and race because I still love it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! May not be anywhere as fast as I was at 22, but I still like the feeling I get from it. I thank my H.S. coach and my Bowling Green coach for showing me how to love running!
Howdy Doody wrote:
But sometimes I wonder: are we weird?
Yes.
Got a problem with that?