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Hey All!
Huge congrats to all the mamas who ran the Sporting Life10K! Madalyn, Steph, Lyndsay, Michelle S and Michelle P (who runs w us virtually). Wohoo!!! Super speedy times out there!
This week I’ve been thinking about ageing – and what it means to keep trying hard as I get slower. It’s an interesting mental exercise in a sport where what you see as your time is so closely measured to how you think you should feel. And to keep updating that understanding so that benchmarks that used to represent one thing, now represent another. How to stay excited about the process and goals which are not quite what they used to be.
In the middle of the Boston marathon a few weeks ago, the unwelcome thought crashed into my mind, “you’re too old for this – what are you playing at?” I tried to dismiss it, but it hung there for a while. I’m coming up on 50 in a couple of months, and I do sometimes notice my diminished strength and abilities even in day to day activities. So how can I keep pushing my body to its limits in what feels like extreme activities, when its limits keep changing?
Not everyone reading this will be able to relate. Yet. Many are still getting faster and stronger – even as they get older – because they haven’t yet maxed out their potential. That is great and exciting. But what kind of role model am I if I show them that when they reach the point that they stop getting faster, they’re supposed to just stop? I look around, and there are not all that many of us left. The ones who still seem to enjoy pushing and working hard and find meaning in fighting for minutes or seconds. I have currently turned my attention to the track for this summer. My training group consists of women (girls?) in their early 20’s. Credit where it’s due, there is one guy who is a year older than me, and a few other men in the same age bracket. But zero “older” women. It is funny when I line up to race against teenagers. I’m really not sure what they all think of me. But I’m enjoying it. Even as I slow down, running as fast as I can for as long as I can is an empowering feeling. And I think that the fact that there are very few women my age doing it, means that it must be an important role. Because these 20 year olds love what they are doing, and hopefully when they become 50 year olds, they won’t be so quick to question whether they “should” still be doing it. It will be a normalized viable option to keep going.
I’m looking at my peers in this group and around us who are helping to define what we can do into our late-50’s and 60’s and even 70’s. I don’t want to say we’re doing it with grace. Who needs grace. We’re doing it with sweat-plastered hair, spit encrusted mouths, grimaces of pain, and a great dose of humour. And we’re leading the way for hopefully many more to follow us. So let’s not stop. Never stop. We need each others’ company so it’s not lonely out there!
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