An Aging Runner Glimpses the Future



Maybe these aren't the kindest words to describe the runners in the waves before me but they're all that come to mind.

I stand behind the ropes at the 101st Dipsea, a spectator at my own race with nearly an hour to kill before my wave takes off. True, some of the old folks that line up appear fit, but the skin on their legs is leathery from years under the sun and hangs loose over once-bigger muscles. It's not a pretty picture.

As I continue to wait, watching gray-haired runners disappear towards the famous steps at a jogger's pace, I start to wonder if this event is tailored for older people, a club race for elders. This was supposed to be a race, not a pity party. What the hell am I doing here?

The codgers pat each other's backs, chat, laugh at inside jokes. They've done this before. Their camaraderie stands in contrast to my wave, a regiment of 40-somethings with game faces on, ready to prove to our wives that we're still that 20-year-old stud. Silent and focused on the starter, we wait like hunting dogs. No doubt we look past our prime to the fast-scratch runners starting 4 minutes behind us.

Early 40s is the dawn of middle age, perhaps not quite old enough to see my race times decline but the "I'll live forever" attitude of my youth squarely tucked away in the past. Knowing better than to run my body down, I take high-quality rest days to coax my way through another workout or marathon. I'm not a shuffler yet, but my body is sending out the warning signs--lingering aches, increased tightness, restless sleep. And yet I'm far from ready to hang up my spikes. If I'm not still on the upward trajectory, then I'm at the peak of my running ability.

I resisted the Dipsea for a long time, bemoaning how the arbitrary and unfair handicap system made it difficult for those on the younger side of the hill to get the prize of a top-35 finish, a coveted black shirt with a big silver place number on the back. Today I stand on the line and tell myself I'm not an elder; I don't want their head starts.

On my way at last, I hold back the speed of my descent on the first downhill after the steps, saving myself for the work of the major climb, Hogsback. I have to appreciate and yet laugh at a lithe teenager who shoots past me, only to falter 50 yards up the ascent.

"You've got a lot to learn, son."

Wait a minute … did I say that?

I pass many of the older runners from the first wave while climbing Hogsback. Breathing hard, pumping their arms all over the place to compensate for tired legs, they carry their bodies instead of being carried by them. I'm working hard too, but I begin to question, "What takes more mental fortitude--to ride along on a fit body or to carry a frame that probably aches at every joint?"

At the top of Hogsback I break a senior's concentration with a "Way to go." He's deep in his toil, sweatier than I've ever seen a man. I expect him to ignore me, but he flashes a smile and gives me a "Go get 'em." His crooked form is horrible and he breathes like he has bronchitis. Yet he pushes on as youth literally passes him by. The beauty of a running race is that it puts everyone's determination on public display. Two miles from the finish at Stinson Beach he's showing me that in a race it's not how you start that matters, but how you finish.

Suddenly, I'm aware of what I've yet to attain as a runner, the true grit of not letting any excuse hold you back from doing your best. I'm impressed by his stamina and his stubbornness. I imagine myself as him. Will I display the same mettle when my physical prime is behind me? As we age and slow, should we throw in the towel and say, "I used to run," letting vanity keep us from toeing the line? Or do we adjust our goals and push on, overcoming the wall of diminished returns? Maybe there's a higher potential to be reached beyond PRs later in life.

The race over, we gather on a lawn near the Pacific Ocean for the awards ceremony. Each of the top 35 finishers is called to the podium to receive his or her black shirt. Using handicaps, the Dipsea has taken on the difficult and ambivalent task of rewarding runners by effort instead of time. As I watch each silver-haired runner accept their shirt, I find myself recalibrating my perception of what constitutes a good runner.

Many runners are scared to get old, training harder and stubbornly chasing PRs to temper the effects of age. There'll come a day when we'll train all we want and it won't make a bit of difference. I'm scared of the day my body will betray me. I'm looking back over my shoulder at the kids chasing PRs while my body is barreling forward on the plateau towards the inevitable drop-off. But that old man chugging up the hill offered, by way of example, a bit of reassurance that there's reason to carry on. It's his determination that I need to acquire. Not the garden-variety determination I have that chases medals, but a determination forged by age and wisdom and mixed with a healthy passion for living, one that will allow me to see this running life through to the end.

At the end of the day, the Dipsea recognizes those runners who didn't give up when faced with a declining body. Every male winner of the last 20 years has been over 50, meaning they started during the running boom of the 1970s … and never stopped, dedicating a chunk of their lives to the pursuit of being good runners for decades. The Dipsea is their homecoming. With their wrinkles and scars, they stand at the start and at the finish for all to see, living examples of the rewards of persistence, testament that the perseverant runner can find victory over the physical setbacks of age by exercising the strength of their resolve.

I sit on the grass and envy their black shirts and proud smiles. Truthfully, I'm a bit sullen I'm not up there; my skill as a runner usually places me in the top 5 percent. But as I reconsider my perception of these codgers and shufflers, I discover I'm readjusting my expectations of my future self. At the start I saw the runners I didn't want to end up like--tired, beaten, worn-out. But at the finish I see them as the determined runners I want to become. Being a dedicated runner means using the body you have at any given moment to the best of its ability, whether you're running your first 5K or your last Dipsea. I want that gritty determination of the old man climbing the hill, and the only way to get it is to keep running. It's a race--you don't give up.

Herein lies the magic of the race I'd shunned. What other race inspires runners to keep at it? Where's the pull of running one more Boston when we once placed 1,000th but now finish 10,000th? The Dipsea entices us with the possibility of a win late in our running careers, keeping our competitive fire burning when we ourselves would have let it die. If the aim of any race is to see who doesn't give up, then the Dipsea takes the contest into another dimension, projecting this challenge of endurance onto one's running career. When time has claimed back the pursuits of youth, the Dipsea asks, "Do you have the strength and willpower to carry on? If so, we have a black shirt for you." And if I still need proof as to the merits of aging, of racing down the backside of the hill, I simply need to look up at the collection of laughter on the Dipsea podium.

Quite simply, I want to win this race someday. But saying so commits me to another decade of running strong, for no male in his 40s has won the Dipsea since 1985. Will I win? Only time will tell. Victory is moving beyond the notion that as we get older we leave all the good things behind. There are a few things we can take with us.

Maybe I'll negative split this running life.

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