The wisdom of Anthony Hopkins, I can testify that truer words were never spoken. It’s not so much that it’s a surprise that getting old presents challenges it’s the unexpected nature of where those challenges manifest themselves and the volume that seem to happen all at once. I think the difficulties of getting old are like having your first child. No matter how much you hear about it in advance, you have to go through it to really appreciate the challenges
Take my running
for instance. I’ve been running off and
on for 50 years and whenever life got in the way and I took a break for a while
I could comfortably return to a reasonable performance in a matter of months. There have been some years, even in my
50’s where I would go from no running to running the Boston Marathon in 4
months. Even after my first round of
chemo and while still fighting Leukemia I was able to bounce back to run Boston
in only nine months. Fast forward to
today, three years after my stem cell transplant, and running is a whole
different experience.
A number of
years ago I mentioned in a blog that anyone could run a marathon, it was just a
matter of having the discipline to train for it. Boy was I wrong. As natural
as running is, to do it right and not get injured requires a combination of
coordination and strength that I find sorely lacking in my old age. I was thinking about this as I was out for
a morning waddle that serves for my runs these days. I accept that as I’ve gotten older that it
takes longer to warm up the old muscles and joints so I’m religious about going
through a warm up routine before hitting the roads. But no amount of pre-jog efforts seems to prevents
the body from sounding like you just poured milk on a bowl of Rice Krispies
(snap, crackle, pop). The fact that
it’s below freezing and I’m bundled up like the kid in the movie Christmas
Story doesn’t help the situation.
Those first few miles are so slow and pathetic looking that the dogs in
the neighborhood don’t even bother chasing me, not enough of a challenge. Don’t
even get me started on hills. I’m
breathing so heavy in the cold air the giant puffs of steam make me look and
sound like a steam engine.
Clearly age
has a lot to do with the how much more effort it takes these days. I find myself more sensitive to the cold, I
don’t see as well in the dark, old injuries come back to haunt me with a
vengeance and I just don’t have the strength I use to have. But I also know that I lost a lot dealing
with cancer and still today three years later I struggle to get back to where I
was. I think about all the children who
have to deal with cancer and the aftermath so early in their lives and how they
need encouragement to keep fighting.
There’s a lot of parallels between cancer and old age, their both not
for the faint of heart.
And so it is
that I’m taking on the marathon challenge again this year to support those kids
fighting cancer through Help in the Nick of Time. You may remember that last year they moved
the Boston Marathon from April to the fall to avoid the pandemic. The marathon was finally cancelled all
together. Given the current state of
the pandemic this April’s Boston Marathon has again been moved to the fall but
I’m going ahead with my marathon challenge in April. Last year I set the goal of jogging a
marathon over 7 days in under 6 hours.
This year I’m upping the ante and shooting for the 26.2 miles in 5 days
and under 5 hours. Far cry from 2017
when I ran the Boston Marathon in a little over 4 hours but progress over last
year. With your help I’ll make both my
Help in the Nick of Time and marathon challenge goals.
Kicking old
ages’ butt until next time.
No comments:
Post a Comment