Some of you by now have read Roger Robinson's article on racing as we get old, I mean really old like 80 and over. I've had a few thoughts of my own since posting that piece (Jan. 21). And some of them came to me indirectly from watching tv and reading in the last two days.
I first thought about all the good runners from their youth who ran themselves to permanent injury who are still alive but physically cannot go through the motions any longer. The guys and gals with hip replacements, knee replacements, or in need thereof as well as the runners with heart problems related to long term running. They are on the sidelines and will never return. Almost all of us loved it or we would not have run ourselves into the medical text books and statistical fallibility charts and maybe won a few races and medals along the way. Maybe we wish we had better equipment fifty years ago, better training methods, better coaches, better tracks, more masters competitions when we turned forty. Few of us were ever heard to say we wished we had never run.
Today's older runners fall into maybe three or four groups that come to mind. 1. The really good runners who were able to keep going into their 80's like Roger Robinson. 2. Then there were the mediocre runners who kept going all those years and may even be closing the gap on those older, more gifted runners. 3. Next come the guys who only discovered running in their 50's or 60's and are thriving near the top in their 70's and 80's. 4. And lest we forget, the late comers who would have been bringing up the rear at any age.
The two groups I would not want to be part of are 3. and 4. only because they never knew the thrill of speed. They started too late in life to feel the joy of burning up 220 yards around a cinder track in 25 seconds or better and repeating it several more times in a workout. The joy and pleasure of nearly flying on that track can never be experienced when you start beyond your prime. They knew what was truly their best in those days of youth. For that alone I am glad I started racing at age 14.
Now for a few things on the subject that hit me indirectly. Last night I watched a few minutes of Francis Ford Coppolla's "Apocalypse Now Redux". I put the subtitles in since my hearing is starting to go and found that I had missed a lot of dialogue even thirty years ago. At one point soldiers were in a very difficult situation, lots of rounds coming in and all seemed ready to be saying they wished they were back home. Then one of Martin Sheen's lines as Captain Benjamin Willard was something like, "But what could you ever learn about yourself working in a factory in Ohio?" Sheen may have been improvising a bit here as he was from Dayton, Ohio, definitely a factory town in his time living there.
Sometimes our senior best laid plans do go astray, to paraphrase a Robert Burns poem. Yesterday a 75-year old ex-paratrooper Jean Jacques Savin from France was found dead in his over-turned boat while trying to row the Atlantic. His adventure was a self declared laugh at old age. And of course Jim Fixx died while on a run as have many other folks in races over the years. When I run, I choose to run alone most of the time. I can't be tied to a schedule, I run when I feel like it. I know that someday I could easily take my last stride alone. But I will have experienced in my time some peaks and valleys in the sport and that will be good.
In another read Scribbling the Cat, Travels with an African Soldier Alexandra Fuller writes about a conversation with an ex-combatant, twenty-five years after. She writes....'K was speaking with a preaching voice, a voice that was supposed to reach into the dark, cool corners of a church, "We were all lost after the war,' he told me. 'I reckon most of us who stopped doping and sucking cabbage, we started to feel....shit! I mean, we actually started to think about what had happened to us because -you know- we had sobered up. How come we aren't dead? Where are we? Why are we here? What are we doing? We went from this incredible structure, this incredible focus and sense of purpose...You were either in , or out. Alive or dead. And then it was over and...All of a sardine, we had to figure it out by ourselves and what we found is that nothing seemed to matter about the outside world. It was all pointless. How much can it matter what kind of car you drive? How can it matter what you eat, I mean as long as you have enough to eat? How much can it matter what you wear? When you get down to it, what can matter more than being alive? But then what? You're alive and then...what?'
The film Chariots of Fire begins with a funeral of an old champion, Harold Abrahams. One of the themes of the film is about having once been young and fast, reliving those days of glory. Who can forget Eric Liddell's famous line from that film? "I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel his pleasure." As we age, that spirit is still with us even though we can no longer perform at that level. That is one of the downsides of sport. In other fields of endeavor we can continue to improve with age. But sport doesn't give us much option. There are a few exceptions but only very, very few. Maybe Roger Robinson has found a psychological road back to that fountain of youth. George Brose
Dear George:
If memory serves me right, I ran in one road race in Indiana that Roger ran in although it is also likely he was competing in the same two World Masters Track and Field meets in Canada and Sweden that I ran in. In any of the races he would have been far ahead of me.
While Roger wants to "race" us old timers should not dismiss just running. I stopped racing about eight years ago when an operation put paid to my ability to run long. While he runs outside a retirement community I'm running in the corridors inside one, especially now when it is in the teens during the day with snow on the ground. I run with just my sox on to better replicate the feeling of barefoot running. At 88, I don't run fast or far but the day is a better one when I've done a run.
The only advice I would add to Roger's is for the guys still running, no matter at what level. Don't stop! Don't drop out of running the way you could back in your teens and 20s. In your 60s and 70s the body doesn't come back quite as easily. Keep at it. Enjoy it. Cross train even, but keep regular activity as part of your life. When you do......it's a wonderful life.
Take care,
Tom Coyne
George,
Earl Young
Keep the blog posts coming
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