The Arrogance of an Aging Runner

Since from the fall of 1982, I have considered myself a marathon runner, I was in disdain of runs shorter than a half-marathon.  For instance, I couldn’t figure out why people made such a big deal of training for a 10K which in earlier years here in Atlanta was primarily the Peachtree Road Race.  OK, I was arrogant about my age-level sports exploits when I had no basis for that arrogance.  Even in my age bracket, I was never far from middle-of-the-pack.

I ran nine marathons, including New York and Big Sur, for reason of only one notion:  “Next time I will train better so that I can breeze through the last five of the twenty-six miles.”  It was a fool’s errand that took me on nine adventures, each one leaving me feeling that the very marrow had been sucked out of my bones and the energy-supplying blood drained from my muscles.  Don’t get me wrong, there were redeeming aspects of each undertaking; and I don’t regret those and the intervening half-marathons; but neither do I have room for arrogance about myself as an aging runner.

In going through my old journaling, I ran into the following entry from 1982.  Read it, if you will, just to see what got me into marathons to start with:

Friday, October 1, 1982

I am preparing to run in the Atlanta Marathon on Thanksgiving morning.  I have been inspired to do so by a preparation program authored by Jeff Galloway that calls for continuance of normal running mileage through the week (5-6 miles average per day for me) and a more substantial run on the weekend.   [Bob May, Charles Collins, and I] run 10-12 miles one Saturday and then we run a distance on the alternate Saturday that increases 2 miles each time.  We have run 19 miles, and this Saturday we will run 21 miles.  This continues until we run 26 miles in a workout before trying it in the competitive marathon.

On the last Saturday in September we ran in a 25K road run in Cartersville (15 ).  The cool, misty rain kept my mind off of aches and pains, and I ran the distance in 1 hour, 57 minutes (7:33 per mile), an encouraging surprise for me.

Jeff Galloway’s father, Elliot Galloway, was my mentor as a fellow school headmaster and as a runner.  I wanted to be as much like Elliot as possible – in being a non-pretentious school leader and in my running.  Elliot, who was almost exactly 20 years my senior        , and who didn’t even start running until he was 52, gave me inspiration that, Lord willing, I could continue to run most of my life.  To commemorate his 75th birthday, he ran the original marathon path in Greece in October, then the Atlanta Thanksgiving Marathon in November, followed by the 100th Anniversary Boston Marathon (April 15, 1996).  Elliot’s 75th year was my 55th; but I knew then that I would not be able to match Elliot’s feat of three marathons on the occasion of my 75th birthday.

It might be of interest to some younger runners to anticipate where their running careers might go if they keep it up for a lifetime.  While I was in 30s and 40s, my race results were generally in the middle of my age group; my life plan for advancing in the running world was to maintain my pace while moving up in age groups.  Hence, if in my 60s I could maintain the pace of my 40s, I would move much closer to the front of my age group.  While I had read that one could expect to have his or her per-mile pace decrease by 10% per decade as one grew older, I set out to defy that forecast for aging as a runner.

Let’s flash forward in my journaling four (4) decades later, from 1982 to 2022:

Saturday, April 23, 2022          

JoElyn & I had sweet time together in a beautiful setting for a 5K run.  It was the first of a series of Beltline races, this one around Bobby Jones Golf Course.  I was a little cool in shorts & t-shirt, but both JoElyn & I felt elated by our accomplishments.  My time was 42:22, a 13:36 mile time. 

Let’s see how I am doing so far on bettering the forecast of my per-mile race times decreasing by 10% per decade.  In 1982 (age 41), I ran a 25K (15 miles) in 7:33 per mile. Four decades later, I am told I’m going to have to live with the fact that my time will have decreased to 11:03 per mile.  (math by Jonathan Clausen).  Time to tell the truth: in 2022 (age 81) – four decades later – I ran a 5K in 13:36 per mile.  When I was about to despair over my weak showing against age standards, my close running advisers told me that maybe I had a decade left to improve. If I work out twice a day going forward, maybe I could reverse the ravages of time and yet reach running glory.  We runners can’t afford to give up the chase.

Appendage – Running Times Over a Forty-Year Span

1982  7:33 per mile                   15 miles                 age 41          Cartersville/Indian Mounds 25K

1982  7:56 per mile                   26.2 miles              age 41          Atlanta Marathon

1987  7:15 per mile                   6.2 miles                age 46          Peachtree Road Race

1990  9:18 per mile                   26.2 miles              age 49          Big Sur Marathon

2005  10:35 per mile                 6.2 miles                age 64          Peachtree Road Race (with JoElyn)

2007  10:18 per mile                 13.1 miles              age 66          Atlanta ½ Marathon     12/41 in my 65-69 age division

2022  13:36 per mile                 3.1 miles                age 81          ATC Beltline 5K (Bobby Jones Golf Course)