5 at 50 Part I: Gray Ambition

I turn 50 at the end of March. The picture of who I am and who I'm becoming is sharpening. It involves a lot of writing, an audacious running goal, and one wild eyebrow.

“Older runners don’t compete against their younger selves; they compete against the clock, against the whispers of doubt. Every stride is a victory, every finish line a triumph over time.”

~ George Sheehan

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Weekend mornings are wildly creative in our house. My wife (see Pretty Munch) will often be planning and scripting her week’s recipes and video shoots, and I’ll be tapping away at the keyboard on some nonsense or another.

One Sunday earlier this year, my finger urgently scanning the bookshelf for our ragged first printing of George Sheehan’s, Running and Being, I called my wife into the living room. “Lisa!”

In what can only be described as a coffee-fueled manic episode, I thwacked the fragile little book onto the dining room table, howling, “This! This is what I want to be!”

Sheehan looks writerly AF on this cover. Pensive, hair slicked down (presumably having just concluded his evening jog), lips pursed, about to drop some pragmatic running poetry on unsuspecting readers. As the kids say, it’s a vibe.

My tirade continued. “I want to be like this as an old man. Running and writing and writing about running. I’m starting now.” Pausing to study the cover photo in more detail, I abruptly added, “And I want this. This one crazy-ass eyebrow.”

As humans, our relationship with aging ranges from spirited to fraught. Kids think the olds are out of touch (we are), then conveniently move the measuring stick when they start approaching the age formerly deemed old.

Time compresses and soon there’s less of it in front of us than behind. 

I’ve always secretly thought it’d be neat to be old. Not middle-age old, but grandpa old. As a young man, I never fully inhabited my own skin. “An old soul,” they even labeled me. And my 30s and 40s, while chock-full of lovely moments and memories, were largely about meeting the world’s expectations.

I became a grandpa myself a few years ago, quit drinking around the same time.

That’s when the picture of who I am and who I’m becoming started sharpening, crazy eyebrow and all. I’m not the money I make or the pats on my back from a boss who would stand on it to build his own dream. I’m a runner, and a writer. My legacy is in the fading footsteps left on the roads and trails of my life… And in the words I find to share the experiences.

In 1968, George Sheehan became the first 50 year-old ever to run under five minutes in the mile. In less than two weeks, I’ll turn 50.

While I am nowhere near a five-minute miler, I do somehow seem to be getting fitter and faster. I’m certainly growing more patient and resilient in my running. And, in terms of what Sheehan might call “the total experience,” I’ll put those traits up against youthful exuberance (and my former run hard, party hard mentality) any day.  

On the eve of my golden year, I’ve hatched an idea. I’d like to actually see if this more patient mind and resilient body can team up to do something difficult. I want to PR five distances at 50 years old: The marathon, half-marathon, 10k, 5k, and mile.

Stretch goals are becoming more attractive to me as I age. Last spring, I returned to the Boston Marathon after ten years. In the fall, I ran the famed Pikes Peak Ascent, followed by the grueling Mammoth 50k a week later. I’m grateful to be able to do these things. 15 years ago, with three kids at home and 60-hour work weeks to stay above water, it would have been a different kind of stretch.

So, why 5 at 50?

First, I want to grow. Growing often means peeking into dark corners.

I can line up for a single goal race with a pretty good idea of my fitness and how the day might go. But acing five different disciplines in a year is uncharted territory. The unknowns will force me to new levels of patience. What I mean is, there’s no way to grasp this challenge in its totality. It must be broken into component parts, and each of those broken down further.

As I discovered in early sobriety, this kind of methodical examination and continual noticing-and-adjusting are very, very good for me. It may sound rigid, but it actually requires a lot of flexibility and self-forgiveness.

Second, I want to run fast. Fast is hard, and doing hard things is part of growth.

I won’t bore you with capillary bed pillow talk, but endurance tends to improve with age. Until this new generation of whippersnappers changed the game, it wasn’t unusual to see the winner of a trail ultra also be among its oldest entrants.

But speed, a close cousin of strength, is not so kind to the aging. Training it will require new approaches and stimuli. A hot stretch of chip-timed chip-seal is the ultimate judge and jury. There are lots of places to hide on a 50k mountain run, exactly zero in a road 5k. The thought is actually kind of exhilarating. There must be something wrong with me.

Finally, and most importantly, I want to welcome my age with open arms.

5 at 50 is a celebration of my love for running and an enthusiastic turning of the page to the next chapter of my life. It’s a moving with and toward, rather than against. Guys, this is so much more fun than Grecian Formula and annuities. We’re gonna grow out our eyebrows and blow our paychecks on race entries. Huzzah!

So there you have it. Gauntlet thrown down.

I’m really excited about the upcoming year. One of the things I want to explore with Running Lightly is how to reconcile becoming and being, striving and satisfaction. 5 at 50 is the perfect backdrop.

A goal that is flatly about speed, but which will also require patience, flexibility, and presence in the process, is a magnet for a brain that seeks contradiction.

Hope you’ll follow along.

Read more from the series: 5 at 50