45 Years Old

Yesterday I had to stop after 4 miles on the dreadmill. Maybe it was the first day back to work or the fact that I'm dicking around with my diet, but I felt pretty blah. It happens. Bad days follow good just as the sun comes after the moon. I haven't been sleeping too well either. I'm hoping that after a few more days on a mostly vegan diet I'll finish whatever changeover my body needs to adjust to the new nutrient intake and be back to some semblance of normal. It is a little depressing reading about Scott Jurek blasting through the 100 mile Western States race fueled on a diet of raw lettuce and hummus while I'm feeling like abject crap grinding out a few miles on the treadmill, but our circumstances are pretty different so I'm not letting it get to me too much.

Today is my 45th birthday. I've always been pretty ambivalent about birthdays. There's nothing I can do to stop them so I don't see the point of getting that worked up about them. The passage of time is inevitable. Ageing is inevitable. What is most certainly not inevitable, is letting the passage of time or the aging of the body turn into an excuse for inactivity. Many of the really hardcore ultra-marathoners are middle-age and they regularly accomplish feats that would send most men my age who live a sedentary lifestyle right to the cardiologist.  As long as I can stand, I'll either be running or walking. I consider the time spent moving my body to be an  investment in my future. I don't want to spend the last few years of my life on medication, hobbling around with a cane. With any luck I'll die with my running shoes on, hopefully of old age. (Not as a hood ornament on an Escallade.)

One of my resolutions this year is to run an ultra. It might be Caumsett, it might be something later in the year, but I WILL do it, if only to prove to myself that I CAN do it. We live in an age of pre-digested experiences. With all of our modern technology and predilection to risk-aversion, our environment is so managed and controlled that it is as if we exist in a cliff-notes version of our own lives. How often do we get the chance to push the envelope? To see what we are really capable of? I think that the human brain really does it's best work when it is confronted with a challenge that initially seems insurmountable. Only be confronting the impossible do we learn what we are capable of achieving. So where can we find physical challenges these days that will test the limits of our endurance? I suppose with enough money and time you could join an Everest expedition or ski to the North Pole or some such thing. For most of us that isn't an option. I have three kids, a job, a family, etc., etc. However, the ultra-marathon is something that is relatively accessible to everyone who has 2 shoes and a place to put feet to pavement to train for it. I'm  going to give it a shot this year.