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Last month, our prolific and much admired Contributing Editor for Travel, the witty and lovely Pam Mandel, offered an opposing view in her comment to a blog post where I got all jiggy in extolling the virtues and benefits of aging.
I crowed: "...let go of your irrational fears of aging."
And, reminded readers of the obvious: "...aging is far superior and definitely preferable to its grim and final alternative."
Pam responded with her typical candor:
Having embarked upon the annual exams and suffered the requisite indignities, I vote no to aging...The brain works FINE, thank you very much, but the body? At the crest of the hill, she doth protest too much. I ain't saying there's not plenty of good living to be had, but oy, my back, knees, etc. amen.
I didn't comment on Pam's remarks because really, what could I say? The girlfriend has a point. My body, not unlike Pam's, is whining and bitching. She has lots to bitch about - bursitis in the left knee, a weird pulling sensation in the right hip, bad mojo in the lower back. My once strain-free body never experienced such maladies until turning 50 two years ago. And, because of these maladies, my body and I had to defer from running not only the 2006 New York City Marathon, but this year's race, as well.
In spite of the disappointment in missing the glorious New York City Marathon once again, hope springs eternal for this aging jock. I've eased back my running regimen considerably and I hope to get back to racing in 5Ks and 10Ks this winter. I've been working on strengthening my knee, hip and back with yoga and resistance training. I'm determined to give running another shot.
A recent article by Gina Kolata of the New York Times shined a ray of hope on my ambitions. The thesis of Kolata's piece, "See Jane Run. See Jane Run Faster and Faster", is that older (over 40) women runners are more focused in their training and many of these dedicated racers out-run their younger competitors. Kolata's observations:
Men, as might be expected, get slower as they age. At a recent five-kilometer race in Pine Beach, N.J....the fastest man was 24 years old and the men’s times increased with each five-year age group.
But the women were different — their times were all over the place with older women beating younger women in almost every age category. The fastest woman was 37 years old; the fastest woman in the 45 to 49 age group beat the fastest woman in the 20 to 24 and the 40 to 44 age groups.
The same thing happened in another five-kilometer local race, the Eden Family Run, in Princeton, N.J.
There, the top female runner in the 50 to 54 age group beat the top females in the 20 to 24, 25 to 29, and 40 to 44 age groups.
And it’s not just a New Jersey effect. Others have noticed it elsewhere and when I did a random check of race results in California, I saw it there too. On Aug. 8, in a 10-kilometer race in Alameda, the 53-year-old woman who won in the 50 to 54 age group was faster than the woman who won in the 25 to 29 group. A 38-year-old woman beat every other woman in the race.
What does this mean? Why are these middle aged women gliding past the 25 year olds?
When posing this question to experts, Kolata learned what might separate the mindset and abilities between younger and older runners:
(1) Many older women could care less if someone is watching them do their pre-workout stretching routines . However, such lunging and reaching may be inhibiting for some younger women:
Mary Wittenberg, president of New York Road Runners, thinks part of the answer is that most female runners shortchange themselves. Look at them before races she said. Men warm up and do strides, short runs to prepare to take off at the starting line. A lot of women hang back, often because they are embarrassed to be out there with the men, acting like determined athletes, Ms. Wittenberg said.
“They are too inhibited to put their full passion out there,” she said. “They are almost afraid to be serious about a sport. They think that if they’re not the best, they shouldn’t care so much.”
(2) The older female runner simply puts more into her training:
Ralph Vernacchia, who directs the Center for Performance Excellence
