I was walking to work recently, and the sun was out, but I felt sorry for myself. Few aches, few pains, and I wondered, am I getting too old for this running malarkey?
I am aware of this paradox because, I know, getting older does have its impacts. As they say…
Argue reality; you know you lose 100% of the time.
However, does this mean you give up? I think the truth is somewhere between the two of dealing with certain realities and not giving up.
And with that in mind, walking that fine line between facing reality and not giving up reminds me of a story I tell some of the runners I coach…
Imagine two people about to jump out of a plane.
They both jump out of the plane at the same time.
One’s wearing a parachute. One isn’t.
Both people hit the ground.
The one without the parachute is worse than the person who lands with a parachute. 🙂
And that’s how I look at being an older runner. You can either be the runner that accepts what society tells you about ageing. And you’re going to, so to speak, hit the ground a lot quicker.
Or you can change and adapt your training, sleep, diet and mindset and hit the ground a lot slower and take a lot longer to hit the said ground.
But remember, as we get older as runners, it’s so easy to take the easier route of least resistance. You have to remember.
There’s a very fine line between pain and discomfort.
I was thinking about this; sometimes, I feel pain. As you get older, you get probably more injuries, and I have to be aware of that. But that’s not the same thing as sometimes waking up and feeling discomfort and resistance to doing something different that will give me better outcomes in my running.
Often we are drawn like a moth to the flame of comfort; we constantly look for more comfort. We have to accept that if we are going to achieve our running goals, there will be times when there’ll be physical discomfort, or in some cases, it’d be mental discomfort where you have to override this nagging feeling that the easier option is the best.
Sadly when we wish to get different results, we have to look at adapting what we do to get those desired results.