Friday, February 13, 2015

You aren't old until age becomes your excuse - Joe Friel

"There will be more opportunities soon as people like you will be retiring real soon."
So said my very young co-worker as I worked on her PC today.
Hey wait a minute! Don't push me out yet!
Somehow her comments made me feel old and conjured up memories of my Dad saying he retired because there were too many "kids" coming into his department.
Two days ago another co-worker relayed information on other aging friends at work suffering with ailments forcing them to retire.
It was not too long ago that I had begun to tell myself I was too old. My good friend Lalo would scold me for having such thoughts.
I had given up on competing as an age grouper. Given up on training to run fast. Resigned myself to being an old guy just trotting along.
Then my buddy Tom and I went up to the Bandera 100k pre race briefing on January 09, which was followed by the previous year's Texas trail running awards presentation.
Our Group, The Rockhoppers won the Ultra series and took second in the sub ultra series for 2014. Our very own 61 year old Rich Mihalek won an award for the ultra series in his age group! Many others in our group won individual awards also.
On the way home Tom said, " We need to get more folks to compete in the sub ultra races this year."
That got me thinking. I can do that!  I can run fast for short distances. Chris Russell proclaimed this fact to the world a few years ago after I paced Liza at the Bandera 100K some years ago. "Fast for short distances." Yeah, I can do that.
Tom fired me up. I registered for the Nueces 25K and the Hells Hills 25K.
I ran across a book titled, "Fast after 50" by Joe Friel. Half way through the book and already, I'm excited about increasing my training load. Yes, I'm 56 years old. Old enough to retire from work or from running. I can resign myself to wait for illness to creep up on me.
I'm just not ready for that yet.
Thanks Lalo, Tom, Rich, Rockhoppers.

Drenched

  Today's run was at my favorite Local natural area. It was very humid with no wind at all. I had a fairly good run not concentrating to...