Daring Lachesis

Thanks to Pam S. for the photo

“I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time”.

Bond’s epitaph in You Only Live Twice

Ian Fleming

This month I entered my sixtieth year (which is to say that I turned 59; unlike the Christian calendar, I had a year zero).

Milestones aplenty lie just beyond the horizon. Significantly, if I were to wait one more year I could practically walk my way into a qualifying time for the Boston Marathon, instead of trying to knock 20 minutes or so off my PR, which is what I am aiming for this spring.



A recent book by Susan Jacoby, Never Say Die: The Myth and Marketing of the New Old Age suggests that if we think that by exercise and healthy living we will stave off the effects of aging and delay senility, we are dead wrong. This might be true; there is evidence on both sides. In any case it is an issue I care nothing about, since burning and raging at the close of day has never been included in my life plans.

And yet my generation is apparently bug-eyed with panic in its frantic attempts to keep from getting old. Billions are spent every year trying to outrun time and genetics. We will do almost anything, from grinding grimly away at lunch hour kickboxing sessions to injecting botulinum toxin into our bodies just to convince ourselves that the train is not about to leave the station.

One of the things I have finally learned in my 59 years is that not everybody is me, so I should not scoff. But I will, because this is my blog.

Several years ago a running shoe company ran an ad that suggested we runners were actually fleeing old age itself and that we would succeed if we bought their product and just did it. Did this sell any shoes? I would like to think not, but it probably did.

Rather than trying to outrun time, isn’t it better to run well with the time you have?



My participation in endurance sports has always been based on three keys: setting a goal that is somewhere beyond my reach, planning and working towards it and then pushing myself to achieve it. Side effects include a focused mind, a healthy cardio-vascular system and a strong sense of direction and adventure. There is satisfaction and validation if I am successful, and humility followed by renewed determination if I am not. Occasionally I have raised some money for a worthy cause.

Never once have I considered the idea that I might look younger, that my mind might stay clearer or that I might die later. To me, the very notion that anyone could have such an objective is laughable. It is King Canute seated on his throne at the sea’s edge with the waves splashing over his feet, trying to order back the tide. It is hubris, a double-dare to Fate.



(To his credit, good old Canute admitted defeat and acknowledged that there were things even a king couldn’t control. My generation should take note).

  

I began running in the nineteen-eighties, passionately inspired by the example of Terry Fox and his Marathon of Hope. To this day he remains my hero, and his self-determination is my touchstone. Of course he was not able to delay his death from cancer, but he made valuable the time he was given. He was successful at keeping hope alive, if not himself.



None of what I do guarantees me a long and healthy life, or even that I will survive the next 24 hours. But I don’t want that guarantee; I just want the next 24 hours I am given to be as valuable as I can make them.

“You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred.”

Woody Allen