The article opens with a personal approach: the author says he took a moment to mark his 59th birthday and, right afterwards, drew up his own “pros/cons” list of running and ageing during a long run.
Among the limits, slowing down takes centre stage. The author writes that with age he inevitably becomes slower, and illustrates this feeling by comparing his usual 20-mile loop: around three hours twenty years ago, versus nearly four and a half hours on his most recent attempt, during a trip to the San Francisco Bay area.
The final “pro” he develops concerns patience. After several decades of successes and failures, he says he has learned that things take time, whether it’s the slow build-up of fitness after a break or the importance of a considered pace on a long race.
The piece also links ageing to a kind of “gift”: more time available. The author says that even if his runs now last longer than in the past, he enjoys having more time in his day, and explains that this is because he works part-time with a personal schedule.
