Several years ago, soon after my 60th birthday, I was at a routine doctor’s appointment. The young woman updating my chart before my examination asked me the usual litany of health-related questions, one of which was how many days a week I exercised. I replied, seven days a week. In a practiced, well-bless-your-heart tone, she congratulated me and then asked, “do you walk?” I gritted my teeth and asserted that I was more of a runner than a walker. She met my steady and somewhat defiant gaze with silence.
It’s not that walking is not good exercise; it can be a great workout especially if you move vigorously and add some hills. It was the assumption that someone my age necessarily walks for exercise instead of runs, bikes, swims, hikes, or rows that irritated me.
The 40-something-year-old physician entered the exam room, glanced through my chart, noted my age, and inquired if I was still working, to which I cheerfully replied yes, that I was the managing partner of my law firm. He asked me whether I was in the process of “winding it down.” Winding it down? Like what, a timepiece that’s approaching its useful life? An automobile with a 200,000-mile odometer? I wondered briefly whether he would ask the same question of a man my age. I suspect not.
There’s an unspoken alliance and camaraderie among runners that transcends age or gender. We appreciate and acknowledge the effort and the drive it takes to hustle around outdoors in the name of fitness regardless of the weather. At races, I see twelve-year-old girls running with their mothers, their faces fixed with determination and fatigue. I follow thirty-year-old couples chattering away about their weekend plans, oblivious to any noticeable exertion. I watch the lead woman runner approaching me on the backside of an out-and-back, and I whoop it up as loudly as I can while she kicks some male butt. I run briefly with middle-aged folk, and we nod at each other, physical effort eclipsing our ability to talk. As I pass a gentleman older than I am, our glances to each other herald the grateful truth that it is genetic fortuity, as well as discipline, that allows us to be here, leaving it all out there.
As I leave my doctor’s appointment, I casually mention that I’m training for a half-marathon. The physician pauses at the comment, suppresses his obvious surprise, and then smiles and replies he’s run one recently, as well.
Maybe I’ll encounter him at the bagel and banana table, post-race, one day. With any luck, I’ll be done with my after-run sustenance and on my way back to the car by the time he gets there.