chasing old people

some thoughts after running my first half marathon:

i say "my first," because i hope to run more. the one in jersey city is awesome, affordable, and convenient for me location wise. it's at a good time of year weather wise. i definitely would like to run it again next year and who knows, possibly the year after and so on. i'll probably just take this one year at a time. i don't wanna get ahead of myself. i never really like to get ahead of myself when it comes to running. i kinda just wanna keep running... small distances, long distances, whatever. i just don't wanna over think it too much. it's something i'd like to keep up with till i'm too old to do it and it's something i'd like to enjoy doing the whole time. over thinking running (much like anything else really) sorta takes some of the joy out of it.

i saw a fair amount of older people running this half marathon... people of all ages really. but i saw people who i figured were at least in their 50's and 60's running this thing, and some of them were running hard. there were parts of the race where i'd be running in the opposite direction of other runners who were possibly a half to a full mile ahead of me. i'd catch a good glimpse of these people and a fair amount of them seemed to be fairly older than me. and that was immediately inspirational to me. this isn't just about this 13.1 miles. it's about the next 13.1 miles and it keeps going. running never stops.

sure, i had goals for this day alone. but when i catch a glimpse of people decades ahead of me running, i think about the bigger picture. no matter how well (or poorly) i ran this half marathon, it's about the continuation of the habit. it's about growing old as a runner. i don't ever wanna quit this. when i'm older, i wanna be that older dude in the half marathon that a younger person sees and thinks, "i can keep doing this for a long time." this isn't a phase for me. whether people older than me were running faster or slower than me isn't what's important to me, what's important is that they're running and that's what i wanna be doing when i reach their age. and until i get to that point, i'll always be chasing the older runners. and i'm glad they're out there giving me something to look forward to.