The Man of the Future

I pulled into the Emeryville marina at 9 AM this morning after a late night spent gigging and visiting Denny's locations. Last year I trained with an informal, free running team led by a fleet-footed woman named Claire, and I was thrilled when this year's training email came around. We're working toward the Kaiser half-marathon in February, followed by the new Oakland marathon in March! I really didn't want to miss the first group run, and it turns out my brain wouldn't let me -- I couldn't oversleep, even though I tried.

I took the run at a very easy 9:30 to 10-minute-per-mile pace, and aimed for a modest five miles even though I could have done my usual overkill and gone for the max distance, which was eight. On the way out I had an enjoyable talk with a woman who was training along with Claire's husband for a marathon, doing her last 22-mile run. I had poked fun at all the water and nutrition Matt was carrying for a five-mile run before I realized that they were actually planning on running for three-plus hours.

With marine air and clear skies on our left, and freeway noise on our right, we rolled along, happily chatting. Somehow the conversation turned to me sharing observations from a personality test that I recently took. "I just took a personality test too!" the woman chirped. We seemed to have a similar predilection for setting goals but then letting the path to those goals unfold intuitively. I said that works out well, if slowly, but the downside is I often get stressed out when a little more planning/discipline and less intuition could facilitate those goals.

I reached my turnaround and started running with a guy I had met last year who is quite fast -- a seven-minute-miler. But he seemed happy to go my pace, and in fact said he'd suffered an injury at the amazing Angel Island 10-mile trail run in January, (which I blogged about), and that that injury had plagued him ever since. So his goal now is simply to take it easy.

He began to tell me about his wife, a radiant woman who has left her previous job as a cartographer and made a new career choice to become a physical therapist, a profession I'd say is ideal for her disposition. I thought it was wonderful to hear about a successful life transition like that and he shared interesting details about her physical therapy studies, such as the fact that certain of their necessary stress tests can actually be harmful to the joints in question.

I observed that she seemed well suited to be a PT. He said that motivating patients to do the painful work of restoring their bodies' mechanics, especially with diminishing healthcare dollars and a widespread pill-popping mentality, makes the PT's job harder than the drug-dispensing nurse's when dealing with, say, a hip-replacement patient. He said she was also interested in geriatric care, and we began talking about youth and age.

That reminded me of a recent public TV special I saw, a talk by a gerontologist named Ken Dychtwald. In it, he told a story about meeting an older man who had just begun working with a personal trainer. The trainer urged him to talk to his inspiring client. "Why did you start training?" Dychtwald asked the man, who looked about 75. "I was getting stiff, and not feeling as energetic as I used to," the man said. They discussed his training and positive results. "When did you start working out?" Dychtwald asked. "Two years ago," the man said, "when I turned 100."

"I felt like I was looking at the man of the future," the author said in his TV special.

My running partner agreed it was a compelling story. Dychtwald's whole premise is that as human longevity increases, the way we have lived our lives in sharply defined phases, ending with retirement, no longer makes sense. We think of the young as being in their prime, "but actually we're young for such a short period of our lives," my companion wisely said -- and he's much younger than I am.

As we loped into the parking lot and reunited with our motley teammates and perky coach, I realized how effortless the five miles had been, despite the lack of sleep. I hopped in my truck and drove happily through the bright fall sunlight back home.

I always feel so good after running. I wanted to write this because a powerful sensation enveloped me later today, a sensation that, step by step, footfall by footfall, we are becoming more like that man of the future. If I am lucky I will be that spunky centenarian.

I keep making mistakes, tripping, falling, yelling, cursing, sinning, and wasting my precious time. But after last night's gig and this morning's run, I want to remember that the road is long. I know that I can take a step every day that turns me into the person I want to be. And whenever I screw up, I need to go for a run.