Turning a new year (the Gregorian calendar, yesterday), or hitting a new age (me, today): neither is for the weak or the timid. Which makes the word running uses to describe the process particularly galling. I’ve never understood why, the moment you turn forty, they call you a “master.” Could they be more mocking?

Master? At forty—much less fifty, sixty, or seventy—the only thing I’ve mastered is finding new and creative ways to injure myself, including sleeping in the wrong position. I call these recumbent injuries, no effort required.

“Pace” is no longer an appropriate word for my movement. “Glacial erosion” feels more accurate. My body pulls muscles sneezing. This isn’t mastery; it’s seepage toward indignity.

I remember when my shadow struggled to keep up. Now it’s placing bets on when I’ll break down and reach for a walking stick. If this is mastery, I’ll take novice in a heartbeat.

And let’s be honest: once you nI remember when my shadow struggled to keep up. Now it’s placing bets on when I’ll break down and reach for a walking stick. If this is mastery, I’ll take novice in a heartbeat.eed both hands to count the hours you’ve been out there, you can’t claim to have run a marathon. No, you attended a sweat-soaked street fair that charged $250 to walk on roads you already pay taxes for. But because they hand you a medal Flavor Flav would reject as too gaudy, suddenly it’s an athletic achievement.

Sure, a master artisan gets better with age and experience—I get that. But that’s in woodworking or plastering. In running, you don’t get better after forty. You just get slower and more prone to stumbling over such high bars as cracks in sidewalks. And good luck finding a race photo where both feet are off the ground. It’s not masterful; it’s photographic evidence of decline.

I remember the days when I could feel the wind peeling my hair back when I dropped the hammer in a race. Add a couple decades of minding the store and cellaring the wine, and now I exhibit less mastery than Bernie Sanders navigating a speed‑dating app.

After forty, the only hair blowing in the wind is the nose hair I missed in this morning’s tweezing session.

The real indignity arrives when you go for a haircut and the stylist starts trimming your ear fuzz and making topiary out of the fur patch on your upper back. This, my friends, is a crossroads day.

So, enjoy your youthful exuberance, you fleet‑footed youngsters. Because the road ahead isn’t paved with cheering crowds and shiny medals. It’s a slow, steady trudge toward the inevitable realization that “Blowin’ in the Wind” isn’t just a Dylan classic —it’s the soundtrack to your increasingly labored breathing.

END