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 master that running uses to describe the aging process particularly galling. I’ve never understood why, the moment you turn forty, they call you a master. Could they be more mocking? At least other parts of the English-speaking world go with veteran, which suggests scars earned in battle rather than slow-motion decay.

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

And “pace” is hardly an appropriate word anymore. “Glacial erosion” feels closer. 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.

My metabolism once burned with the intensity of a caffeinated field mouse—eat anything, and watch it vanish like a politician‘s promise. Now it moves like a sedated tree sloth, and visceral fat has taken up residence like maiden aunt Sally, fully unpacked. If this is mastery, I’d gladly go back to being a novice—minus the student debt.

And let’s be honest: once you need 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 to maintain. But because they hand you a medal so gaudy it makes the Oval Office decor look restrained, suddenly it’s an athletic achievement.

Sure, a master artisan improves with age and experience—woodworkers, plasterers, folks who work with levels and trowels. I get that. But in running, you don’t get better after forty. You just get adept at 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 peel 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 to the salon for a haircut and the stylist starts trimming your ear fuzz and making topiary figures 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 classic Dylan protest song —it’s the soundtrack to your increasingly labored breathing. Now it’s the wind that does all the blowing—I’m just along for the wheeze.

END