Grand Masters Running

It’s been quite awhile since I’ve written an article for the Grand Masters Running blog. Over 7 months, in fact. Sometimes life fills up all the mind space available.

I try to focus this blog on the challenges of 50+ year old runners and I have come to realize that some of our challenges have nothing to do with running at all. Once we get to that 50+ age group, many of our family members, aunts, uncles, mothers, fathers and grandparents are at a point where they are struggling with end of life issues and this has an impact on us.

Shortly after I ran the Tucson Marathon in early December of 2013, my father’s health began to quickly decline. He had been fighting prostate cancer for a couple of years and the effects of the metastasis were finally becoming too much for him. For me, living and working more than half way across the country was difficult because I couldn’t visit him as much as I would have liked even though I flew from California to Michigan every few weeks between January and April when Dad passed away. During this time I ran a mile or two every morning but not much more. Thinking back, even though it was limited, I couldn’t tell you what I was doing with my free time during that time period. I can say that my brain had no capacity to write about running though.

Only in the last month or two have I felt like my running has been coming back. My wife and I have been increasing our trail running mileage by finding a new beautiful trail to run every weekend. Fortunately, on the central coast of California, this isn’t a difficult task. And… today for the first time since December, I am sitting in front of my computer feeling like I want to write about running again. So, because I love to do it, I will start writing about running at 50+ years old again.

More to come…..