Midlife Runner

"MODERN TIMES"

MIDLIFE RUNNER

Lloyd Garver

I am in what is gently called my "midlife." The good news is that if it is really my "midlife," I am going to live to be 108. That's possible. My great-grandmother lived to be 104. When my brother and I were growing up, we were amazed by how old she was and how much had happened in her life. She was born in 1862. We calculated that she was three years old when Lincoln was shot. Don't worry -- she had an alibi.

I recently became a runner. My theory is that I'm running to try to stay ahead of aging. It's not as silly as it sounds. According to "Newsweek's" Health Issue, every hour of exercise yields two hours tacked on to your life span. So, even if I only run one hour a week, that's adding about 100 hours to my life span every year. If I keep this up for the next 10 years, I will be getting 1,000 hours -- or about 41 days of extra life. Not bad, huh?

Every Fourth of July, there is a big 5 and 10K race in my neighborhood. I ran in the 5K. (I may be in the throes of midlife, but I'm not crazy). I finished somewhere near the middle of the pack, and I was thrilled. I had "runners' high." I felt great. And the thing is, I still do. I'm still excited about my accomplishment, and I'm still running.

Entrants attach a plastic computer chip to their shoelaces, and that yields their official time. Then they can go online and see how well they've done compared to other people. I'm not into comparing myself to other people, so I wasn't all that anxious to check things out on the computer. In fact, I actually waited until after my shower before going online.

I finished 404^th out of 695 men. I was 38^th out of 70 for my age group. In other words, I did

okay. (If I had been 80 years old, my time would have been great). But as I looked at my computer screen, I saw something that got me even more excited: I had beaten Lynn Shackelford by 18 seconds.

For those unfortunates among you who are not obsessed with sports, Lynn Shackleford was a starting foreword on UCLA's championship basketball teams in the '60s. Led by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Lew Alcindor at the time), these guys beat everybody.

While Lynn and his buddies were winning all those championships at UCLA, I was at a school that was often mocked for its athletic program -- the University of California at Berkeley. So in beating Shackelford, I had brought glory to my alma mater. In effect, Berkeley had finally beaten UCLA. And it was because of me.

Okay, I admit I got a little carried away. My interpretation of the Fourth of July race may be a bit out of touch with reality. However, what is real is that I finished the race, I enjoyed it, and I'm going to keep doing it. So, if age is creeping up on me at a steady pace, the more I run, the more distance I will keep between age and me. I'm actually beating "the system!" Next year, I will be moving into a new age category, so there's a chance I might do even better.

Wait a minute. If I'll be moving into a new age category, that means that I'll be a year older next year. Maybe I haven't really figured out a way to beat this aging thing after all.