Spandex After 50
By Kent Doyle
First let’s clear the air: Exercise sucks. They don’t call it working out for no reason. It is boring and sweaty and hard, and nobody likes it. People who say they enjoy exercise are liars who are just trying to make the rest of us feel bad. As far as I can see, an endorphin high is a made-up event along the lines of the fabled “green flash” at sunset. In my experience, getting high involves drugs, alcohol, or spontaneous sex with a new partner – not exercise.
Now let’s consider exercise for the 50-plus crowd. It’s worse. Every step, every push-up, every ache and pain reminds you that you are headed toward the wrack and ruin of old age. Working out at 20 at least extends the promise of eventually looking like one of those idiots you see on the Bow-Flex commercials on TV, whereas working out at 50-plus offers the paltry hope of staving off inevitable tides. From my perspective, there are only two good reasons for late-life exercise: Fear of premature death and fear of being even less attractive to members of the opposite sex. Both eventualities concern me deeply.
I mention this because I have recently declared, publicly, that I am in training for the 2006 Mighty Hampton’s Triathlon. Foolish you might think after a cursory glance at my physique. Unlikely. Perhaps even life threatening. Take it from me: fear will drive you to all sorts of lunacy.
The Mighty Hamptons Triathlon is a race for 10,000 competitors. It in-volves a mile-and-a-half-swim, a 25-mile bicycle ride, and a 10-mile run. If these numbers seem ambitious, let me hasten to say that I am a past finisher of multiple triathlons, including The Mighty Hamptons. However, my triathlon career ended 15 years ago – ignominiously.
Throughout my 30s I had less fear but more energy, and I trained with some dedication. I would get home from the office and run a few miles, and bike a few miles. It worked for me. Until the final triathlon of my youth … I had just turned 40 and career pressures cut fat wedges out of my training schedule. I kept meaning to train and resolving to train, but the day came when the race was tomorrow and I hadn’t prepared at all. Any number of honorable exit strategies was available to me. I could have feigned a minor injury or arranged a business trip for that weekend. I could have told the truth. Instead, I went ahead with no good reason on God’s earth to do so – accompanied not only by my parents but also by my younger and very fit girlfriend.
The start of a 10,000-person triathlon is madness. We all crammed into a section of beach and prepared for a lunatic scramble into the water. I was wearing a Speedo (since mercifully retired) but most of my fellow racers had on spiffy one-piece triathlon suits, designed to be worn throughout all three phases of the race. Near me stood a guy in a triathlon suit with white and lavender panels. The guy had to weigh 320 pounds, and I wondered just where one found a triathlon suit with a 54-inch waist. His wife and two kids were hugging him, and I thought, squeeze him extra tight because he’s going to be dead in a few hours. I uncharitably dubbed him The Whale.
The starting gun fired and I ran into the water with 9,999 other idiots. Since I wasn’t planning to finish within three hours of the winners, I don’t know why I was running; it just seemed like the thing to do. Once the crowd thinned out the swim felt pretty good. Not bad, I thought. Strength of will, I thought. Next came the 25-mile bike ride. There were several hills, and even though I hadn’t trained I felt reasonably peppy there as well. By the time I got off the bike I’d been at it for three hours and was clearly among the top 5,000 competitors. “Suckers,” I thought about the others. And I hadn’t seen The Whale in hours. If he were still in the race, it would certainly be in the dregs, at the very end.
There is a phenomenon that real athletes talk about called “hitting the wall.” I had never dreamed of working hard enough to approach this wall, but as I got off the bike I could feel the cold hands of reality around my neck, starting to squeeze. The run was a nightmare from the first steps. I literally fell to my knees. I felt as if somebody had amputated my thigh muscles. I managed to run past the crowd, then immediately downgraded to a walk. At this pace, it was going to take more than three hours to push my exhausted carcass 10 miles.
Being passed by 5,000 people was a unique experience made increasingly surreal by the gradual slowing of my pace. My moderate walk turned into a very slow, rambling stroll over the 10-mile course. Mercifully, there weren’t many spectators left at this point, and the remaining few evidently assumed I was one of the physically challenged athletes. I started to get some very enthusiastic cheers. These onlookers were undoubtedly heartened by the thought that someone with a nerve disorder or multiple hip replacements could muddle through so bravely.
My family had agreed to be in the stands near the finish line. Six hours into the race, they weren’t going to have any trouble finding seats. I wondered if they had called the state police or local hospitals looking for me. My plan was to conserve energy until I spotted the stands, then break into a jog for the last few hundred yards with all the panache I could muster.
I was just preparing to start my sprint when I heard thunderous footsteps behind me. I glanced quickly around and saw The Whale bearing down – all 320 pounds of him jiggling under vast swaths of lavender and white spandex. He was catching up fast and frankly looked a lot fresher than I did. “Dear God,” I thought, “spare me the ignominy of being passed by this guy in front of my girlfriend.” I broke into my painful jog, but it was hopeless. He blew my doors off. He passed me as if I was standing still. The sparse crowd yelled for him.
Some people would have abandoned their parents and their girlfriend and moved to a foreign country. More would have resolved never to participate in a triathlon again. Not me. I’m in heavy training for one more race. Fifty-plus training. Next September I will toe the starting line one more time. But I’m going to leave the Speedo in retirement and search for the shop where The Whale found his lavender and white suit. I’ve been biking (it hurts), swimming (it hurts), and walking (that hurts too). I expect to move into a jog any month now. And I’m hoping to run into my nemesis near the finish line. I’ll get him this time.
