Echoes of Experience: Aging Through the Eyes of Those Who’ve Lived It

I recently went through my cellphone to listen to old voice mail messages.

The first one to pop up was a year and a half old and I was wondering why I kept it. When it came on there was a long pause before a voice came on and I knew immediately remembered the message and why I saved it. It was my friend Richard.  He was 97 at the time and I remembered clearly the line “I am getting close to my expiration date.”

Hearing his voice was like encountering a ghost because Richard died shortly after that call. He was very active up until the end. I have always wondered if those who live a very long life—into their nineties or beyond—know when the end is near. Richard did.

I am now 66 and in very good health. At this moment, it does not appear that my expiration date is just around the corner. However, I do ponder what life will be like in my eighties and nineties. My hope is to live that long, as long if my luck holds out and nothing unexpected occurs. I have three role models for living a long, fulfilling, and independent life into my eighties and nineties. Richard is one of them and my parents are the other two role models.

Looking at your parents for hints about what your future holds is only natural. You know them best and your share their DNA.

Looking to Richard as a role model is more unusual because we never met in person and that voicemail was the first time I ever heard his voice.  When I returned his call that was the first time we ever spoke to each other. We had both been members of an online running club and got to know each other through a chatroom feature on the site.  Richard, our friend Cynthia and I were in the chatroom frequently and exchanged stories of our runs and other adventures on the site. We did this for about seven or eight years until the website folded. After that we exchanged email addresses and continued our conversations.

I remember when I first started running, I was trying to do 1,000 miles in one year, which averages out to be about 20 miles a week. I remember when I looked at the website at the end of February that year, I was very proud of my total miles run. That was… until I noticed that Richard had logged more miles than I had and he was over 90 years old at the time!  

Richard was impressed that I did trail races on tough terrain and later ultra marathons, but I was more than 30 years his junior, so he impressed me more. You see Richard competed in master track and field events in his nineties. He did the 100-yard dash, long jump, 200-yard dash, and other events, often placing first or second. While I ran in my fifties and sixties, I kept wondering when I would be too old to run and compete. Richard was my model and taught me that I could be an athlete for the rest of my life.

My father who died at what I now feel was a young age of 83 also modeled aging for me. He never stopped moving, even after he retired. He worked in his yard and garage nonstop. When I had a project in my backyard, whether it was building a rock wall or taking down a tree, he was there even in his late seventies. He encouraged focusing on family and making the most of any holiday spent together.  He was my hero and I thought that he was invincible. I thought that he would live into his nineties. Yet cancer had other plans. By the time it was detected the cancer had spread and was at stage four. I believe that in this case his strength and sprightliness in his eighties masked the symptoms of cancer until it was too late.

I remember two things distinctly from his battle. Coming out of the doctor’s office and he calmly said “Sometimes there is no hiding, and death is going to get you.” He had accepted his prognosis, but his family had not and we pushed for aggressive treatment to fight back. I think he acquiesced to that only because he loved us.  The second was visiting him in the hospital and he was in so much pain and uncomfortable flailing in his bed. I knew the end was near. Yet the next day when I went to take him home for his final days, I was shocked that he was up and about like he was ready to do a chore in the yard.

Yet that miracle day was just that, a single day, and cancer got him in the end. But he never seemed old in his entire life. Even for the last few months he was not old but tired and weak.

My mother, who is still alive at the age of 98, is the one that I have studied the most. That is because I have had a front row seat for her aging process. She is a tiny old Italian woman, who is now maybe 4’6” and about 90 pounds. She just keeps going despite some major bumps in her health that might have done in others. She has a feistiness that I am sure Father Time is annoyed with.

She had a bad fall when she was in her eighties and living alone in her home. She survived but it was a wake-up call to my siblings and me that she would need to be watched more carefully. We eventually sold her house and moved her to a one-floor condo in her late eighties.

She was very independent and was living by herself even after she was no longer able to drive. We made sure that we saw her often during the week and called her every day. We had someone come in during the week to help clean the condo and watch her. If she needed something she would call. The job of taking her to church fell to me. I saw how the church community really helped her stay younger.

However, this last year a bad fall and extended time in a rehab facility took its toll. She was unable to take care of herself and needed a full-time aid. I can see the loss of energy and strength every time I see her, which is at least once a week. She always had little aches and pains, but they are now much more acute. They also do not go away with a couple of Tylenol. She lost eyesight in her left eye, and her hearing is also poor. She now needs a walker to get around.

She is not as engaged in the conversations as she used to be. It has happened very fast. At first she fought the idea of having an aide, but she now seems to have accepted that she needs one. She has lost almost all of her independence and must rely on her kids and her aide. I cringe now because when I am at one of her many doctor appointments, I now do most of the listening and talking. I am uncomfortable with this because my mother was a nurse and has more medical knowledge than I do. Yet she has let her kids take the lead on her health care.

I embrace my responsibilities to her, as do my siblings, because we are so happy that she is still in our lives. Yet I can’t help but think at those moments: How will I be at this age? How will I handle this loss of my independence? What will my final months be like? Will I be a burden to my kids?

It is the loss of independence and relying on others that petrifies me. This winter was a frigid and snowy one in New Jersey and I was shoveling my driveway and walkway after getting almost two feet of snow. I have no snow blower. As I was out there in the snow I paused from my shoveling and thought to myself “Will I still be doing this in my eighties?” Is my first concession to aging is getting a snow blower? Or is it just hiring someone?

My mother’s first concession to getting old was selling her large house. Though that was not much of a concession because my father had maintained the house and the yard. The major concession was giving up her car. That is a major loss of independence. She once told me that she did not really feel the aging process until she was in her eighties. She told my sister recently that she was not sure she will live long enough to attend my daughter’s wedding this year. I wondered if she was like my friend Richard who sensed that his “expiration date” was near.

I do a lot of manual labor around the house and run seven miles or more every day. Yet I know that while I am in excellent shape now, it will end someday. What I also learned from all three of my role models is that they were very active until the end.

They were physically always on the move and mentally always engaged. They also were surrounded by friends and family. I am emulating that model. I not only do not have a snow blower, I do not have a leaf blower. I believe engaging in physical activity is a way of staying young.

My mother is still teaching me lessons on aging with grace every day.  Every time I take her to church or to one of her many doctors I get a lesson. I observe the loss of mobility. I see her struggle to do things that once came easily, like walking to a car. That now takes great strength for her to accomplish. She is still fueled by the determination and perseverance that she has displayed throughout her life.

For now, I am ignoring morbid thoughts of my final days and focusing on the lessons all three taught me. With a positive mindset, staying physically active, and surrounding yourself with good people you can have a happy, fulfilling life even in your eighties and nineties. I’ve also learned the importance of living in the present with an eye to the future and not dwelling on the past. Even with my mother’s recent decline they all lived lives with very few restrictions on things that they could do.

When my “expiration date” draws near I am attuned enough to my body that there is a good chance I will know it.  Until then I will keep pushing myself like my three role models.

Winter Running Means Embracing the Cold

I was trudging up a narrow road and finishing my early morning run when I saw a middle-aged couple getting out of their car. Even though I did not know them I said “Hi” as I approached them. The woman had a befuddled look on her face like she was seeing something she could not understand. She said, “You really enjoy running in this weather?” New Jersey had been in the grasp of an extreme cold spell and most of my runs were in the single digits, though on this day it was a balmy 15 degrees. I replied “Yes!” She replied with an incredulous “Really?” She looked at me like I was the bearded lady in a circus exhibit. I did not have the heart to say that I like it a lot better than heat. I struggle when it gets into the high 80’s or 90’s.

I knew she didn’t live in that house because I run this route almost daily and know the faces of the homeowners. I pictured her entering the house and telling her friends that she saw a man running outside in this cold weather, and what a strange neighborhood this is.

I find it fascinating that people are so shocked that I run in the cold. Besides that woman, others have been shocked when, on an extremely frigid day, I note that I did my morning run outside. People have asked “Doesn’t it hurt to breath in that weather?” My reply is “No”. It is as if running is a warm weather sport only. I must admit that there are runners I know who, when the temperatures dip below the freezing mark, head to a treadmill or a fitness center. When I first took up running, I was a heavy treadmill user even joining an online system so that I could pretend that I was running in all parts of the world. Now I search for races that take place in all parts of the world. I believe the last time I was on my treadmill was about ten months ago and that was when I was training for running the Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim and my second run of the day would be put on the steepest incline so I could extra incline in my workout. Simulating a long steep climb out of the canyon.

What happened you might ask? Well, my racing now is almost exclusively ultra-marathons and trail races. While treadmills give you great workouts, I find that running is more than just the miles covered. All miles are not created equal. The type of races I run challenge you with the terrain and elements. Conquering miles is relatively easy conquering bad weather and difficult terrain is another. Therefore, I decided to run outside no matter what.

I soon found many benefits to running in all types of weather. First you learn how to dress for the elements. There is an old saying which I believe is Norwegian and it is “There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes.” I have found this to be almost completely true. I now look at the weather forecast on my phone and adjust my gear to the temperatures I will be facing.

Second, and maybe most surprisingly, cold runs are almost more peaceful. After a snowfall it is eerily quiet and beautiful. There are always fewer people out and there are not as many birds and animals. They will all return in the spring. It is more meditative to run when the only thing you can hear are your own footsteps and breathing.

Third, it helps build resilience. Obstacles are placed in front of us daily. Despite my bravado about running in the cold, it is always a chore to get out from under a nice warm blanket in bed and bundle on the layers to brave the cold. We humans – as most creatures –instinctively like a warm and comfortable setting as opposed to one that is cold, frigid, and sometimes even wet.

My morning routine actually starts the night before. I check the hourly weather on my phone to see what it will be like around 7 a.m. I brace myself for hot weather in the summer, and rain and wind particularly in spring and fall. In the winter however you need to really get your mind around running in tough weather. Especially frigid temperatures in the single digits like we have experienced this year. 

In order to ease my run on those mornings I get my running gear out the night before. On those days when it is single digits it is a pile of layers of clothing. Heavy winter gloves with an extra glove liner. Long pants with a base layer. Not just a winter cap but a head mask. After years of running outside in almost all weathers I have a routine and outfit for all occasions.

As you can see, it takes some effort to get out the front door. Yet once out that front door and I start running it seems the cold is not that much an issue if I am dressed correctly. I usually make that assessment at mile two. The one weather element that can affect me the most is wind. Especially a strong gust. It can instantly make you cold when just a second before you were fine.

While there are some nerves about going out the front door there is great feeling when coming back in the front door. On weekends my wife or son may be there to greet me and not really congratulate me but question my sanity.

When I arrive home, I begin to shed the many layers I am wearing. This is not as easy as it sounds because my glasses fog up instantly as I get inside. I begin to leave a pile of clothes and gear in the foyer. The only thing that dampens my enthusiasm is knowing that all those layers will need to be washed.

There is always a great feeling finishing a run that is hard to explain to others. It means no matter what happens the rest of the day you have accomplished something. That feeling of accomplishment is stronger on a cold frigid day. You not only finished your run but you conquered the elements. You overcame an obstacle. Other people may be deterred but you were not. I am not crazy but determined.

A couple of days later it was the coldest day of the year, at one degree with wind chills at seventeen below zero.  I am once again finishing up my run of seven miles, when I see my friend Joe coming out the front door of his house as I run by his house. He looks at me and says “Ray, you know you are crazy.” As if there is no debate on the issue. I replied “Just a little.” That is the thing that one has to accept when you run in the frigid cold. You think you are determined but your family, friends and even strangers think you are crazy. Maybe I am, but as I told Joe, only a little.

Surviving Emergency Rooms as a Caregiver

The holidays were over and there were no events or obligations on this day. My wife and I looked at each other and knew what we had to do. It was to go to a place that we both dreaded. It’s a place that I am familiar with visiting. Most of the time in my life I am confident, happy and at ease with my surroundings. Yet the trip we were about to take was to a place that made me feel helpless with no control in my life. It is a mind-numbing place where time drags exceedingly slowly. It was a trip to the emergency room with a possible hospital stay to follow. This time the patient was my wife.

I had prepped myself for the journey. While I am very good shape for a 66-year old man and have been fortunate enough to be fairly healthy, I am still pretty experienced at going to the emergency room and hospitals. As we age, even if we are healthy ourselves, the people around us may not be that lucky. In my case my 98-year-old mother has had numerous emergency room visits over the years for various reasons such as falls and severe UTIs.

There are consistent sights and sounds that you experience. The beeping of the monitors keeping track of all the patients’ vitals. EMTs coming into the hallways with gurneys and new patients. You can’t help but overhear some patients moaning and their conversations with either medical staff or a loved one. Medical staff are scurrying around, although it is hard to tell what their job is because even with name tags it is difficult to tell who a nurse, doctor, or technician is. For me personally, there is negative energy in the air even though most patients are getting great medical care.  While it is a chaotic scene it moves in super slow motion if you are a patient or caregiver there to support a loved one. Various staff members come in to set the patient up or maybe take them to get a test. The doctor comes in before and after the test results, but the minutes soon turn into hours, and you have no answers. You spend hours doing nothing but waiting to see who will come next.

As I mentioned, I prep for these visits and for all that downtime. I always bring a book and my cellphone. Often, I bring my laptop. Many times, my mother will doze off so I would sit there quietly maybe texting my family to update them but there is little to update them on until the very end. While your focus is on your loved one you can’t help but feel a bit helpless. You have almost no control over what is going to happen. Your job is to be positive and supportive for your loved one.

Going with my wife was a little different than my frail mother. I saw this coming for a while. She had a procedure that was supposed to solve a problem with her esophagus (A very rare condition.) that prevented her from eating solid food and even some liquids. It had not worked and three weeks later she was no better, in fact she was getting worse. Losing weight and energy. She had somehow survived not eating during the holidays but the adrenaline that got her through the holidays was now gone. She knew she had to get treatment. Our son and I had been pushing her to be more aggressive in getting medical treatment, but she had resisted. She works at a hospital and knows how the system works. An emergency room visit is never a quick undertaking; it is a long journey.

I wanted to be as supportive as I could for my wife on this journey. Yet it is hard to be positive in such a chaotic environment. As is the case with many emergency room visits, this one was an ordeal. It was overcrowded and patients were on gurneys in the hallway. Even our walk to her hallway bed was detoured because of a gurney traffic jam. The patients’ ailments ran the gamut. I don’t know how the medical staff handle it at an emergency room. There are people with almost any injury or disease you can imagine, and the staff has to deal with individuals who are having psychiatric issues, heart attacks, or orthopedic issues. The older woman about four feet from my wife was holding a baby doll as if it was her baby. She was suffering from dementia but had also collapsed.  She held on to baby for dear life and fought the help of the staff until her son came.

I could not even stand or sit next to my wife because the constant gurney traffic made me stand or sit in a chair at the foot of her bed. My wife who is very practical said to me “You should go home. There is nothing you can do here.” I ignored her because I thought that was a preposterous request but also because there was something I could do there. It was to get answers to her condition. One of the other things I learned with my mother’s visits was how critical it is to take in all the information the staff gives you.

The other thing about emergency rooms is that you are surrounded not just by chaos, but it seems like you are in an environment that is so unhealthy. I get bad health vibes because no matter where you turn there is someone in a bad way. I am afraid to touch anything. I feel that there are germs all around me trying to take me down. I feel vulnerable in this environment. As part of my prep for these visits, I also wear a race shirt (I am a very avid runner.) hoping that that helps stave off the bad juju of the emergency room. The germs I envision are like a lion picking out the weak and injured in a herd. The germs will ignore me and seek easier prey. I know…this is not exactly scientific, but it gives me a sense of confidence.

We finally got answers and we learned that my wife would be okay, but it would take some time including a hospital stay.  I would then be visiting her daily and hearing her regularly say “go home and do something useful” which I of course ignored.

I guess a trip to the emergency room is an admission that you have to put the life of someone you love in the hands of others. You are seeking both treatment and answers. It is very difficult to endure just being almost a bystander in the life of someone you love. But the most important part of being in this environment in which time seems to stand still is that you are there. Think about a loved one being there all alone. For me I think having someone by your side, even if they feel helpless, makes a difference. Even if my wife will not admit it.

As I age, I know that there are more trips in my future to emergency rooms and hospitals. While I have acquired the skills to better handle these situations, there is no joy in having this expertise.

Powered by the Placebo in the Race and in Life

Like any athlete (Yes, at 66 I still consider myself an athlete) I am always looking for ways to improve my performance. As one who runs ultra marathons, I am particular about my shoes, socks, and other gear. I’m always looking for something that could make me more successful. I am even particular about the placebo I use as a supplement. Yes, I do take a supplement and have done so for years.

I am fairly certain that the company that manufactures my supplement would take umbrage that I am calling their product a placebo. In that company’s defense, I did analyze their research and their claims and felt comfortable enough to order the product.

And as I said, I have been taking it for years now. What I noticed after a while was that my recovery was much easier once I was taking the supplement. After a grueling race I used to be very sore and stiff the next day or two and I almost always took Ibuprofen to ease the pain. Even my wife began to notice. Not long ago, without prompting, she said “I don’t know what it is but your recovery from these races is so much better.” I am sure that the company would like that quote for their advertisement.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying I am paying money for sugar pills. I believe that this supplement works. They key word there is “believe.”  If one believes they will perform that goes a long way. Without believing your performance will suffer.

Yet believing has made it difficult when researchers do studies on performance-enhancing nutrients that will increase oxygen flow to muscles or blood flow. Because many studies have shown that athletes’ performances improve with the placebos because they just believe they will. In fact, there have been studies in which all the athletes were just given placebos and were lied to, and told it was a performance-enhancing procedure. Then low and behold their performances improved.

That is the power of the placebo. It makes you believe in your ability to accomplish something.  Success in running or almost any endeavor relies on one believing that they can do something. Not thinking they “probably can” but have the confidence that they will do something. This may seem like it is a slight change in your mindset, but it is huge. It means that you have confidence in your ability to achieve something.

Now you may be asking yourself, “Ray if you think that your supplement is a placebo then how can it improve your recovery?” That is a good question. I wish I had a great answer. First, I do really believe that it helped my recovery. Primarily because, I was not looking for it to do that but was pleasantly surprised. Second, I am good at lying to myself.

All this speaks to the power of the mind in our performance. I have found in my numerous ultra-marathons that it is just as much a mind game as it is a physical feat. There have been many times when I thought my body was near its breaking point only to have my brain tell me we can do it. Like climbing the last steep six miles out of the Grand Canyon last year after having thrown up and with no nutrients in me. Another time my body was able but the brain told me it was time to stop. That was on a 30-hour run and I reached my goal of 100 miles with time to do another loop or two but since I had reached my goal my brain began to shut down and I stopped.

Now I will apologize to the company that produces my supplement. It truly does work. Just like the gear I chose such as my shoes, hydration pack and clothing. Through the process of trial and error I settle on things that I find help me perform my best. Yet they can only do so much. My physical training is very important, so is my mindset. Athletic endeavors are a mix of the body and the mind.

As baseball hall of famer and famous American philosopher Yogi Berra once said “Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical." Many famous professional athletes have superstitions that they follow because they believe it will make them perform better. Serena Williams would wear the same pair of socks throughout a tournament without washing them. Michael Jordan always wore his UNC shorts under his professional shorts. Baseball hall of famer Wade Boggs famously only ate chicken before each game.

Each of these strange actions has something in common with my supplement. (Actually mine at least has some science behind it –at least more science than a smelly sock.) They all help focus our minds on the job at hand. Like those famous athletes I believe that I will succeed. I guess we are all powered by placebos. You just have to truly believe.

Almost Famous as a Local Runner

I was in line at the local hardware store about to pay for my propane tank refill when a man behind me said “Did you get your run in today?” I looked at him with a blank and stunned silence because I did not recognize him. He laughed and said, “I live on Florence Ave and see you running all the time.” Mystery solved because I run on that road almost every day though it was a bit unsettling to know that people are watching as you run past their house.

A few months later I was in the produce section of the supermarket looking at the apples when a man said to me “If you are in here who is running in town?” Once again, I had no idea who he was, and I never found out.

My running routine is very consistent. I run around my lake community as well as another local lake community, down main roads, and sometimes when training for an ultra, I add additional loops to my run. I run in all types of weather, from the hot humid days of summer to the frigid single digits of winter. In rain or snow. I like running in the elements and rarely use my treadmill. Because of this I am a regular sight in the neighborhood. I probably stand out a bit more because of my mop of gray hair.

Since most of my runs are done around the same time in the morning I see a lot of the same people on my run. Most of them are walking their dogs. We are all creatures of habit. For the most part, I do not know most of their names. We simply exchange a quick “Good Morning” and maybe a comment about the weather. My runs are familiar because of both the landscape and the people I see.

While I usually run around the neighborhood sometimes, I walk. One day after a tough marathon I decided to walk with my wife instead of running. While walking through parts of my usual running route, though for a shorter distance, we encountered familiar faces from my runs.  After the third person said, “What you’re not running?” My wife laughed and said “I can’t believe this. How many people do you know?” Another person, John, stopped his car and rolled down his window to say hi.

While I mostly run by people once in a while I will stop and chat with someone, especially if it is someone whose name I know. I frequently see my friend John, who is also a runner, at the school bus stop with his grandchildren. Sometimes I see my friend Dan and we run together for a short time.

Yet there are people who say, “Hi Ray” and I am a bit taken back because I have no idea what their name is. I don’t think that we have been introduced to each other. How do they know my name? Did we meet and I just don’t remember?

Many times, a car drives by me and the driver waves. Are they just being friendly or do I know them? I now wave at most of the cars. It is hard to see through a windshield if they are waving but I am getting pretty good at spotting the hand on the steering wheel rise up. I wave to all the mail carriers—and with one carrier in particular we share exaggerated smiles and waves.

A clue that how they know me is through the grapevine. A fellow runner once stopped me and said “I think you know my son Gray.” I told him my name. He then said “I told my son that I often see an older runner out there and he told me ‘that is Ray.’” I did know his son very well from the lake. I think Gray probably told him about me running the length of New Jersey. That makes me a little different than other runners.

I may stand out because frankly there really are not that many runners that I see on my runs especially on weekdays and bad weather days. Once on a really snowy day I was out there running and one of the people I always say hi to yelled out “Man nothing stops you!”  

I consistently cover 7-10 miles each morning, rarely repeating any part of my route except for less than a mile, usually in the opposite direction. So, if someone is commuting to work, I am a regular sight. If they are walking their dog, I am a regular sight. To the kids and parents at the various bus stops, I am a regular sight

Most people consider someone a neighbor if they live within a block or two of your home. I look at the regular people on my run as my neighbors. This even though they may be miles from my house and even in a different zip code.

Doing these runs for years in the community makes me feel more in tune with the neighborhood. I see the houses that are sold. Houses with additions being added.  Most people have a normal route they may drive through the neighborhood but I serpentine all around so I see the changes almost everywhere.

These runs make me feel connected to the community. After a run I often come home and in a conversation with my wife say, “I love where we live.” 

One time I was walking the neighborhood with my wife when a man waved and said hello. I waved back and said hi. My wife said, “Who was that?” I said, “I don’t know.” She said, “He said your name!” I had not heard that, but it wouldn’t have mattered because I had no idea what his name was. I laughingly told her that it is not always easy being almost famous.

Feeling the Aging Process in a Mall

Recently I walked into a department store in a mall and I felt ancient. It was not anything physical. At the age of 66 I regularly do ultra marathons and finish ahead of people half my age.  No, it was a “This is your life moment.” It was not about age-related changes in me—but changes in the world around me.

Getting old is a strange experience. It can sneak up on you.  One of the reasons I dove headfirst into running and fitness a few decades ago was my desire to try to stave off the inevitable by being active. I hope and believe that I will be active into my nineties and perhaps even running a race or two.

But there are no strategies to stave off the changes in everyday life that the passage of time brings. When I look back, I realize that our day-to-day existence has changed dramatically over the course of my life.  I also understand that to anyone under the age of 40, my childhood and early adulthood probably seem as ancient as the pilgrims.

It hits me at strange times. It can be an old classic song on the radio, or when I hear about the death of TV star who is a stranger to today’s young people. Once when I forgot my cellphone as I was driving to work. I wasn’t sure I would survive the day without it. Yet it occurred to me I have survived most of my life without one. How is it now that I am completely dependent on it?

More recently it hit me when I was walking in the Rockaway Mall.

As I went into JC Penney and later walked through the mall it hit me that I was old. It was not because of the clothing styles or the music that was playing. It was the lack of people, the shuttered storefronts and the limited merchandise in the stores that were open.  I was walking in a place that was dying. It was a relic of another age. Nothing about the mall shouted “this is the future” or this is a “happening” place.

Malls were where it was all happening when I was growing up. Teens piled in cars and buses to just go to the mall. If you needed to buy something you went to the mall. It had not only stores, but movie theaters, arcades and food courts. Who needed anything more? You ran into people you knew at the mall.  

I remember as a kid the talk about the construction of Willowbrook Mall was big news. All the surrounding communities were excited. It was as if we were no longer hick towns but cosmopolitan just because we had a mall. Our community status somehow rose with this one addition of a mall. Around this time, malls started popping up all across the state of New Jersey.

You see I remember when malls were the future. I was even part of that future, even if it was reluctantly. I was a recent college graduate and the only job that I could acquire was as a management trainee for Kinney Shoes at Willowbrook Mall in Wayne N.J. At the time it was one of the busiest malls in North Jersey. The stores were all stocked to the ceiling with merchandise. Finding a sales associate was easy, the trick was trying to avoid them as they swarmed all around. During the Christmas holiday the parking lot was full and you may have had to drive around for awhile to get a spot – or follow shoppers who were finished shopping and were walking to their cars to get a coveted parking spot.

If you had asked anyone back then about the future of malls and retail, you would probably hear that malls would just grow bigger and more numerous. In 1992 the Mall of America opened in Bloomington Minnesota–the biggest mall in the country.

Now finding a sales associate in a mall store takes a good eye and it is nearly as difficult to find a cashier. Paying for merchandise can be nearly impossible.  Merchandise is also very limited. The shopping experience is frustrating.  But I’ll say this: Parking is easy now.

I was there for the birth and heyday of retail malls. Now as I walked through the mall it felt like I was there for their death. It is like I have gone from visiting the maternity ward to visiting hospice care.  I am sure there are people much smarter than me trying to figure out what to do with these monuments to American consumerism.

The new monuments to American consumerism are the Amazon, Fed Ex, and UPS trucks that now roam neighborhood streets on a regular basis. I buy almost all my running gear online.  I joke that if my wife stops using Amazon I will tell people to unload their Amazon stock.

But here is a strange paradox. I never particularly liked working or shopping in a mall. While I love my online shopping, I am also very nostalgic about the fate of shopping malls. It is as if part of my childhood and young adulthood has been erased. Maybe it is always just sad when any institution comes to an end.

I think that is why I am wistful about the death of the major retailers and the mall. There are things that you just take for granted and think that they will last forever. You are confident about what the future will hold in some areas. Yet there is no K-Mart, Toys ‘R’ Us, Kinney Shoes, or Thom McAn, while Macy’s is just a shell of what it used to be. Sears, once the largest retailer in the U.S., has fewer than 10 stores left.  As Yogi Berra once said, “The future ain’t what it used to be.”

While I am somewhat sentimental about shopping malls, I am less wistful about landline phones. And I know that world would make today’s teens scream. But that is a story for another blog.

Lesson of the Legends – Part 3 -The Power of the Group and Other People

In sports like football and basketball there is something called the home field or home court advantage. Basically, having a home crowd rooting for the home team usually helps them perform even better and can affect the visiting team’s performance negatively. The power of the crowd is so strong that the oddsmakers in Las Vegas usually measure its worth in pro football games at around 3 points. Think about that. Even though someone is not on the field they can impact someone else’s performance.

What is even more surprising is that at an event like A Race For The Ages (ARFTA) the other runners can also impact the performance of each other and crews can not only impact their runner but other runners as well. I know this is true because it affected my performance.

There are several ways I know this. First is that the ultra-running community is an extremely supportive community. As you are running or walking along the course everyone is so positive and always urging each other on. Even other runner’s crews will cheer you on. Every time I ran by Tom’s daughter Sarah (see previous blog) she cheered me on. It’s a little thing but it lifts your spirits. Ultra-running is just as much a mental exercise as a physical one, so being positive helps a lot. There will be times that you want to quit and a little pick-me-up from a fellow runner or crew member helps.

Second, tied in with the need for positivity is the need to have confidence in yourself. Believing you have the ability to accomplish something is a necessity to achieving it. Yet confidence is something that is sometimes fragile when faced with a major challenge. On this race I knew I could finish more than 100 miles, but I was not sure how far after that I could go. Although I had never really done anything like that before, I did know that I was doing pretty well on this race. Yet I had no idea where I would place. A few of the other runners took notice of my pace and hours on the course and they would say to me “You are really crushing it!” or something to that effect. It’s amazing how when others recognize your effort that motivates you to keep going. It helps build up your confidence when others think that you can accomplish something.

Third, when you are with a group of people all trying their best and pushing themselves to their limits, it has a contagious impact. There was a woman name Rosie who was 71 and was just a few laps behind me who just kept going. She was probably hurting a bit and was hunched to one side as she slowly covered the course. She could have quit the race at any time, but she just kept moving.

On the last night of the race I was going into the wee hours and it seemed like there were fewer runners out on the course. But I kept pushing until I could not keep my eyes open. I went to take a short nap but really conked out and slept over five hours, which was much longer than I planned. When I awoke the sun was up and I saw many runners circumventing the course. They had apparently taken their nap earlier than me and for a shorter length. I then realized that if they were pushing that hard, I had no excuse not to push myself to the very last second. Which I did. My goal the previous day was 150 miles, but I ended up doing 160 miles. Basically, that last 10 miles was motivated by the other runners.

It is not often in today’s sometimes divisive world that you can go to a place where you know that you will be supported by all others. Even complete strangers. Where you will see people giving it their all. Where some people are attempting to do something, they have never done before.  All this is accomplished with a sense of joy in the air, even when some are suffering.

There were numerous times in this race that I thought about stopping. Yet it seemed so wrong. There was a sign on the course that said it best: “Your competition is the little voice in your head that wants you to quit.” The race was not about beating the other runners as much as it was about doing your best. Doing your best rarely involves quitting.

Maybe the most important lesson on this race, as in most ultra-marathons, is that our actions not only impact us but those around us. I am sure that many of those runners were unaware that their effort motivated me and made me push harder. This is a lesson beyond ultrarunning. Our positivity and effort can affect others. And if that is true our negativity can also affect others. Which one do you want to spread?