Six Reasons Why I Won't Run Again at Age 54

I Tried It and I Didn't Like It

Last year when I was 54, I decided I would try running (not for the presidency--but for weight loss, looking good, feeling good). It was a big mistake. I've been a loyal walker for 25 years, averaging about 28 miles per week. I've enjoyed it most of the time, walk through most kinds of weather and, most important, never suffered any pain from it. Then I read an article about a woman who was 80 years old and still running marathons. She had started running at age 54. If she could, why couldn't I? After ending up in physical therapy for five months and not able to walk up and down the stairs without pain that started in my butt and ran down to my left knee, I finally figured out why:

1. Not everyone is made the same. That 80-year-old woman who began running at the age of 54 apparently was made to run. And I'm not. It's as simple as that.

2. I started off on the wrong foot. Actually, I started off on the wrong shoe. My friend Diane, an avid and successful runner for over 30 years, was thrilled that I was finally joining the running world. She went with me to get my first running shoes. They would have been perfect, except that I have abnormal feet. I found out only later during a physical therapy diagnosis that I had flat feet and they're also pronated. In other words, my knees turned inward a bit. So if I was going to run, I needed a certain kind of running shoe with special arch support.

3. I started off too fast. Now that's not really true, because you wouldn't really call what I was doing running or jogging. It was hardly faster than walking. It was more like a groping walk, if you know what I mean-sort of like a person who can walk, has a stroke and then tries to run. That's more what it was like. So when I say I started off too fast, I mean I tried to "run" every day at the beginning when I should have walked, then run, walk some more and then run some more. To be honest, I would have been better off having started walking, then running--then quitting.