Part of getting older is finding that my PBs each time I train up - personal bests - are not as quick as they were before.
I record my runs on Strava but really I don’t need to check, I remember my old pace.
As an on-and-off-again runner who is motivated each time round by getting better at it, slowing down is something I’ve had to find peace with. I’ve managed to do that now, it took a year or two, and finding a new internal place of motivation has meant that my training is once again enjoyable and free.
Free as in the opposite of tight.
The last few years have been more off than on because it seemed like every time I got going again with the training, I got knocked back by Covid or injury. Covid is Covid, but injury I regard as ultimately psychological. It happens because I’m increasing load too fast (I’m desperate) or I’m not listening to my body (I’m desperate) or I’m running tight (I’m desperate).
Anyway.
I’ve found that, instead of always ramping up, I mainly just really love being outside and also the consistency of it. I’m a lucky fella. I’ve maintained 20 miles/wk or more for 7 months now. (I’m motivated by keeping a streak, who knew?)
Sometimes though it catches me by surprise:
I’m currently trying to increase my baseline endurance and went out for a 17 mi run a few days ago. Paused to take photos of the Thames Barrier and a rainbow, no stress. Beautiful. Felt ok when I finished – hey I made it back! Wild!
Then Strava showed me the almost identical run from exactly 5 years ago, I’d forgotten: a super steady pace, a whole minute per mile faster than this week’s tough muddle through.
A coincidence that it was to the day.
Now 2020 was when I was at probably my peak running fitness ever. But still. An unexpected confrontation with mortality.
Our quantified self apps (Strava is one) are built by people with time on their side and capacity to improve. A past achievement will almost certainly remind you of a happy day that can be visited again or, in the rear view mirror, has been joyfully surpassed. But for older people… And I’m not even that old, just past my physical peak…
Oh.
I’m not asking Strava to hide these reminders. I’ve found peace (not as completely as I thought it turns out). But I don’t want to avoid those memories. Reminded, I do remember that time from 2020! It is a happy memory! I like to remember what I could do, even if it is slightly bittersweet!
(Nor am I asking for it to be in my face, like those “here are the number of weeks you have left” calendars.)
Yet the feeling is there.
And I’ll bet we’re all having that feeling a little bit, deep down, unnamed and unlocated and unconscious quite often, amplified by using these apps. So many of us are using apps that draw from the quantified self movement (Wikipedia) of the 2010s, in one way or another, and that movement was by young people. Perhaps there were considerations unaccounted for – getting older for one. There will be consequences for that, however subtle.
(Another blindspot of the under 40s: it is the most heartbreaking thing to see birthday notifications for people who are no longer with us. Please, please, surely there is a more humane way to handle this?)
So I can’t help viewing some of the present day’s fierce obsession with personal health and longevity or even brain uploads not as a healthy desire for progress but, amplified by poor design work, as an attempt to outrun death.
Which is as it has always been, I know.
And humanity shouldn’t stand still of course. Mortality has always been the greatest motivator. So it’s all fine?
I don’t know what I’m suggesting. Lean into it perhaps! Find the most talented people in the world and hire a memento mori whisperer to follow them around so that they work harder for the betterment of all of us:
In some accounts of the Roman triumph, a companion or public slave would stand behind or near the triumphant general during the procession and remind him from time to time of his own mortality or prompt him to “look behind”.
But I hope they’re happy. I hope all this work is coming from a good place.
And, sorry, I haven’t given thought to how to design Strava for Stoics, as interesting as that is.
An exercise left for the reader.
Part of getting older is finding that my PBs each time I train up - personal bests - are not as quick as they were before.
I record my runs on Strava but really I don’t need to check, I remember my old pace.
As an on-and-off-again runner who is motivated each time round by getting better at it, slowing down is something I’ve had to find peace with. I’ve managed to do that now, it took a year or two, and finding a new internal place of motivation has meant that my training is once again enjoyable and free.
Free as in the opposite of tight.
The last few years have been more off than on because it seemed like every time I got going again with the training, I got knocked back by Covid or injury. Covid is Covid, but injury I regard as ultimately psychological. It happens because I’m increasing load too fast (I’m desperate) or I’m not listening to my body (I’m desperate) or I’m running tight (I’m desperate).
Anyway.
I’ve found that, instead of always ramping up, I mainly just really love being outside and also the consistency of it. I’m a lucky fella. I’ve maintained 20 miles/wk or more for 7 months now. (I’m motivated by keeping a streak, who knew?)
Sometimes though it catches me by surprise:
I’m currently trying to increase my baseline endurance and went out for a 17 mi run a few days ago. Paused to take photos of the Thames Barrier and a rainbow, no stress. Beautiful. Felt ok when I finished – hey I made it back! Wild!
Then Strava showed me the almost identical run from exactly 5 years ago, I’d forgotten: a super steady pace, a whole minute per mile faster than this week’s tough muddle through.
A coincidence that it was to the day.
Now 2020 was when I was at probably my peak running fitness ever. But still. An unexpected confrontation with mortality.
Our quantified self apps (Strava is one) are built by people with time on their side and capacity to improve. A past achievement will almost certainly remind you of a happy day that can be visited again or, in the rear view mirror, has been joyfully surpassed. But for older people… And I’m not even that old, just past my physical peak…
Oh.
I’m not asking Strava to hide these reminders. I’ve found peace (not as completely as I thought it turns out). But I don’t want to avoid those memories. Reminded, I do remember that time from 2020! It is a happy memory! I like to remember what I could do, even if it is slightly bittersweet!
(Nor am I asking for it to be in my face, like those “here are the number of weeks you have left” calendars.)
Yet the feeling is there.
And I’ll bet we’re all having that feeling a little bit, deep down, unnamed and unlocated and unconscious quite often, amplified by using these apps. So many of us are using apps that draw from the quantified self movement (Wikipedia) of the 2010s, in one way or another, and that movement was by young people. Perhaps there were considerations unaccounted for – getting older for one. There will be consequences for that, however subtle.
(Another blindspot of the under 40s: it is the most heartbreaking thing to see birthday notifications for people who are no longer with us. Please, please, surely there is a more humane way to handle this?)
So I can’t help viewing some of the present day’s fierce obsession with personal health and longevity or even brain uploads not as a healthy desire for progress but, amplified by poor design work, as an attempt to outrun death.
Which is as it has always been, I know.
And humanity shouldn’t stand still of course. Mortality has always been the greatest motivator. So it’s all fine?
I don’t know what I’m suggesting. Lean into it perhaps! Find the most talented people in the world and hire a memento mori whisperer to follow them around so that they work harder for the betterment of all of us:
But I hope they’re happy. I hope all this work is coming from a good place.
And, sorry, I haven’t given thought to how to design Strava for Stoics, as interesting as that is.
An exercise left for the reader.