Ode to Adult Onset Runners

There is a group of runners that hold a special place in my heart: Adult Onset Runners (AORs). While elite runners trained from youth are amazing and impressive, I am inspired more by the accomplishments of the many who run behind them, sometimes finishing marathons hours behind them.

If that is you, than you are glorious.

Let me tell you why!

You Overcome Self-Doubt

You know what many people say when others talk about going for a run?

“Oh, I could never do that.”

You probably said that once. Maybe you still feel that way sometimes. Yet…at some point you decided to just go for a run!

No matter how slow or jiggly you might be, how out of breath and frustrated you might feel, you walked, jogged and ran and kept doing it. Even though you qualify your distances with words like “just” or your paces with words like “only”, you are still doing it!

You Embrace Discomfort

In a world where people actively avoid being uncomfortable, you embrace it!

Starting to run as an adult can feel like trying to hug a cactus. Tiny tingles and painful zings cover your body, and the more you press in the more intense they get! Some days it’s your neck and calves, and other days it’s coming from the inside of your thigh…somewhere. You get tired and achey.

All this and yet, you still run. Hopefully you’ve realized that running doesn’t feel “comfortable” for anyone, no matter how easy they make it look. Either way, you didn’t let the initial shock of all the discomfort stop you. The uncomfortable feelings are familiar, less distracting, and totally worth it.

You Overcome Fear

Running with a “real runner.” Running in a group. Running a race. At a track. In public. Any of these can flip the fear switch. You constantly overcome them.

Truthfully, runners at every level have fears. It’s a human thing. We fear stuff, rationally or not. While some let it paralyze them, you are actively learning to overcome. What you’ve done may seem pedestrian to you, but this is huge for a lot of people.

You Inspire Others

Watching the winners of the Boston Marathon cross the finish inspires awe, but it doesn’t necessarily inspire non-runners to run, because elite runners aren’t your average person. Those runners are like super humans, right?

However, YOU are everyday people. You ARE the 35 year old mother of 3 and lactose intolerant. You ARE the 65 year old retiree who decided to pick up running and finish a marathon in every state. You ARE the working professional who runs on his lunch break.

You inspire because you show others it can be done.

Where does this term “Adult Onset Runner” come from?

I think I heard it from John Bingham first. I take it to mean anyone who did not run in school (aside from what was required of all children) but started running for whatever reason as an adult, often after college, kids or a sobering doctor visit or two.

Roy Benson says this:

“Years ago I coined the term “adult-onset athletes.” I wanted to describe runners who had never participated in sports in school and who had probably never learned to respect the wisdom of seasons. These runners would not have benefited from coaching that taught the importance of phasing in the separate periods of: 1) conditioning; 2) competing; 3) peaking for championship performances; 4) and then taking at least a couple of weeks of active rest to recover.”

–RunnersWorld.com “Owner’s Manual: No Substitute for LSD”

Roy is right. Adult Onset Runners approach running differently than those who ran in school. Not all of us want to be faster or set personal records. We may get lost trying to read articles written by athletes for athletes. If we want to learn more, it can be overwhelming to realize we know so little about heart rate and VO2 max and lactate threshold. God help us if we google “How to be a faster runner.”

To the AOR, there can be some “mysteries” about training and racing that we have to learn on our own if we even care to learn them at all. Yet, while we may not always train as smart, run as fast, or know all the jargon, we do have a separate set of skills and accomplishments that make us equally proud to be runners!

This post is adapted with permission from the original found at Thoroughly Thriving