Below, Nicholas Thompson shares five key insights from his new book, The Running Ground: A Father, a Son, and the Simplest of Sports.
Thompson is CEO of The Atlantic. In his time as CEO, the company has seen record subscriber growth. Before this role, he was editor-in-chief of Wired magazine. He is also a former contributor for CBS News and has previously served as editor. As a runner, he set the American record for men ages 45-plus in the 50K race.
What’s the big idea?
Running has the capacity to show us what we’re made of and help us grow beyond our limits—both as we race ahead on the track and in life. Struggle, aging, and even trauma can become engines of transformation if we learn how best to keep moving forward.
1. You don’t stop running because you get old.
You get old because you stop running. I used to think that you would just get better and better with age until you’re about 28, and then you would get worse and worse. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that isn’t true. In fact, I ran my fastest marathon at age 44.
Of course, there are certain things that decline in a runner’s life, as they do for everyone. Over the years, your bone density deteriorates, your VO2 max goes down, and you’re more likely to get a little injured here or there. But while that happens, there are things that get better. We gain mitochondrial efficiency, for example, and most importantly, we get wiser.
We have learned more about training. We have learned more about our limits. And not only that, but we can also pick up new habits to do things differently. In some ways, aging is like you’re on a moving sidewalk that is going backwards, but you’re picking up things that allow you to go forward. If you can go the same speed forwards as you’re going backwards, then you run the same time year after year—which is what I did in my thirties. But sometimes, you can actually get better by going forward faster on that sidewalk than it’s pushing you backward—and that’s what I did in my mid-forties.
This applies beyond running. I had this conversation with my mother recently: She’s in her mid-seventies, and she said, “Nick, my reflexes are just getting worse and worse with age.” I said, “There are things that are going to make your reflexes worse or worse with age, but what if we tried to go the other direction?” Then I got her out on our front porch and I started tossing her tennis balls, and she started catching them. I tossed them a little more to the side, and it turned out that her reflexes could get better.
