On Sunday morning I will take part in the City2Surf – a 14km fun run in Sydney’s east – for the third year and as the day approaches I’m getting a tad apprehensive.
I’m not racing the hundred thousand odd participants, not the super stars out front or the bloke in the gorilla suit out the back. I’m running against myself, and this year – because I’m 29 – that means the very concept of ageing.
Three years ago I ran a respectable but not incredible 72 minutes, and this year with a similar lead-up (about six weeks of semi-serious training hampered in the last week by a mild cold) I’m hoping to do better despite all my bad habits finally catching up with me. I can’t even touch my toes in the warm-up stretch.
I know a column about ageing from a 29 year old is laughable. But I think it’s a fair point to make that people on the verge of 40, 50, or 60 are better at ageing because they’ve got so much more experience. We in our late 20s, not so much.
Peak male athletic performance is estimated to be age 24 and while I’m a late bloomer it’s fair to say that my late 20s is the first time in my adult life that I have even felt appreciably older.
All I’ve learned so far is that ageing is a mixed bag. Grey hairs? Silver fox! Easy to put a positive spin on it. Receding hairline, less so.
On a recent holiday in Vietnam I stayed in a party hostel for the weekend that coincided with my 29th birthday.
On Friday night this seemed a great idea – shots were free-poured down my throat by the party-class of itinerant backpackers who staff these joints. I celebrated with a 27 year old British girl who shared the same birthday and was now my new best friend.
On Saturday night I stumbled into the lift, shoes in hand, a broken man. As if the late-20s hangover weren’t bad enough, I was then addressed as “sir” by one of the British backpacking guests.
“I’m not a sir, I’m 29! Sir ... sir!”
“Sorry ... boy?” the young woman offered in lame apology.
Later on the same trip an American gent in his early to mid 30s suggested I looked “not a day over 32”. Clearly intended as a compliment, the comment meant in all likelihood he put my age at 34 or 35 and thought an estimate of 32 would flatter me. And this discounted age was out by more than 10%! That’s maths – and boy, did I let him know it.
Which brings me back to the City2Surf. I can shout at strangers all I like but I can’t deny if I run a worse time that something measurable, something appreciably real has happened to me.
Run a little quicker with twinges here and there, and the narrative is that ageing can throw up obstacles, but with more effort, a little extra push up Heartbreak Hill, it’s nothing too serious. Peak male athletic performance at 24 – true for some but not for me.
Losing to my 26 year old self by setting a worse time, though, and it’s all real: the hangovers, the slightly receding hairline, the confused strangers who appear to think I’m in my mid 30s.
One thing will change regardless of the result. I have a rather queer habit of mentally adding six months to my age, reasoning that 29 will feel like less of a shock if I spend six months trying it on for size.
As I approach 29 and a half (30!) there’ll be no way that I will cheerfully give up those extra six months. I will need them to come to terms with what is happening to me, just like I will need all (or most) of those 72 minutes.
• Paul Karp is a Guardian Australia political reporter
