Maura Elizabeth Cunningham

When I turned 39 in October 2021, I decided that I would celebrate my 40th birthday the following year by finishing the Detroit Half-Marathon. I had done a large number of 5K and 10K races by that point, and practiced yoga since moving to Ann Arbor in 2016, so I felt like a race of 13.1 miles would be a challenge but not impossible. I added strength-training sessions to my workout routine and registered for the race the day it opened, committing myself but not telling anyone else. I didn’t want to make it into a thing by broadcasting a public goal that I might fail to achieve. I’ve never been “athletic,” and announcing that I wanted to mark turning 40 by participating in a half-marathon sounded too much like an early midlife crisis.

I did that half-marathon, and have finished four more since—including yesterday’s Baltimore Half-Marathon to celebrate my 42nd birthday. I’ve learned that 13.1 miles is my favorite race distance, because it’s a challenge and a commitment but also invigorating, an opportunity to get out and move in a big, sustained way. The yoga classes and weight lifting and walking (I walk all these races; as much joy as I’ve found in movement, I hate the plodding jolt of running even more as I get older) have shown me that I don’t dislike exercise, I dislike gym classes and vicious field hockey games and having a softball come at me while everyone else on the field is watching to see if I’ll catch it or drop it (again).

In other words, I had to find the form of movement that works for me, that makes me feel amazed at what my body can do. And now that I have, I can appreciate Anne Helen Petersen’s 2022 essay, “The Quiet Glory of Aging into Athleticism”:

How is it, at age 41, that I feel like my body can do more — and that I can take more joy in it — than ever before? I’m not faster, but I’m more resilient. I’m not doing as many overall miles, but I feel stronger. I love it more, and more feels possible. Sure, my knees are slightly more creaky, and I have to be keenly attentive to stretching and Theragunning and hydrating in a way I never was before. But exercise just generally no longer feels punitive or disciplinary. Instead, I feel something far more akin to curiosity. If part of me feels weak or tweaky, what’s struggling in other parts of my body and needs strengthening? And if I’m attentive to my body, if I’m legitimately kind to it, can it do more than I thought it could?

It took me decades to realize that “athletic” is not an adjective whose definition is pre-determined; the fact that I can’t hit a baseball or kick a soccer ball into the goal doesn’t make me un-athletic—it makes me un-athletic according to the standards set by my grade-school gym teachers. But I can move from Warrior 2 to Extended Side-Angle Pose; I can bench press 55 pounds and counting; I can walk for 13.1 miles in one go. I’m athletic in my way, at this age, and it finally feels great.

Thanks for joining me this week.

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Featured photo: Fort McHenry, Baltimore, Maryland, October 18, 2024.