The New Yorker:

He and I are the same age, but only one of us is an N.F.L. quarterback.

By Louisa Thomas

Several years back, I began marking my birthday with an extra-long run, in order to show my defiance of the degenerations of middle age. But last week, when I turned forty-four, I catalogued my various infirmities instead. There was my fraying right iliotibial band, which had never quite healed after an overuse injury ten years ago. I located a mysterious pressure in my right hip, no doubt related to the IT band, or to the weak glute attached to it. A few weeks ago, while sitting on my heels playing with my toddler, I felt an acute pain behind my left knee. The sensation quickly passed, but the knee, which had never given me trouble, now felt a little balky, and I could mentally trace the path of my left hamstring—a muscle that, until then, had been entirely theoretical, no more real to me than a squid’s brain or a hummingbird’s tongue. (If wisdom comes with aging, it is surely in matters of anatomy.)

I felt compelled to take this inventory after watching Philip Rivers, also forty-four, play quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts against the Seattle Seahawks last Sunday. Rivers led the Colts to a near-upset over the Seahawks, who came into the game with the best-rated defense in the N.F.L. by one metric. If I had not seen Rivers throw, I might have found the result inspiring. I might have felt my old athletic ambitions stirring. I might have started thinking about ultramarathons. But I did see him, and, unfortunately, I can’t forget it. It was not inspiring. Never before have I felt so old.

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