When did you notice you were getting old?

I started feeling really old when I began covering games of high schoolers whose parents I covered when they were in school.

And I'll echo the amusement park comment from LongTime Listener. Now that my son is a teenager and loves the fast rides, I can't ride them any more without feeling dizzy and/or sore afterwards.

 

I'll third the amusement park rides comment. Used to love the roller coasters, fast spinning rides, etc. Now that my kids are old enough to ride them, time for me to sit out. Rode some last summer and felt the dizziness/nausea ...

As far as trends, technology, taste ... I've been an old man since I was 18!!! (that was more than two decades ago, BTW)

 

The day I played in a softball game at a picnic. Got a hit to left field. Started running, made it to first base. My legs were killing me as soon as I stopped.

 

40 is sort of the turning point. After that, it became so much easier to pull a muscle, wrench my back or things like that. Never had issues before that, then some of the most mundane activities could knock me down for a day or two.

So, it's the physical stuff, post 40, that brought me to the realization I'm getting old.

And when certain people die who I recall from my youth--athletes, musicians, celebrities, that's a jolting reminder that I'm getting mortal. It's not everyone, but every once in a while I'll see that someone dies and it just piercingly registers, along the lines of 'damn, he/she was young when I was young, and now they're dead.....'

 

When I had to stop at four at the orgy.

 

This past year I've been about the most active I've ever been -- swimming three to four miles a week, playing racquetball two or three times a week and walking a few miles any chance I get -- and I gained weight. Didn't seem like it was muscle either.

Had our third baby in August and he's been about the best sleeper of the bunch from the start but those first three months felt like I was living a coma. That never happened with the other two, and the second didn't sleep at night until he was 5 months.

 

2004, sitting in the theatre with my nine-year-old daughter watching Ella Enchanted and thinking to myself how well endowed Anne Hathaway seemed to be in that movie.

 

Whenever I start to get old, I just stop and get more awesome.

 

This. I was in my late 30s.

 

I'll let you know.

Made a decision years ago to not end up allowing my work life to adversely affect my health, as the sports journalist stereotype would seem to dictate.

The natural aging process cannot be stopped. But I sure as heck don't plan to help it along.

 

Just turn the music up louder (because I can't hear it otherwise) and workout longer (because I lose track of time)