Gray Chest Hair

I woke up this morning to find another gray chest hair. I thought I eliminated this problem a couple of months ago when I first discovered one of those bad boys and plucked it off my chest. It was much to my dismay this morning that I found another. I mean, how does this happen? It wasn’t there yesterday. Did a 1 inch strand of hair suddenly sprout out of my chest overnight? Did something happen to this hair follicle that caused it to suddenly turn gray? I haven’t been under any particular stress for such a dramatic event to occur so the whole thing is deeply puzzling. It’s enough to make me want to start shaving my chest again. So anyway, I was discussing my gray hair with some friends over twitter, which led to the inevitable discussion over age. I started to ask if my friend Darkgracie understood why time seems to pass faster as we get older. She feels that it is a state of mind. That as we get older we are busier so perhaps don’t notice how fast time is passing by us. No doubt that this possibility is a contributing factor. However, what I truly believe causes this phenomena of the years passing by faster has to do with fractions. You see, as we get older, each year becomes a smaller fraction of our lives. A year in the life of a 40 year old is not as significant as a year in the life of an 8 year old. To an 8 year old, 1 year represents a relatively large portion of his life; whereas to a 40 year old it’s a much smaller fraction. The interval of time we are measuring is the same, but as a total portion of one’s life, it becomes less significant as the years go on. A 1 year interval to a child seems to be a huge amount of time, that’s because proportionally to their lives it is a large amount of time. As we age, each year is in proportion smaller amounts of your entire life which in turn makes the time seem to go faster. A 40 year old may have trouble remember which year something happened in since they tend to blend together after a while. One year ago for an 8 year old would seem like a very long time ago. At 40, you need to have many years pass before it seems like a long time ago. You can read other people’s theories about why this phenomenon occurs here. In a way I am glad I am doing the Vermont 100 miler instead of Ironman Lake Placid this year, just for the change of pace. As you start doing the same race over and over again, one year just begins to bleed into the next year. I was discussing this with my friend Larry who has streaked to 25 consecutive New York City Marathons. I asked him if he can remember something specific from each of the Marathons. He didn’t think he could; they all become the same after a while. Sure there were a few marathons at which he could remember specific things, but overall they all became the same. It begins to become like it was just yesterday when you were doing the previous year’s marathon. You are doing the same thing year after year only the number on the calendar has changed. I guess you can also think of it as life starts to become easier as you gain more experience. When you were a young child it would take you a while to read through a book when you were first starting to learn to read. As you get older and got more practice at reading, the pages would turn ever faster and faster. It is easier to pass the time as you get more experienced with age. It just slips by. Well, that is enough philosophy for one day. It is time for me to get out and do a run. I can’t miss days. Yes, one day in and of itself is insignificant, but they add up. July 19th will be here very soon. Before I know it, my first Vermont 100 Miler will have been several years ago. I know that too soon, I will be looking back at this event rather than looking forward to it. I want to look back at it knowing I made a good showing. In order to be able to have that piece of mind, I need to put in the work now while I still have the time. The day will be here soon enough.