Commentary: This year, run your age. Or something else so big it scares you

For the past several years, I’ve mostly belonged to a common American species: the broken middle-aged runner. One day recently, though, after a pandemic’s worth of physical therapy and training, I ran 51 miles at the age of 51. Till then, the longest I’d ever run was half that distance. The race’s starting gun sounded before the sun rose, and I ran all day through the sagebrush and flinty hills of central Oregon’s high