Birthdays, Baseball, and the Beauty of Movement
On Growing Older without Growing Old and Rediscovering Play through Endurance Sport
I turned 29 last week. While I still have another year until the big 3-0, every revolution around the sun offers a special opportunity for reflection—to consider our mortality, refine our values, and process our existential crises.
I often consider myself a kid. Society tells us we’re adults at 18, but I didn’t know what the hell I was doing eleven years ago. I don’t know now. There’s a good chance I won’t know eleven years from now when I turn…40. Damn.
My active lifestyle, and the fact I can spend 20+ hours per week outside, makes me feel young. Swimming, biking, and running may now be for the specific purpose of developing Ironman fitness, but training brings out youthful energy and makes me feel like a boy again—I’m playing. And Boulder, at the foothill of the Rockies, is an outdoor playground, filled with world-class athletes (professional players).
70% of children stop playing sports by age 13. As a lifelong athlete, that saddens me, but I get it. I was cut from my 7th grade baseball team and vividly remember crying behind the backyard shed of my childhood home. I felt like a failure, at 12 years old. I also remember my mom being there to console me. With her encouragement, and a lot of hard work, I made the team the next year.
In high school, I made varsity baseball junior and senior year, but rode the bench and became resentful of friends who got playing time over me. I despised my coach and began to hate the sport as a whole. I redeemed myself at Penn State—making the club travel team, starting as a freshman, hitting a home run in my first at-bat, and helping my squad make it to the NCBA World Series.
The following year, after I pledged my allegiance to Sigma Chi and split time with my fraternity brothers, I was asked to play for the less-competitive division II team. With my ego hurt and heart no longer in it, I walked away from the game and hung up my cleats, finally giving up on my lifelong dream of replacing Derek Jeter as shortstop for the New York Yankees.
For years, I didn’t watch baseball. It brought back too many bad memories. Even now, I have a tough time watching the game. Last week, after swimming at Oro Valley Aquatic Center, I caught an out of a little league game at the nearby field. The boy at-bat walked, stole second and third on passed balls, and scored on an error. The coach of the defensive team yelled and the kids were visibly defeated.
Just observing, my stomach was in knots—the same feeling I felt when I stepped out onto the diamond in those last few years of my competitive baseball career. Crippled by the yips. Pressure. Expectations. College athletic scholarships. A sport I dreamed about and played for pure enjoyment transformed into something that I loathed and defined me.
After baseball, I went all in on weightlifting, something I had been doing since I was 14, thanks to my brother Eric and Tony Horton, the creator of P90X. In college, I followed Julian Smith’s “Daily Pump” bodybuilding workouts, spent my weekends in the gym instead of the bar, drank BCAAs and protein shakes instead of Crown Russe and Natty Light, and committed to getting as ripped as possible.
I felt safe in the gym. Just me, music, and heavy weights. I had the goal of stepping on stage and competing in a physique competition, but after learning more about Ironman triathlon from my Kinesiology professor in my final semester at Penn State, endurance was calling me. Swimming, biking, and running gave me solitude, space to think, and a way to push my mind and body without inhibitions, just for me.
The medium, the sport, is now different, but triathlon allows me to feel like a kid again, even as I age. Doing something purely for the love of it. For self-expression. How can you not feel energetic when riding your bike outside under the sun with your friends?
2025 will be my fifth season racing triathlon. While I achieved my multi-year goal of competing in the Ironman World Championship in October, I still want to progress in the sport. It may not mean turning pro, although that’s on the back of my mind, but I love the training, daily commitment to the craft, and reconnection with my inner child. It’s fun and I want it to stay that way.
Earlier this month, my girlfriend
and I were out in Tucson for her company’s inaugural Arizona Monster 300 foot race. On April 7, I celebrated my birthday by climbing Mount Lemmon on my bike, which I did last year on my special day too. I guess it’s becoming somewhat of a tradition.Before beginning my ride, we met a friendly older couple from Boulder who also planned to hit Lemmon. The man mentioned it was his mom’s birthday too and wished me “joyful suffering and existential angst.” Thanks…?
Candice crewed and met me at points along the route with food, water, and smiles. We met in Summerhaven and pushed to the observatory at the summit together—her on two feet, me on two wheels. My heart rate was elevated on the descent. It may have had something to do with the plate-sized treat from the Cookie Cabin. It may have had something to do with descending switchbacks at 35 mph. Either way, I felt free.
Later that day, we refueled at a Brazilian steakhouse and devoured an 8-inch Dairy Queen ice cream cake, the one with chocolate crunchies, honoring my family’s birthday tradition.
In my last post, 29 lessons for my 29th year, I shared that, “You don’t stop laughing when you grow old. You grow old when you stop laughing.” Attractive people are comfortable in their own skin, know where they’re going, and have fun getting there. While laughing is part of the equation, so is play. You grow old when you stop playing. The secret of life is to enjoy the passage of time.
In schools, children have recess—a scheduled break during the day for students to rest from classroom instruction, socialize, and engage in physical activity. The play period promotes physical health, enhances cognitive function, reduces stress, improves academic achievement, develops social skills, and boosts creativity. Why wouldn’t we want those same benefits as adults?
You don’t have to take a day to climb a mountain, but how can you take even 30 minutes out of your day to play today? What’s something that sounds fun to you?
Drop it in a comment below.
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