Up Against a Wall of Boredom? We Can Work on That.

(By Richard Thompson For The Washington Post)

As long as you're not having shoulder woes, too, Lin recommends side plank leg lifts. Prop yourself on one side with your bent elbow and knee, and then raise the other leg, which should be straight to get the most benefit. To make it a bit trickier, try the pose with your foot instead of your knee. Advanced exercisers can kick it up one more notch by switching out their elbow for their hand.

And here's one more that may look silly but feels serious. Take a circular resistance band, or just tie a regular one into a small loop, and slip it around your ankles. "The trick is not to put your feet together, because then you lose the tension," Lin says. Then start shuffling in every which way to feel the burn in your inner and outer thighs and glutes.

Back in the day (okay, way back in the day) I was a pretty fair and fast runner. I kind of have a bug to find some kind of track team or events for folks my vintage (currently 44).

-- Rich

There's a term for folks like you in the running world. No, it's not "old fogy." It's "master," which encompasses anyone over the ripe age of 35. That includes Bob Platt, 56, the publisher of Race Packet (a magazine and Web site dedicated to running in the Washington area) and the Virginia rep of the Road Runners Club of America.

And he has plenty of ideas for bringing you back into the fold. But first, a warning: "People who are very competitive often can't stand the idea that they're not running as fast as they used to," says Platt, who has friends who've taken up other sports or events to lessen the blow. But he sticks with his longtime pastime. "Although we resent getting passed by young whippersnappers, we're doing the best we can," he says.

What's more, you can even get prizes for doing the best you can. There aren't many masters-only races, but virtually every 5K, marathon and everything in between nowadays offers age-group awards. Want to get a better sense of how you stack up against the overall winner? Plug your info into the tables created by World Masters Athletics to get your equivalent score if you were 20 years younger. And if you're more of a sprinter (or a javelin thrower or long jumper), the Potomac Valley Track Club organizes tons of meets at Langley High School in McLean over the summer that are open to all ages.

As for finding a team to join, that's the easy part. While masters-only teams are theoretically rare, most runners tend to be in their late 30s or 40s. Platt, a member of the D.C. Road Runners, says they're constantly brainstorming for ways to get 20-somethings more interested in old-fashioned jogging. In your age bracket, with many running clubs, you may even feel like a whippersnapper yourself.