You know you're 50 when......

I celebrated my 50th birthday this week feeling like an aged cripple.

Just 48 hours earlier I had finished the Eastbourne Half Marathon in a relatively comfortable two hours, but the following morning my body was aching as if it had gone 12 rounds with one of those WWE wrestlers. My legs ached, my body was a little delicate but it was my feet which were giving me a lot of pain.

The soles of my feet were red raw and throbbing. You know how when you've stood in the freezing cold and as your icy feet warm up once you've found warmth you can feel every bone in your foot as you walk? That is exactly how my feet were suffering in the days following the race.

In truth the aches and pains weren't down to fitness, rather the minimalist shoes which I had been running in - and it was my fault, not the shoe.

For the half marathon I didn't adjust the way that I ran the race, since I was pacing at a slow speed and relatively relaxed. I got lazy and I suffered the consequences. Think about it, for 13 miles and with two hours of running, with very little cushioning to the feet, it was a bit like slapping a piece of raw red meat against a butcher's counter. You are going to suffer if you don't run properly - and I paid the price.

Come Wednesday evening and the seafront speed training session, I took it very gingerly and delicately with the six x 800m repetitions, even resorting to wearing my favoured Asics with their sumptuous cushioning just to give my feet some respite.

This weekend, another long run beckons ahead of the Mizuno Evo finale next Sunday and the Reading Half Marathon when all the Evo testers will gather to run in our multi-coloured minimalist shoes.

As for the birthday, well the signs of old age and senility crept in immediately when I mislaid my work mobile phone only to discover it the following day lying under the sofa!

The biggest disappointment of my birthday was going to the Belgian Cafe, my favourite restaurant in Eastbourne, for a slap-up meal where they had run out of waffles for the mouth-watering treat of Belgian waffles with hot chocolate sauce and Chantilly cream. What a huge disappointment!

But as a 50-year-old, I move into a new running age category as a Vet 50 and with that you set new goals and fresh targets. Running makes me feel young, maintains the vitality in my life, keeps me healthy and provides both a mental and physical stability. Age is but a number, just deal with it.

By way of entertainment after the waffle disappointment, I decided to Google the words "you know you're 50 when...."

There are loads of witty and pretty American offerings, but here is the best of a bad bunch which I used as a mental 50th birthday checklist: (how many of them do you recognise in yourself?):

You know you're 50 when:

1. Your back goes out more than you do.
2. You're proud of your lawn mower.
3. The twinkle in your eye is only the reflection in your bifocals
4. Your ears are hairier than you head.
5. You've stopped holding in your stomach no matter who walks into the room.
6. The clothes you have put away until they come back in style....have come back in style..
7. You keep repeating yourself.
8. You keep repeating yourself.
9. You hear your favourite song in the lift and sing along.
10. Pizza Hut and a movie is the whole date, instead of the start of one.
11. You keep more food in the fridge freezer than beer.
12. You have to double pump to get out of the car, instead of making it in one straight movement.
13. You occasionally have to find that extra hole in your belt.
14.. At restaurants you can't read the menu as your eyes are shot, you can't hear the specials as your ears are going and you couldn't remember then even if you could hear them in the first place.
15. You mistakenly go to movies you're already seen before.
16. It takes you three attempts to call your own children their correct names.
17. You begin to lie not only about your own age but the children's as well.
18. You see a withered old codger pass you on the street and realise he was one year ahead of you in school.
19. The content of your mail changes with more brochures for Saga holidays and funeral plans with Michael Parkinson's face on the envelope offering you a free pen if you act now.
20. You make grunting noises when you put on your socks and pants.
21. The Victor Meldrew syndrome kicks in with the first signs of grumpiness as you tell the little bleeder delivering your newspaper to not step on the lawn.
22. You fall asleep at parties rather than passing out.
23. You switch from tasting exotic drinks like "Sex on the Beach" to anything with a prune garnish.
24. Sex after 50 is the shortest chapter in the book.
25. You look forward to a dull evening.
26. Your hot flushes set off the smoke alarm.
27. Your best friend is dating someone half their age and isn't breaking any law.
28. People call on the phone at 9pm and ask "did I wake you?".
29. Your childhood toys are now in a museum.
30. Your joints are more accurate than the Met Office.
31. Getting a little action means you don't need to take a laxatice.
32. Your memory is shorter and your complaining in longer.
33. You write down a name with a telephone number and when you look at it again you don't have a clue who it is.
34. Your brain makes contracts your body can't honour.
35. You're the one calling the police because the kids next door don't know how to turn down the music.
36. Your "get up and go" got up and went.
37. Your wardrobe includes Hawaiian shirts, shorts, sandals and black socks.
38. You enjoy hearing about other people's operations.
39. You take a metal detector to the beach.
40. You stop half way up the stairs and can't remember if you were coming up or coming down.
41. At the breakfast table you hear snap, crackle and pop, and it's not your cereal.
42. You turn the lights out for economic reasons rather than romantic reasons.
43. You wake up in the morning looking like your passport picture.
44. An all-nighter means not getting up to go for a pee in the bathroom.
45. You sink your teeth into a steak and stay there.
46. You look for your reading glasses for half an hour and realise they were on your head the whole time.
47. You know where your prostate is.
48. You look both ways before crossing a room.
49. You light the candles on your birthday cake when a group of campers form a circle and start singing "Kumbaya".
and  50: You've seen it all, done it all - and can't remember any of it!!