So unhappy are we with the idea of being old that the word itself has taken on a poisonous air. Yet age has its distinct and unique delights, especially for those engaged in competitive sports. PNS correspondent Eve Pell is the number one ranked woman road runner over 60 in the United States, and writes a regular column on veteran athletes for Pacific New Service. Read a response to this article from a Jinn reader.

SAN FRANCISCO-- I want to rehabilitate a word, one that has become so toxic it bends the rules of grammar.

The word is "old." "Old" hasn't always been so offensive -- St. Nick is "a jolly old elf" and vibrant, "old wine" tastes deeply delicious, "an old head on young shoulders" implies wisdom. But call someone old today, and that person may feel deeply insulted.

In elementary school, we learned that adjectives had comparative and superlative forms. Something large was "big." If it was larger than another object, it was "bigger," and the largest of all was "biggest."

But "old" twists that logical progression. The palatable method of referring to someone who has lived a long time is not to call them old, but to refer to them as an "older" woman, or an "older" man. By some alchemy, this makes them seem a little younger. "Older" should involve greater age than "old." But "old" has become a dirty word. It conjures up undesirable, lonely, useless, disposable.

I would like to see "old" restored to respectability, both for myself and for our society.

Now that I am mere months away from being eligible to receive Social Security, the issue of age arises quite often. And when I tell friends I'm writing a column about old people in competitive sports, there is usually a short silence. "Old people in sports??" they ask, puzzled frowns wrinkling their faces, as though I have just tracked a little mud into their parlors.

Then I smile brightly and tap-dance my way through tales about senior athletics. I talk about the international World Veteran's Games and the Senior Olympics, where there is a smorgasbord of age-group competitions including the 100-yard dash for men over 90 and the pole vault for women over 70, rowing races, and basketball tournaments, in which elderly people compete with zeal.

Once my friends register interest, I tell them about the California woman who took up race walking at 83 and has since won many medals in international competitions. They are not accustomed to the idea that old age may bring rewards, adventures, passionate interests.

Somehow, these conversations render the idea of aging less toxic. We better get used to it. A baby boomer turns 50 in the U.S. every seven seconds. Stories about the graying of America are everywhere. But very few people on the sunny side of 90 want to be called "old." Affluent moviegoers eligible for senior discounts happily pay full price rather than disclose their ages. "I'd pay $20 more to get in and not have to tell my age," one man told me recently.

The struggle to look young takes many forms. To watch the impeachment proceedings in Congress is to be assaulted by straggly comb-overs, bad dye jobs and ill-designed hairpieces sported by legislators trying to disguise advancing years. (In fact, I have fantasies of installing powerful vacuum cleaners in the ceilings of the House and Senate, then turning them on and watching wigs and elaborate weaves fly upward to reveal shiny scalps.) It made me sad to see Bob Dole's wise, wry, lined face stretched by plastic surgery into a bland grimace. How often one sees people trying to camouflage age by sporting fashions designed for youthful bodies. "Mutton dressed as lamb," as my Australian friends put it.

In one arena, however, old men and women don't try to pretend they are spring chickens. This is the world of senior athletics. Here, there are rewards for aging -- when a birthday puts an athlete into an older age group, it means competing against rivals who have slowed down. A 60-year-old competing against those 60-64, or the 70-year-old competing against those 70-79, has more chance for success in the first years of the new bracket.

There is vanity among senior athletes, but it is based upon marathon times, hurdles leapt, triathlons completed -- accomplishments that can't be faked. As in any field, there are stars, but those who participate are valued, too, just because they are there.

There is something comforting about a world where my age, 61, is neither a secret nor a demerit. The rewards have been huge. Besides the health benefits of staying active, I have been a national running champion, and earned a place in an interesting, vibrant, subculture. Yes, my waist grows thicker, my cheeks sag, and the lines from my nose to my mouth get more deeply incised. Yes, my vanity suffers. My racing times are slower. My friends are starting to die. I forget things.

But that's what it's like to be old. In a society where wisdom meant as much as being cool, where experience was as valued as novelty, maybe people wouldn't feel so scared of aging. I hope that, with the graying of America, our generation can add positive associations like seasoning, maturity and experience to the word "old." Those of us who have arrived at this honorable period of life after decades of living should not be frightened to admit who and what we are.