Personal Running Records As I Age

When I resumed running in earnest in 2007 after a thirty-year layoff from the activity, I was fifty years old.  In the seven years between then and now there have been two opposing processes at work regarding "personal records", as they pertained to my best running times for particular distances.  Since my earlier running "records" back in the 1970s were mainly about shorter distances like the quarter mile, mile, and two-mile race, those personal marks still stand and haven't been approached in recent years.  But for the distances I have now embraced, such as 5K, 10K, 15K, half-marathon, and full marathon, I have been working on personal record times for them (especially for the longer distances).  And the first of the aforementioned processes, which is the positive effect of my training and increased fitness and endurance, has given me a good sense of progress with those records.  The main event I'm focused on now, which is the 13.1 mile half-marathon, has my personal record time at 1 hour, 50 minutes, 53 seconds...which I ran in early March, 2013 in a race in Tavares, Florida (a few miles north of Orlando) when I was 56.  Since then, due in large part to plantar fasciitis in my right foot (drastically alleviated through more adequate running shoes) and an adverse employment shift change that has upset my sleeping patterns, my general endurance and running fitness had a setback...but in recent months I have been making a comeback.  My endurance is increasing as well as my speed for the longer distances.  But it is now here, as I just turned 58 and am getting no younger, that the second process is starting to kick in: I am aging and, as this happens, new personal records will be harder and harder to come by until, finally...regardless how fit and trained I am for my age, my best times will be a thing of the past and they will gradually decline.  So while personal records are always a good thing to pursue, I need to be realistic and run for other reasons...