One of my favorite stories to tell finds a young boy making a request of his father because his father makes a request of him.

The father wants his son, who has clearly expressed an aversion for vegetables, to eat the ones presently on his plate. To goad him into doing so, the dad says what parents often say: that in many areas of the world food is not nearly as plentiful as it is here; that in those areas the children are grateful for any form of food, even “gross” vegetables; and that in Africa, in fact, children are actually starving to death.

So the young boy asks his dad to name just one of those children.

Incensed, the dad sends his son to his room for being a snot-nosed smart aleck. But even if he is “alecky” — and has a nose full of snot — he is certainly something else: smart.

The young boy knows that any personal connection to a story makes it more powerful.

That’s why I share stories about myself. Through this column, you “know me.” As a result, reading about my success with a diet plan or struggle with an exercise program is more likely to affect on you than reading about what occurred to 42 reasonably healthy, middle-aged male subjects doing god knows what at the University of God Knows Where.

Especially if the story suggests a way to accomplish something that you’re interested in doing. Like turning back the hands of time.

To explain how I have accomplished that (at least to some degree) we need to go back to the last Saturday in April of 2009. At the end of a highly regarded bicycle race where it was clear I would win, the tire came off the rim of the back wheel through a fast, off-cambered turn.

Instead of getting a win, I got a J-fracture nearly the full length of my left femur.

It took until August of 2011, but after winning four races in a row, including the Pennsylvania time trial championship, I felt I had finally and fully recovered.

But in early November of 2011, a buddy foolishly crashed on a training ride, and I couldn’t avoid riding over him. I crashed also and it was clear that I had broken my collarbone.

What wasn’t as clear was that I fractured my pelvis, and because I have a rather high threshold for pain, I rode on it for three weeks. After five weeks of rather sedate rehab, I did the typical group ride I had been doing before the crash and got the surprise of my life.

In five weeks, it felt as if I had aged 10 years.

But hard work had never failed me before, so I simply checked my training log from the previous winter and rode longer and harder. In another five weeks, however, I wasn’t back to normal.

It felt as if I had aged 10 years more.

Something was horribly, horribly wrong. When I told a training buddy, he said, “What do you expect? You’re not a kid anymore.”

Until that time, I don’t think I had given how my age would affect my training any serious thought. But now after years of training with and getting the better of countless “kids” on countless rides, I was suddenly keeping pace with the “old guys” who could be their fathers.

Worse, I was struggling to find that good-to-be-alive feeling that accompanied so many of my bicycling and weightlifting workouts. It was that feeling, more so than my prior level of performance, that I so desperately wanted to regain.

I started reading books and articles on how athletes over 50 need to train differently than they had done so before. I made a number of adjustments, but could only find that good-to-be-alive feeling again for brief spells.

Too often throughout the day, I felt old and that feeling adversely affected me. While it didn’t keep me from working out or fully living life, it did sap a good deal of joy out of both.

But I feel joyous again because I feel better than I’ve felt in a long time. On some rides, it even seems as if I’ve managed to turn back the hands of time.

Now let me be clear here. I’m not claiming that I can ride as fast or as far as I did in my prime. I’m not contending that all of a sudden I regained a good deal of strength in the weight room.

What I am asserting is that waking up at 4:15 a.m. to work out feels “right” again, that there’s a hop in my step instead of a hobble after most workouts, that I’m feeling tired when I’m supposed to — as the day winds down — not in the middle of maintenance workouts.

Read about what I believe has been so vital in creating this change next week.