Peak

peak
verb, intransitive. To reach a highest point, either of a specified value or at a specified time. Archaic: to decline in health and spirits or to waste away.
Also a noun and an adjective.

Erin heard a murmur from the front desk and turned to see who it was. Joe Baker, the elderly founder of the small recording company who used her company to print CD inserts and booklets, was talking to Christine as he handed her a packet of papers. For the first time, Erin noticed that he was leaning on a cane. “When did that start?” she wondered.

Joe turned toward the front door, then stopped and returned to the desk to add to what he had already told Christine. When he finally left, Erin rolled her chair back so that she could watch his progress. He had a limp and definitely needed the cane. He was leaning on it, after positioning it cautiously. She watched him negotiate the sidewalk back to his car, then she got up and approached Christine, who was scribbling notes to attach to the papers Joe had handed her.

“Want me to write that up?” Erin asked her.

“No need. They’re returned proofs.” She sneered at the packet as she paperclipped her note to it. “There are a lot of changes.” She handed Erin the papers and looked back at her monitor.

“I’ve never seen Joe use a cane before,” she said before looking at the proofs. “Did he have an accident?”

“No. I guess his old football injuries are catching up to him,” Christine answered.

“That’s right,” Erin tilted her head in thought. “He was a big deal when he played for the university, wasn’t he?”

Christine nodded. “I don’t recommend that you ask him about that, not unless you’ve got at least half an hour to spend listening to the answer.” Her sour expression told Erin that Christine had made that mistake once and was not planning to do so again.

“That’s sad,” Erin said after a moment, staring out the window as she thought.

“No it isn’t,” Christine spat, surprising Erin with her vehemence.

“Yeah, I think it is,” Erin returned. “He peaked before he turned twenty-three.”

Definitions adapted from The New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005 (eBook Edition, copyright 2008), and from Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, 1965, depending on which is more convenient to hand.