Still Racing After All These Years
Some people run for the exercise. Some run to lose weight. Some run for heart health. I mostly run to race. Yes, I enjoy the everyday runs around the neighborhood or on trails and I don’t even really mind the early morning runs in the dark or the winter cold. But what I really enjoy is racing. Whether it’s a 5k, 10k, or half-marathon, when I race I want to do well. (When I run marathons my goal is usually simply to finish because that is enough of a challenge at that distance!)
Running is an individual sport and there is great satisfaction in setting a new personal record or beating my last race time, but it’s really fun to beat other runners. When I was a younger man I wasn’t fast enough to compete for medals. But even though I was a middle-of-the-pack runner, I would try to find someone to compete against in each race. I’d pick out someone that was keeping the same pace or slightly faster than me and I’d try to keep up and then race to the finish with a big kick.
I recently found a newspaper clipping I’d kept from 1988 when a photographer from the local newspaper captured me sprinting to the finish line with another runner. I know I catch some runners off guard when about a hundred yards from the finish I say to them “Let’s do this” and then I take off. The picture shows me enjoying that final kick.
My race pace has certainly dropped off some over the last 40 years, but not as much as expected. That’s probably because I didn’t train for races years ago. I just went out and ran. As I got older I learned how to train for races and take them a little more seriously than I did in the past. So now I’m placing higher in my age group and often getting medals. At 64 years old I don’t have the same finishing kick speed I did at 34 but I guess it’s all relative. I still try to pick someone out and race them into the finish just to add a little excitement for the crowds.
After over 18 months of no racing due to an Achilles tendon injury I was back racing last weekend. It felt great to be with a crowd and pushing myself to see what condition I was in after that time off. The course was along Lake St. Clair which was a beautiful view but also meant heavy winds coming off the lake.
I didn’t have a time goal I mind, I just wanted to see how I would do. Although there wasn’t a large field I’m still pleased with a 2nd place finish in my age group and 45th of over 500 runners of all ages. Not bad for an old guy getting back into the race.
