Last week’s 15k had been almost magical in shifting my attitude and didn’t know if I could re-create the magic. So, I had some doubts about this race: didn’t get enough sleep the night before; and wasn’t sure I had trained enough to run 20k (12.4 miles) — farther than the 9.3 miles of last week’s race and a 10-mile workout of a month ago.
Arrived at the elementary school parking lot a solid 40 minutes before race time — checked in (using the same bib as last week’s “Boston Buildup” race), found the men’s room (even the faculty had child-height toilets!), and ran a couple of blocks. That got me warm enough to take off a layer and meet up with high school and college friend Greg Donat (who took up running races only a few years ago and made the cut for Boston this year). I had politely declined to warm up with him — I am not running a marathon and don’t need 2 extra miles before and after a race!
This was such a low-key affair that they didn’t have an airhorn or anything — the crowd simply surged forward, and someone near me said, “Have we started?” Coach Steve had suggested that based on my 8:12 pace from last week I’d average 8:25 today. Frankly, I was relieved that Greg planned to run a 9:30 pace so I didn’t have to worry about keeping up with him.
Right away, I got into enjoying the motion and the effort and the thrill of pushing — enough to continually feel that I was moving FORWARD, resisting the lag, enjoying the uphills (wow, these marathoners don’t seem to slow down at the hills!), LOVING the downhills. Only looked at the watch to make sure it was clicking off some mileage — whoops, that first mile was a 7:40, but it felt fine, not rushed. Kept checking in: the left knee started aching but then stopped, this pace is sustainable, each mile marker was spray-painted in purple on the road so I didn’t have to check my time.
Saw a guy around my age looking at his watch and I thought, “what are you checking for? You already qualified for Boston!” Chatted with a woman in her 30s dressed in yellow jacket, and she said, “that woman ahead of us in black? She’s at every race I’m in and she’s always ahead of me until the very end.” Woman in yellow surges ahead, I catch up to the woman in black, and tell her about my conversation; she replies, “Oh, please, I’m twice her age!” Later, I say, “Finally! another uphill!” to a fellow age grouper, with short gray beard and built like he’d been a tremendous athlete when he was younger, and he just laughs.
And then the downhills are so continuous, I can’t believe it; my quads are aching but I’m feeling fine. I turn to a guy with gray hair and say, “is there an uphill coming? Do you know?” He ignores me! Either he’s an asshole or he’s digging deep or he’s just deadly serious and that’s what got him into qualifying for Boston. After the race ends, he came up to me and said, “I couldn’t hear what you were saying.” He’s partly deaf and reads lips!
And, lo, another result better than expected: 1:44:38, or an 8:05 minute/mile pace. My only goal with this crowd was to be in the 50th percentile, so 6/11 AG (60-69 years), 75/190 OA was fine.
After cheering on Greg’s finish, he agreed (while we tacked on another 1/2 mile) that running can be pretty joyful. And going inside the school cafeteria to stretch, I bumped into the woman in black, and the guy with the gray beard, and a third runner in her 60s. They all had changed into warm dry clothes and were chatting and asked me, “So, see you in three weeks?” at the final, 25k race in the series.
I don’t know if I’ll do another, longer training race. But it’s a nice bunch of people, dedicated to running, and it’s nice to tune into each mile as its own celebration that culminates in a Finish Line.
