Old Guys Running Fast

As I approached 40 years old there were a 3 races I had on my to do list. All of them were mile races, all of them masters only. The first one was the Messenger Mile which I raced last month. The second was the Hartshorne Mile which I raced last weekend. The third is the McMullen Mile elite masters heat.

The Hartshorne is by far the most competitive of the 3, with the winning time often in the low 4:20’s. Saturday’s field was stacked with former Hartshorne champion Scott Weeks and national stand out Mark Williams along with 7 other masters runners from up and down the east coast. I was seeded 5th with a time of 4:38. I ended up finishing 5th but with a time of 4:41. Results.

The whole field ran a bit slower than their seed times, and I feel like I missed a great opportunity to place higher. You can see from the video below that after about 3 laps I lost focus for a bit and the front pack opened up a 5-6 second lead on me. I was able to close that gap to less than 2 seconds during the last lap but I can’t help but think I could have stolen 2nd or 3rd place had I only run a smarter race. Things happen so fast on the track and if you aren’t ready to respond you get left behind. For now I’m moving on to distance training with the Syracuse Half Marathon being my next goal race. I’ll have to sharpen up my speed after than to be ready for the McMullen Mile in June.

Some other notable performances from Hartshorne included great races from fellow Mid-Hudson Valley runners Marisa Strange and Jeff Conston. Marisa ran 5:20.26 which is a 94.55% age grade.