Old Man Still running

I wanted to get in an early Memorial Day run, but with an evening downpour, I knew the trails would be slick and I couldn’t risk twisting the bad ankle. So instead I discovered that Striders was putting on a half marathon up in Syracuse. That would be a nice tempo run and wouldn’t do any damage to the foot, so I got up early and made the drive up north. It had only been nine days since I ran Ogden Marathon and two days since I ran 23 miles on the Sapper Joe course. Oh well, I would give it a try. The course is out on country roads and a beautiful paved parkway trail near Great Salt Lake. The morning had cleared up nicely and the temperature was in the 50s. It looked like there were about 150 runners out for the event. Away we went and three runners shot out ahead along with a 12-year-old who I had heard at the start talking about running a 1:30. It wasn’t very long until he started falling back, he had only been dreaming. I was running in 5th place. I could see that two of the runners ahead were setting a blistering pace that couldn’t be matched by a runner in black. By mile two I had passed the kid and wasn’t very far behind the runner in black. But my main challenge started hit me right away as the calf muscles started to tighten up, still not recovered from the Ogden Marathon. My first three mile splits were: 6:30, 6:53, and 7:04. I knew that I would need to back off the pace. The calves just couldn’t handle 7-minute miles. Another runner caught up, passed me and the runner in black. For the next few miles I would play leap-frog with the runner in black who would slow down and then speed up when I would pass him. Soon the heat got to him and his hot black shirt came off. The course turned onto the Parkway trail and rolled along. Another runner passed me with a young runner in tow, but I quickly was able to re-pass the second runner and he fell behind. When we reached Antelope Drive, the underpass was flooded and we had to bound in a long pool of water over a foot deep, splashing me clear up to my waist. It was great fun and I didn’t mind having wet feet. The heavy shoes did slow me down a little but they quickly dried up. My splits (miles 4-7) to the turn-around were 7:25, 7:29, 7:28, 7:32, pretty consistent. At the turn-around I was in 5th place overall. The runner who used to be in black passed me again as we turned around and headed in the opposite direction on the parkway trail. I could now see the runners behind, the next runner was the first-place woman. I didn’t notice any old guys like me close behind. After another mile, the woman runner passed me, running strongly. I pushed harder, trying to stay close. It worked because I passed the runner who used to be in black for the last time. My next few splits (miles 8-10) were 7:26, 7:37, and 7:51. I was able to keep the first-place woman runner in sight and at times would gain on her quite a bit but then would fade. The tight calf muscles just wouldn’t let me push much harder. I didn’t want to risk a muscle strain, so just went as fast as the legs would allow. I looked behind and the next runner wasn’t too close. The final miles took us back to the park and then we did a big final mile loop and then finally headed on the final mile to the finish. I could see a runner behind gaining on me so I pushed much harder. I didn’t want to give up my hard-earned placement. My final mile splits (11-13) were 7:54, 7:49, and 7:18. I was pleased with the effort on that final mile. I was also pleased to see that I didn’t have any splits over 8 minutes. I crossed the finish line in 1:37:01. Not blazing fast, but a very good effort on this course that had no real downhills. I finished in 6th place overall and won my old-fart age group (50-59). Not bad. In fact if I was 20-29, I would have finished in second, in the young-buck age group. I had a good time talking to some runners including the first-place woman runner who finished a minute ahead of me, telling them about my crazy ultrarunning. I think without the sore calf muscles, I could have improved about three minutes. I received a first-place medal. It was a fun morning and a good workout.