... good!
Coming on the heels of my dismal performance at the San Diego Rock-n-Roll marathon a couple of weeks ago (about 45 minutes off from my training pace... and about an hour off from the guys I trained with!), I decided to work on shorter distances for a while.
(That's me, btw, #9807 at the SD Marathon.) Anyway, I needed a quick personal success following my 4:53 finish. So last Sunday I ran a 5K race in Downtown Anaheim.
The 5K pick-me-up helped. It took me a bit out of my funk with a personal record, showing up at the finish with a 7:17 per mile pace for a 22:35 finish. Oh, don't get me wrong, I had no illusions about winning the race for my age group. I just wanted a personal success. And I got it.
But here's what's so cool, the guy that won in the 45-49 age group (yes, I am of that age group... WHAT OF IT?!) got it in 17:09. That's a cool 5:32 per mile pace. Just to show the range for the gray-templed Top 10: the guy in 10th place finished in 20:46 for a 6:42 pace.
Now, I'm not Lance Armstrong, but I consider myself in decent shape for my age. But here's the coolest part, in the 60-64 age category (Males), the top 5 finishers did so in a time comparable to my finish time. Look up times for the 75-99 age category and we find the top finishers did it with with per mile paces in the 8:30 range. That's great even for many folks in the under 20 age set and shows that, for those who put in the work, there's lots more miles ahead and lots of elbow room for personal/physical improvement.
