Running in a World of Masters

The word "master" has many definitions. One of them is...

"one that conquers or masters."

In the world of running a master is anyone over the age of 35 who runs. Those who run races regularly know there are age groups, and some get pretty competitive. I have a friend in Chicago who will only enter a race he feels he can win his age group.

For the different age groups there are records at the national and international level. For instance in my current age group 45-49, the 100 meter dash record is 10.72 seconds. That is about one full second slower than the current world record held by Usain Bolt. In the marathon, 2:26:58 is the current record for a man 45-49, for a woman it's 2:30:51.

Yes, some of the old timers do pretty well. And just so you know you can do this as you get older here are the American marathon records for the 65-69 agree group: Men - 2:42:49, Women - 3:33:08. Those, no matter what you run, are pretty impressive times.

The good news as you get older is you stand more a chance of winning or placing in your age group. Who knows, by the time I am 90 I might have a world record in the marathon. I checked, it's around 6:58 for that group.

Today's New York Times has a feature on Kathy Martin, a masters runner, who is breaking all kinds of records for her age group. For once, this is a piece I really like, and it does a good job talking about masters running, and how you can achieve goals, even you start running later in life.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/02/sports/runner-kathy-martin-60-is-speeding-through-records.html?hp

I think the important thing to take from this post is that we can still be active, and we should be active as we get older. We can still accomplish things. While not all of us can set records, we can set goals, and work towards those.

Charlie