No Race for Old Men - 2

Once again, similar to this Post from a year ago, I find myself the slow man on our club’s most competitive, open relay team 

-  running with 3 much, much younger teammates.

  

I am haunted by the memory of my performance at last year's rely - dropping our team from 3rd to 7th place.  In addition, my interval sessions the past few weeks have been slow and painful. I grow irrationally anxious about my readiness for the relay.  On race morning, I plead with  several of the fast runners on the club's three other teams to trade places with me - but no one was willing.

And the odd twist is that there was a Master’s Division at this event.  But the Race Organizers apparently felt that guys over 45 are just too weak and too feeble to run the open relay distance of 4 x 7.2-kilometers -- the Master's race is a mere 4 x 2.4-kilometers.   Having old guys do a shorter distance than younger guys is counter to my theme in the earlier blog where I noted that old runners gravitated to longer and longer endurance events where we are relatively more competitive.  None of my older teammates want to bother with such a short distance race  (Even though arguably we should focus on speed and strength as we get older...)  

So my club only fielded Open Division teams and here I was nervously waiting for the hand-off.   

My team is in 12th place (out of some 241 teams) when I receive the sash (baton).   I sprint off but am immediately passed by a much younger runner.  And then another.  And I fear the nightmare is repeating itself.  













However over this longer 7.2-kilomter course (versus the ultra-short 2.9-kilometers at the Shibuya Ekiden), experience and endurance play more of a factor.  I work the winding downhills and stairs midway through the course and overtake two competitors.  


Ultimately I am able to hang on to the 12th place position I inherited, and even though I record the slowest time of the team's 4 runners, I am pleased to avoid letting the team down..