Masters road 5K championships

I returned to the USATF masters championship 5K Atlanta last week after three and a half years. A lot has happened since then.

In 2019 I won my seventh individual US age group road championship with a 17:28 under withering heat and humidity, scored a 92.2% age grade which was 2nd place by just 1 second in the highly competitive overall age grade category. So that was my last really, really good race. Two months later I got injured, and then the pandemic hit, and I just haven’t yet returned to that level.

Now I’m into a new age group–with some mixed feelings about that. Umm Medicare, looming retirement, and Social Security. Officially a senior citizen. On n the other hand, I signed up enthusiastically hoping to run a way with a new title and to nab another high age grade award and some extra cash.

Build-up

I have had a pretty good post-Christmas block, with 9-10 weeks of consistent training. This year I have really enjoyed mixing in some more cross country skiing, getting out two or three times a week. The running workouts have been solid with a six week block of weekly threshold doubles, in addition to a number of ski workouts, plus five ski races from 7.5K to 32K.

At the end of January I shifted from the threshold emphasis to progression reps, and some CV, mixed in with a bit of speed work. So I went into Atlanta with a solid aerobic base and actually the faster stuff (sub 5:40 pace) felt more comfortable than 5K race pace efforts at +/-6:00 pace.

A 90% age grade is no given any more, not that it ever has been, and that is usually my standard for a great day. Turning 65 just a few days before Atlanta the calculator had 90% at 18:26. I felt fairly confident I could do that, and I was hoping for maybe a bit faster, like 18:10. American record holder Jacob Nur (17:00 last fall) did not enter this year (he won in 17:42 last year, beating all the 60-64 year old runners by 80 meters!), and I felt I could pull off a win. ATC’s Ken Youngers would be my biggest competition, and I knew he could give a good run for the win as well as age grade scoring.

The Race

The morning was dark, at a moderate 55 degrees and a breeze, with low slung clouds, barely topping downtown Atlanta’s taller buildings. It was kind of eerie, evoking a sort of Batman motif. My teammates and I arrived about 45 minutes ahead of the start, I think we should have jogged over instead of walking because after our uniform and bib check with the officials we barely had a half hour for the actual warm up. Considering that we got up way early (5AM for 7:30 start), I shouldn’t have been rushed to warm up. Lesson re-learned, get to the start an hour in advance.

Nevertheless, I got in about 16 or 18 minutes of running, plus stretching and some drill on the grass in Centennial Olympic Park. We, 250 masters men and women, crowded into the start area which as usual was too narrow for a competitive field that scores based on gun time, not chip time. I lined up about 3 or 4 back, a few meters from the timing pads and said best of luck to my teammates and other friends. We were packed in so tightly you could feel the body heat.

The horn blew and we were off! It took 3 seconds to cross (and at the end they round up, so that’s like having a 4 second penalty). Ken had been battling a bad back and indicated he was slated for surgery in a couple of weeks, but he’s a competitor and I knew he’d take it it our fairly fast. More surprisingly were the two 55+ year old women Michelle Rohl (recent American record in the indoor mile with a 5:16) and the feisty Fionna Bayly, who has a strange running style but she’s blazing fast as well as fearless. Both of these women took it out at sub 6 minute pace in last summer’s sweltering 12K championships on the Jersey Shore. And one or both ended up in the med tent and don’t think either finished.

They started the same way on Saturday, but conditions were much better. They hit the mile in under 5:40 (about the pace I did in 2019) and I was some 8 or 9 seconds back, just a step ahead of Ken and his one of his teammates.

The day before Ken had mentioned that John Glidewell (great name for an ace runner!) was entered and that he was really fast, supposedly running a 17:30 5K in a time trial in recent weeks, captured on Youtube. After the start I never saw him and looking up 20 seconds ahead, saw no dark blue back bibs, so I thought I might be in the age group lead.

I picked it up over the second mile which had the first uphill, but it was net downhill of about 45 feet. The pace felt fast and furious, and I’m not used to running a 5:43! 11:34 net time. But my breathing was good. I had to tell myself to relax several times when I started to press too hard. The second hill is just a blip. And then there a nice downhill, where I caught the fast-starting women. I was in a pack of about 8-10 runners but nobody wanted to give an inch so I just settled in for the long grind of the erstwhile final hill climbing some 50 feet over 0.2 of a mile (the 2018-19 course finished differently, with a nice 300 m of flat or downhill to the line). On this course, runners crest the hill, and drop for half a block before making a sharp right up Baker Street, a steep 100 m, and then left back onto Marietta, a block south from where we had started, for another block of gradual up. So instead of three hills and a downhill finish this course had four and uphill until the final 80 or so meters into the park.

Anyway, this was where I lapsed a bit. I got to the top of the hill (2.6 miles) in fairly good shape, but rather than turning on the burners, I just maintained until I got to 3 miles (17:42 I think it was). Most of that pack had broken up, but two of the guys had pulled a few seconds ahead, and another came charging past with just 0.2 to go. I turned it on, but maybe a little later than I could have, and crossed the line in 18:24 (chip)17:27 (gun) 17:28 (official–see what I mean!).

For about 15 minutes I had thought that I won the age group. The 60-64 winner said, who finished almost a minute ahead of me, said that there was a 65 year old in his pack until the very final stretch. So I have to settle for 2nd.

All said and done, I eked out the 90% age grade (based on chip time) and was 5th for the overall age grading, and our team got 2nd to match my age group placing. We thought we might win against the host Atlanta team, but they were deep, with four of their runners ahead of our second guy (one by just a 0.1 second).

So not quite what I wanted, or what we had hoped for as team but a pretty good haul.

The Atlanta course, especially this edition, is not particularly fast, with 147 feet of vertical. But it’s fair enough. John Glidewell’s 17:30 was outstanding, that’s what I ran in 2018 and 2019 to win the younger age group and place top three age graded. Glidewell’s 95.6% ran away with age grading by 4%! So now we have two 65+ year old runners (Glidewell is 66, Nur 68) who are among the best ever in the US, if not the world for the age group. So for me, winning an individual title this year or next (or in the next 5 years with so many fast runners just a year or two younger), might be a tall order.

That’s the goal however, to keep striving, training well, eating properly and being mentally prepared to take on the field.

After the race we ran about 2.5 miles of the course with the winning Atlanta team (wearing red in the center). After so many years on the circuit we have become friends, which makes the travel all the more fun and rewarding.