I’m Too Old for the Big Races
Small crowds are my comfort zone
Brian Rock is currently writing a series of articles that address age grading and the comparison of performances between different ages at the marathon distance. As he gathers his data, he is making a point of including results from small regional marathons as well as the super huge fields of marathons such as New York and Chicago. I like that he is including the smaller races because I think older runners are more likely to run the smaller races than deal with the hoopla of major marathons. Let me explain.
As an older runner, 67 years old to be exact, I tend to shy away from the super huge fields of the big city marathons. Although I have run several marathons in the past, I now concentrate on shorter distances where the number of participants tends to be in the hundreds rather than the thousands. The biggest event in my future is next year’s National Senior Games where I plan to run the 5K and 10K road races.
I haven’t always felt that way. As a younger man, I ran the Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta several times. The Peachtree is a 10K with a field of 55,000 runners. I’ve also run the Marine Corps Marathon with over 20,000 entrants. Those races were fun, and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. But as an older guy, I’m not drawn to those types of races anymore.
