"Old Guy on Your Left!"

That's not really what I said during the Frostbite 5-K, but it's what I felt like saying as I passed literally scores of younger runners on that first massive hill.  It was a gorgeous day, temperatures up in the 50s, and cloudless skies.  And the course is equally gorgeous, climbing almost immediately from the Lelia Patterson Center in Fletcher up one hill after another.  Frisky horses galloped alongside us on that first hill, snorting and stamping in excitement.  I did feel especially good today! - no longer bothered by the lingering effects of the marathon two months ago, or cramped by that circle of tight muscles in my lower right leg.  So perhaps the visits to the gym, the continual stretching, and (the remedy every runner dreads) rest have done some good.

I love to run races, short or long, and it was in the back of my mind that this race was 23.1 miles shorter than my last one so I could afford to push the pace a little more despite the hills.  My senses seemed heightened as I wander through the crowd of gathering runners, hearing snatches of conversation, watching runners warm up.  We line up and listen to the national anthem, and it reminds me of so many races that I have run before.  The excitement is the same whether it is a marathon of a 5-K.

I am usually not very competitive, but this time I noted how many arrogant young teenaged boys were joking about getting "chicked" (passed by a "girl"), a supposed indignity which I no longer pay much attention to.  The first two finishers passed us on the way downhill (it was an out-and-back course, circling around a traffic cone), and the third finisher was not far behind, a lovely young woman with long, flying blond hair.  So I figure every man and boy in that race, except No. 1 and No. 2, got deservedly "chicked."  And it was entirely satisfying for an almost-65-year-old runner like me to pass so many younger runners on that hill, the teenagers and youngsters in their 20s and 30s.  Of course, I have been training on Big Bearpen!  My secret weapon.  I would come up behind one of these young studs, holding back for just a second to gather a burst of speed, and then absolutely blow past them as they glanced over to their left and saw this old guy with thinning hair putting them away!  I shouldn't take so much delight in such little things.

Not bad for an old guy, though - second place in my age group (out of four), and only 59th place out of  280 runners.  All the really fast old guys must have been running the 10-K.