Ultimate Runner, Ultimate Consistency

Near the finish of the 5k...painful.

Wednesday night was our annual Ultimate Runner night at track (results). Our club puts on a age and gender graded competition during the break between spring and fall outdoor track sessions. The competition consists of running a 400m, 800m, 1 mile and 5k race all in one night. On paper it seems kind of fun, in reality it's much harder than it looks. I wrote about Ultimate Runner in more detail last year if you're interested
Once again temps were in the low 90's and sunny (sound familiar?). Have I mentioned this is my least favorite weather to run in? Probably. Anyways, nothing outstanding to write about this year. I took it easy (relatively speaking) in the shorter events, hoping to have a decent 5k. Long story short, I got a stomach cramp shortly after the 1st mile in the 5k and really struggled just to finish. Not sure if it was heat related or not. Legs were fine.

So, not a great night but I'm glad I did it anyways. Lots of fast masters out there! I thought the interesting part was comparing my times from last year to this year. Almost scary consistent, which at my age I should be grateful for!

	2009	2010
	Actual	Actual
400m	01:07	01:08
800m	02:31	02:32
1M	05:34	05:27
5k	19:06	19:08
	2009	2010
	Age Graded	Age Graded
400m	01:00	01:00
800m	02:16	02:16
1M	05:05	04:57
5k	17:44	17:37

Last year I finished 5th overall, this year I finished 4th. In three more years I should win this thing!

Photo credit - Jim Rhoades from Coolrunning