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Downtown Temple,NH

Friday, July 23, 2010

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