One would think that as long as I have been in this sport, that the opportunities to experience new things would occur less and less often.  Well, I had a new experience today.

The Lincoln Track Club does a great job putting on local events, supporting the community, and really just being a great organization (among many) that are grassroots here in Lincoln.  Out of the race series that they put on, the Lincoln Mile is one of my favorites.  It is just completely different from anything else around.  Outside the high school and college kids, no one around here trains for a single mile.  It is all just guts, hard running, and fun.  Really, the damn race is over before you know it.  Yeah, it hurts for a few minutes, but whatevs. Add in a new course due to construction on Memorial Stadium this year and we were ready to roll.

One of the unique features of this race is that you run in heats of similar age groups. So rather than everyone running together, you get to race people your age and gender.  They start with the Masters+ runners and work their way down to 10 and under. At the end they have “elite” heats of women and men.  I have found myself in the elite heat most years since 2001.  Some of my competitors today were 6 when I first started this race.  Therein lies the new experience.  I was the old man of the race.  The next youngest runner was 25 (I am 31, close to 32). I admittedly felt a bit out of my league, which rarely happens.  I also made the mistake of joking around a bit too much about my age and how I was feeling (listen closely at any start line and you will hear a litany of excuses, self-deprecating comments, and general sand bagging).

But the thing I pride myself on is competing as hard as I can in any given race, or running what I can in a workout.  All things considered; life, kids, work, injury the only thing you can do is do what you can do on a particular day.  Pre-race my goal was to run hard and come as close to 4:50 as I could, and run hard.  Accomplished both.