Like a Fine Wine...

This past weekend I managed to take first place in my age division at the Las Vegas Susan Komen Race for the Cure. I managed an 18:53 finish -- 45 seconds better than my previous PR. I was still a few minutes (!) off the overall leaders, but I was pretty psyched since it's the first time I've placed in any of my races.

It was interesting timing since I had just turned 30 the week before and had bumped up into the 30-34 age group. It was a fact that wasn't overlooked by many of my friends, who gave me the ol' nudge-nudge, wink-wink and said, "It's not that bad getting older after all, is it?"

The easy answer, of course, is: "Sure!" After all, if I had still been in the 25-29 age group I would have placed exactly fourth (by all of eight seconds).

Of course it's not really true. The winner of the race was a 44-year-old with a fresh time of 15:54 (that's a 5:08 pace!). There was 40-year-old not too far behind at fourth. And while the 5k is a relatively shorter race where youth may still pay off to some extent, as you look at many of the distance runners in the world it's not college-age kids and it's certainly not anyone younger.

At the marathon distance, running great Haile Gebreselassie holds the record with a time of 2:03:59. He set that in 2008 at the age of 35. Paula Radcliffe may have been relatively young when she set the women's marathon with male pacers (29), but she set the "woman-only" record at 31. Matt Carpenter (pictured above) set the record for the brutal Leadville Trail 100 when he was 41. Scott Jurek set the U.S. 24-hour distance record at 36.

Or just take a look at the ages of the top finishers of the Badwater Ultramarathon last year: 30, 38, 35, 41, 41, 42, 36, 42, 46, 40.

Clearly, 30 isn't the end of the proverbial road when it comes to running.


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