While on my run this morning, I ran into a former club-mate who told me that a record I had held while a member of the Longboat Roadrunners was nearly broken the other day. The record was for a track mile. I didn’t remember having set a record for this event. So I checked the Longboat website.

I sometimes check the Longboat website to see what times I once ran as my memory of that is getting fuzzy. So I looked at the records and saw that a road mile I once ran in Buffalo, NY was credited as being a track mile.  This race took place 12 years ago.That mile, as I remember, was run on a road and park paths and had a hairpin turnaround point.  I like to think that a track mile would have been faster, tangents and all and with the important advantage of being able to gauge one’s pace per each 400 meter.

Like many keen masters athletes, I am somewhat fixated on measuring my performance on the World Masters Association (WMA) Age-Graded tables. Having recently run a 1500 meter track race, I wondered how my metric mile compared to that road mile. Here is the result for my run at the Ontario Masters Track and Field Championships earlier this month. My time was a very respectable 85.87%.

W55 1500 Meter Run Sat 1:30pm
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Name Age Team Finals Age-Grading
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1 Lynn Deutscher Kobayashi W57 UTTC 5:53.60 4:30.72 85.87%

My mile time scores a 82.19% which is equivalent to a 5:06 miles.  At age 30 or so, I ran a 5:04 but in the 1500. My first race ever was a marathon and I’ve always had that as my main focus. Translating my current 1500 meter score to an open time gives me a 4:53 for the mile and an open time of 4:30.72 for the metric mile.  Hey, I broke 5 minutes for the mile. I’m getting slower but actually I am getting faster. This is how we aging runners cheer ourselves up!!

This is what I looked like when I was hypothetically breaking 5 minutes in the mile.

But my own personal reverie aside, I will contact my friend and tell her that whoever it was that nearly broke my record, actually has the record as my time is ineligible.  And congrats to her! I have a feeling that she did not look in quite as much pain as I was here.

Ps. And thanks to my coach Paul Osland, Olympian in the 800 meters. Now UTTC Masters coach and a driving force behind My Remote Coach. Check it out!