1988 La Jolla Half Marathon

I found my 1988 La Jolla Half Marathon results. Until this year, that had been my only half marathon and the longest distance I had ever run. I was 27 and had whipped myself into probably the best shape of my life. I ran that half marathon with practically no preparation, and even though I registered early with some friends, I didn’t truly decide I was going to run it until late the night before.

Since I’ve returned to running, 22 years later, and completed the 2010 Carlsbad and La Jolla half marathons, I’ve been thinking about that day in 1988. I couldn’t remember what time I had finished that race in. I was sure it had been around 1 hour and 40-some odd minutes. And that had even included a period of walking on the Torrey Pines hill climb. So I was pretty proud of having run it this year at the age of 49 in 1:43:09, figuring I had come close to bettering my effort all those years ago.

But the results card says differently. Back then, they didn’t have timing chips or results posted immediately after the race. I remember crossing the finish line and entering a chute that funneled finishers into a line. And I think they handed us popsicle-like sticks with a number that would correlate to our finish line crossing place and time. Then a volunteer would take the stick and correlate it with the timing information, but participants wouldn’t find out what their placing was until later, when we got a postcard in the mail from the Kiwanis who managed the race. You could always note your time crossing the finish line, but it was only gun time…no chip time.

The time they reported to me in 1988? 1:35:30.  Gun time. 
This year?  1:43:09. Chip time. .

Wow. And that probably included about a minute of delay just getting across the starting line. That’s a 7:17 to 7:22/mile pace. How the heck did I do that? I must’ve run faster than that even since it includes at least a few minutes of walking.

I’m really quite taken aback. Maybe it’s a little split-personality thing going on, but it’s like I’m in competition with my 27-year old self, and I just got faced. Here I was feeling like I was performing at a level equivalent to my 20-something self, only to have it plainly demonstrated that age has taken its toll.  I put a lot of work into my running these past 6 months. Back in April 1988, I’d only been running to get in shape for about 4 months, after getting cholesterol results back from an annual physical that suggested I needed to change my diet and lose about 5 lbs. Running was just a means to an end, and basically tackled that half marathon without any structured training plan. I’m enjoying my running so much more these days, and I’m way more systematic and reasoned about what my running regiment entails and what my goals are. Yet, my speed ceiling has obviously lowered.

I’m trying to decide if I’m depressed. I shouldn’t be. I’ve done pretty well to get to where I am. But there’s a competitive side of me that wants to get better, even if that means competing against a younger version of me and making unrealistic demands on myself. It very well is possible that, with sufficient training and continued work, I’ll be able to run 13.1 miles in 1:35:30 again. Same goes for my lofty goal of cracking the 20 minute barrier on the 5K. But whereas I could do that at 27 with just a few weeks of lackadaisical training, at 49 I’ll need to really apply myself. Shaving off additional seconds from my 5K time or minutes from my HM time becomes exponentially harder. Maybe I’ll never see a 1hr 35 min half marathon again.

But the gauntlet’s been cast. I’ve got a goal for the 2011 La Jolla Half Marathon now.

Edit: I compared the Age-Grade results for a 27 year old running in 1hr 35 minutes and a 49 year old running in 1 hr 43 minutes, and the 49 year old grades out higher by 2 percentage points. So, after adjusting for age, the older me wins.  Yay...I think?



(Work out plan for today is an easy 4-5 mile loop outdoors – please, no wind – followed by 3 “laps” around the weights circuit. If the weight resistance feels too easy again, I’ll up the peg on Friday. Hard to understand how I could get the strength gain despite taking almost a month off from strength training. I’m skeptical, but I’ll know for sure in a few hours.)