Des Moines ParkRun #238

 

Silver online presents 

The Silver Strider Grand Prix Series 

by Jerry Dietrich
with photos by Bruce Fisher

May 4, 2024
Dear Diary,
After my usual morning routine, my watch read 7:30. Brent was pulling up in front of my house. How does he do it? How can he always be exactly on time?

We arrived at the race site 29 minutes later. We were 45 minutes early. I reclined my seat and closed my eyes. I awoke with a start! It seemed like only a few seconds but we had to hurry to make to the start line for the group photo.

I didn’t feel good before the race and gradually felt worse as I attacked the uphill portion with powerful 6″ strides.

After about three quarters of a mile uphill, I felt like I was going to drop. Amazingly, a bench appeared and I plopped down to catch my breath. As I rested, I wondered, Who was that big guy that thundered past me, the ground shaking as passed? How could he be so far ahead of Keith Lerew? I found out later, his name was James Stoddard running in the 35-39 age group. His finishing time was be 19:06.

I looked at my watch an found I had been resting for a full minute. My watch read 21:10. I didn’t know it at the time, but Stoddard had finished the race over a minute ago and I still had a ways to go for my first mile.

Later, as I was coming downhill, I concluded that I had no business doing this race. It was totally wrong for someone of my years.  A single hill almost a mile and a half long, is too much for me.

I thought back to my years living in Las Vegas. I dominated my age group for 11 years at the Forest Challenge. That course was two miles up Mount Charleston on a steeper hill than Des Moines. I was usually 2nd or 3rd when I reached the turnaround and always won by a wide margin because of my downhill speed.

Today I was walking downhill and braking with every step to prevent falling on my face. They say you are old when you spend more time thinking about the past than the future, so I turned my thoughts ahead.

The Rhody Run was coming up in 3 weeks. It’s a hilly course to be sure, but it is up and down. If you ran an uphill for a block, you had a nice downhill to recover. The course is challenging but fair. It would be nothing like this course and I shouldn’t let this race discourage me. Besides, I haven’t been training because I was recovering from a broken foot. My foot was now healed and I have 3 weeks to train before the Rhody. 

Rhody, Kent Cornucopia and Victoria were my three favorite races. I hoped that Maurice Taurant, a World Class runner in my age group, would be at Victoria this year. I liked having a friend in another country

I thought, “Sure, I’m getting older, but look at the exciting life I lead. All my friends my age are gone, but I’m still here and enjoying life. Does my happiness have to depend on what a stopwatch says?”

As long as I have the Silver Strider magazine to keep me busy and I can keep up my physical activity, I am truly blessed. I should be thankful. As I look ahead at the races that I plan to do, I feel a surge of excitment, proof that my enthusiasm hasn’t diminished at all during the past 47 years.

I crossed the finish line and looked at my watch.

What! How could it possibly take me 2 minutes longer to come back downhill than it did to climb the uphill? Especially since I stopped and rested on a bench for a full minute on the way up. And yet, I did it. I accomplished the incredible. I defied gravity. As Al Pacino said in the movie, ‘Justice For All’, “Something’s very wrong here.”

I began thinking ahead to breakfast, I realized that It’s not the races I have done that are important. Most are long forgotten. It’s the camaraderie that I have with my Silver Strider friends that keeps me going. 

At breakfast I thought It’s too bad Judy wasn’t present. I forgot to congratulate her after the race. She was our first Achievement award winner for 2024. Judy was the first runner to reach 80 points in the Grand Prix Series. 80 points in 8 races. She seems a cinch to win her age group again this year.

During the trip home, I dozed off again. When we arrived Brent reminded me of a task we had been avoiding. Brent had pulled out a giant 40 year old Rhody bush in my front yard two weeks back, leaving a bare spot. We raked the area and placed a stone bench on the spot.

Later, after a good evening meal, I relaxed thinking, “Sure, the race was tough, but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. What a wonderful day this has been.”

 

 

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The Race in Photos by Bruce Fisher