Today I did worse — and better — than I expected in the Rock N Wool Wine Run 5k, an annual running event hosted by the Rock N Wool Winery in Poynette, Wisconsin.
Like many running events, the Rock N Wool Run is a charitable fundraiser, supporting a foundation that helps young people with cancer. I was happy to participate and am also pleased to announce that, if you squint hard enough and invoke enough technicalities, I emerged as a champion.
For a few years up until 2018, I was running 5K and 10K races and occasional half-marathons to keep fit. Then I stopped after developing recurring pain issues in my left knee and Achilles tendon. The pain eventually went away, and this January I decided to see if I could get back into running without rekindling my old complaints.
My cardio fitness was not too bad, but I wanted to be careful. At 68, I have become increasingly interested in the ancient athletic discipline known as “not getting injured.” I eased my way back in with leg-strengthening exercises and a couple of practice runs each week, alternating short running blocks with walking breaks, then gradually lengthening the running portions. By the time today’s race arrived, I thought I could run the full five kilometers — 3.1 miles — in about 30 minutes.
The race course had other ideas.
My training runs had all been on an indoor track, which has the great virtue of not having mud, grass, hills, hidden divots, or nature’s little ankle traps. The course at the Rock N Wool Winery is a grassy trail through rolling woods. It was damp and a bit slippery, with bumps and dips in the trail that required some caution to avoid tripping, and portions of the trail were uphill grades that are a lot more taxing than running on a level track. I had hoped to run the entire course without taking any walking breaks, but after I passed the halfway point I decided to make a strategic retreat from that plan and walked a couple of the uphill slopes. I ended up finishing with a running time of 38 minutes and 24 seconds rather than the 30 minutes I had hoped for.
In context, though, 38:24 was still a decent result. In fact, I came in first in my division: men aged 60–69. I finished a full 39 seconds ahead of the guy who came in second. Now, it’s true that a 72-year-old guy named Joe from Madison beat me by a full minute, but Joe was in a different division, and therefore legally irrelevant. Also true: three of the top women in the 60–69 age group also beat me, one of them by nearly 11 minutes. But technicalities are the backbone of civilization. I am still a champion, and I have the medal to prove it.
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