Ode to the 80-Year-Old Marathoner

Today, I ran the Central Community College Ram Run, a Hastings, Nebraska tradition for the last 32 years. (In fact the original race director retired just last year, and this was the first year he was able to run the course as a participant.)

The race options were a 2-mile and a 5-mile race, which meant most newbie runners would be choosing the 2-mile race, and I’d be running a very lonely five miles. (When the field is made up mostly of experienced runners, I know that I will certainly be bringing up the rear.)

I know I’ll never win a race or even place in my age group, but I came to terms with that long ago. My goal, however, is to be pack filler. In my 5K PR this spring, I almost finished in the main pack (ALMOST breaking a sub-30 5K), and I was ecstatic.

At the beginning of the Ram Run, I was skirting the edge of the main field (just under 10:00/mile), but after a mile, I started to lose steam and they peeled away from me. The field began to string out more, and my run became lonelier and lonelier by the step. As I lost the main field, I was passed by The 80-Year-Old-Marathoner, and thus began a game of cat and mouse* for the next few miles.

(*me plodding endlessly after an old man)

Now, I have no idea who The 80-Year-Old Marathoner is; I don’t know his actual age or whether or not he has actually run a marathon, let alone the numerous marathons my imagination allowed him to complete. He was most certainly well past retirement age, he wore an Omaha Marathon shirt from two years ago, and he had both knees wrapped. He passed me as the route was headed on a long straight stretch, and I paced myself behind him.

We were headed east, towards the rising sun on a crisply cool but slightly foggy morning. Facing the sun, he cut an impressive silhouette, and his pacing and gait were so consistent, I found myself following his cadence footfall for footfall. His gait was fascinating: his feet hit the pavement remarkably close together (I think his footprints would have made a single line), and his knees bowed out with each stride. With my strange daughter-of-dairy-farmer shuffle gait, I know I’m not one to judge the running styles of others, so I simply let myself be mesmerized by the cadence of my newly-appointed pacer.

I spent the next three miles trying to catch up to The 80-Year-Old-Marathoner. He was consistently, constantly, tantalizingly out of reach. My mind would sometimes wander as I started to make up a backstory for The 80-Year-Old Marathoner, picturing him crossing dozens of finish lines all across the country.

As we hit the turnaround point and headed back towards the finish line, I started to make headway. For forever, I trailed him by less than a hundred yards. Slowly, surely, I chipped away at his lead until we were the distance of two telephone poles apart. When we had turned and were headed west, our long shadows stretched out before us; when my shadow clipped the backs of his heels, I knew I would catch him right at the four-mile point.

At four miles, the course turned back to the college campus for one large loop back to the starting point. As I passed The 80-Year-Old-Marathoner, we traded “Good Run” and “Nice Job” pleasantries, and ran side by side for a fleeting moment. I had wondered if we would end up crossing the finish line together, but in the final two miles, The 80-Year-Old-Marathoner’s steady pace had started to flag, and I pulled decisively ahead of him. After a hundred yards or so, the sound of his footsteps had faded away, and as I took a turn on the course, I looked back to see that he had drifted considerably behind me. While I’m always happy to have “reeled in” another runner and overtaken them, it also made me a little sad.

My final mile ended up being my second to fastest, so I ended up finishing considerably faster than The 80-Year-Old-Marathoner. After he crossed the finish line, he made a point to congratulate me on my run. I was going to tell him that he was my pacer, and that I had spent four miles trying to pass him, but I simply congratulated him on a good run and left it at that.

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