Last year, at age 70, I trained for a 2:50 finish at the Chicago Marathon. I was hoping to break what was then the age-group world record—2:54:19—by three or four minutes. My training was going really well: Two weeks beforehand, I had finished the Urban Cow Half Marathon in 1:20:57, maintaining an average 6:10 pace.
In that race, I set American records in the 70–74 age category not only in the half marathon, but in the 10-mile distance, with a split of 1:01:35. Running 6:30 pace after that should have felt easy in Chicago, and it did, until about mile 19. That’s when my hamstring totally cramped.
I stopped at the medical tent, and they massaged me and gave me electrolytes. I got back out there, but it kept tightening. After I tried three or four times, I decided to stop and walk off the course.
I knew I could finish, but it wasn’t going to be a record time anymore, and I didn’t want to risk getting injured again. In the past, I just ran through my injuries, but not anymore. It was hard mentally, because I knew I had everything it took to break the record.
But at the end of the day, if you fall, you have to get up. It was a disappointment, but it was temporary. I came home to Sacramento, took a few weeks off, and then started training again.
I ran the California International Marathon (CIM) in December without doing too much more. I finished in 2:59:01, which placed me second in the Abbott Age Group World Rankings and qualified me for the 2027 Age Group World Championships in Tokyo in March. This year, I’m coming back to Chicago, with my eye once again on the world record—there’s a new one, 2:54:18, which Korean runner Haeng-cheol Shin ran at the Seoul Marathon in March.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
