Running for All Ages

8k 4th place ribbonI was so stoked when I returned from the Victoria Marathon 8k event, having placed 4th in my age group in a field of 139 and very excited when I received my ribbon for this the other day in the mail. Along with the finisher medal I was pretty proud as I had worked hard to earn that.

When I was looking at the results online, I saw that there were many more age categories older than mine. There were women in their 60s, 70s and 80s listed. Why do they run in these races? They cannot possibly compete with the speedy 20 somethings. I can only assume that they do it for the love of running and competition within their age category. That is perfectly acceptable to me; that’s pretty much why I do it. However, I noticed that there was something called Age Graded Results.

I looked down the list of 1734 women who completed the 8k race and did not see my name in the expected time slot of 38 minutes. I shrugged and thought that they had forgotten me or something like that. Then I started to look at the list from the top and saw that the number 1 position was held by a women 75 years old and the number 2 position was a women 83 years old. The 3rd place women was 25, the 4th place was 62. What was this all about? I continued to look down the list and there I was in 26th place. With an adjusted time of 31:xx (the seconds do not show on my screen). That placed me 26 out 1734 amazing women runners. More than half of the runners in the top 30 were over 50 years old. I say WOW!

Now I really had to find out what Age Graded Results meant. From the Running for Fitness website:

Age grading is a way to adjust an athlete’s performance according to age and gender. The age-grading tables were developed by the World Association of Veteran Athletes, the world governing body for track and field, long distance running and race walking for veteran athletes. The tables were first published in 1989.

Apparently some races even award prizes according to Age Grading in addition to first across the line. I think it is a fabulous system and was obviously developed to encourage people to keep on running and competing as long as they can. Age is no longer a barrier to running success. I hope I have many more years of running and competing and I can still aim for the number 1 position, even if it takes me until I’m 75 years old.

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2 comments on “Running for All Ages
  1. Alison Watt says:

    WOW indeed–congrats, coach

    • Denise says:

      I guess all that hard work paid off. All those mornings that you and I dragged our butts around the island… You were the one who pushed me past running 30 seconds and walking 4 minute repeats. So thank you!

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