60:53.
Ten miles in South Nyack. Ninth overall. First in M40–44.
I will take that.
Paul Thompson wrote the race report a few days later. His version of my pacing was accurate and slightly more organized than the one inside my head: open around 5:45, settle near six-minute pace, watch the heart rate, and pick it up late.
Simple plan.
The opening was fast. A 5:45 first mile feels great because the legs are fresh and everybody around you is making poor decisions together. The question is whether it still feels like a good idea six miles later.
Ten miles is long enough to punish an enthusiastic start and short enough that you cannot relax much after correcting it. The final average was a little over six minutes per mile. Settling near six kept the race under control without giving away the whole thing.
The heart-rate check was useful. Pace tells you what the road is getting. Heart rate gives you a second opinion about what it is costing. I was not trying to run a laboratory test in South Nyack. I wanted to know whether the effort matched the plan and whether there would be anything left for the end.
There was.
I accelerated late and got across the line in 60:53.
Paul and I had trained together through the first pandemic year. That was a strange time to build a running routine. Normal races disappeared. Group schedules changed. The Hudson Valley roads became the program because they were there and we could keep showing up.
Four years later, he could still look at the way I opened a race and know exactly what was happening.
The South Nyack result came less than three months after I ran 18:44.86 at the McCarren Park 5K. That was second in the men's 40–49 group. South Nyack used a narrower 40–44 category, and I won it.
The distance difference matters more to me than the two age-group labels. A 5K can be aggressive from the start and over before the bill fully arrives. Ten miles requires more patience. I am not naturally interested in patience, so it remains useful practice.
I was 40 and running close to six-minute pace for an hour. There is no need to make that a story about age. I had trained, I was fit, and the race went well.
It did not go perfectly. The first mile was probably a little hot. That is not exactly a shocking development. I settled, kept checking the effort, and had enough room to race at the end.
The finish line gave me four clean numbers:
Ten miles.
60:53.
Ninth overall.
First in the age group.
Good morning in South Nyack.