From the song, "Been Around a Long Time," by Delbert McClinton.
Most days, when one opens their mail, it is filled with advertisements, political jokes or comments from friends, bills, and occasionally, something useful or informative.
On Saturday morning, as I perused my email, sipping my coffee on a cold March day, I received a message from Ken Young, president of the Association of Road Racing Statisticians. http://www.arrs.net/
The ARRS focuses on elite distance running at distances from 3000-meter and longer. Many of the statistics been generated from the ARRS database which has more than 900,000 performances from more than 160,000 races by more than 35,000 elite distance runners world-wide.
Mr. Young informed me that I earned 24th place on an all-time list of runners who have broken the 3-hour marathon mark for 5 different decades. http://www.arrs.net/TR_5Decades.htm
Indeed, I ran my very first 26.2-mile race at the Harrisburg Marathon in Pennsylvania, in November 1976, where I turned in a time of 2:49:06. In November 2010, I ran a time of 2:59:01 at the Philadelphia Marathon.
Following are my best times for each decade.
21 Nov 2010 2:59:01 Philadelphia PA/USA Philadelphia 17 Apr 2006 2:55:33ax Boston MA/USA Boston 20 Apr 1992 2:33:52a Boston MA/USA Boston 18 Apr 1983 2:22:54a Boston MA/USA Boston 17 Apr 1978 2:29:21a Boston MA/USA Boston
Yes, I've been around a long time. But it's been a pretty good run.
No comments:
Post a Comment