Third Decade

    My third decade of running has unfortunately commenced the way the second ended-with another racing performance that has me wondering if I’ll ever be able to run a race with any type of vigor again.Three decades is not as long as it first sounds-it’s only twenty years not thirty  (there is no zero decade). There are probably runners who have experienced more diversity in races in five years or less than I have but that is because I tend to repeatedly revisit races I’ve enjoyed  rather than seeking new worlds to conquer. I also prefer races that aren’t too faraway.
     The exception is the longer races which tend to be down the shore or in Philadelphia but for short ones of five miles or less I am fortunate to live in an area where there are many good local ones.An example of my race choosing philosophy is the race mentioned above-the Firecracker Four Mile in Cranford which I  competed in for the eighteenth time in the past twenty years. I like everything about the race except the heat. My time of 31:08, while actually a two minute improvement over a year ago and close to my goal time of under 31 was a time that probably would have made me consider quitting racing had it happened in my first or early in my second decade. But I have noticed something I seem to have in common with so many runners that I competed against in the 80’s-they have slowed down too.
    Still the fire remains in me to get back to where I think I should be. It used to be that your time was pretty much your secret but not anymore. The internet broadcasts your time all over the world so even that runner who movedaway ten years ago can look at race results and wonder how Dave Lazarus got so slow.
       The irony is that my times are not too different from where they were at this time in 1984 when I started running as a way to lose weight for softball. My good fortune to live a half mile from a track enabled me to do endless timetrials that summer where I quickly saw my two mile times got from the 15’s to the 14’s to the 13’s and when I roped a friend in to join me, they dropped through to the low 12’s. By then I had added three milers and then four miles and we entered our first race together, the Nutley five mile which we found inan ad in the Newark Star Ledger sports section.

      The next stages of running insanity came quickly. The Central Jersey RoadRunners Fall Classic, run in November back then,  illuminated me to the value of joining a running club and attending a mid winter meeting made me aware that runners don’t stop just because of a little snow. I had tried winter running but detested it because I didn’t wear the right type of clothing. 

     From the meeting I also found a group that ran intervals and by the summer of 1985 had developed into an above average runner.That year was my first Firecracker, coming at the end of an exhausting three days when I  had run the Sneaker Factory summer series four miler on Tuesday and the Sunset five mile on Wednesday. Although my legs were dead , I somehow chugged through to a 26:03 four mile, over five minutes faster than what I did this year. You can’t look the time up anywhere on the internet-you’ll just have to take my word for it. You see it was a long time ago.