June 2, 2010 - Birthday

Yo Run Gang,

Birthdays are a celebration of life so why let age get in the way? After one hits adulthood the actual age of a person is not very relevant, actually, even keeping track of your age can be detrimental, you are either too young or too old, by just mentioning your age you open yourself up to age discrimination either way. Better to be judged by your accomplishments along the way.

This may not be a popular thought, but I believe age groups in running need re-thinking. I often get an age group medal that I would not have if I was in the next older age group where people ran faster than I did. This happens more often in the younger age groups ... so why should a younger age group winner get an award for running a time slower than an older runner?  Should you get an award just because no fast people your age show up?  Wouldn't it be better if the awards were given to the top so many % or runners, just based on time? Better yet, if you want to keep age groups, throw out any times of all runners who ran slower than anyone older than themselves, then calculate the awards. This would encourage us all to train that much harder. Just some birthday thoughts ... on my birthday!
 
This weekend brings us a Michigan classic, the race from Dexter to Ann Arbor. Point to point races seem to make more sense than running like heck, only to end up where you started! The race is sold out but it's fun to go to Ann Arbor anyway to enjoy this great city, the race weekend party atmosphere only adds to the fun, besides, you can take advantage of the race weekend sale at Running Fit (Sorry for the shameless plug!)
 
Run forever,
 
Randy Step, an obsessed runner, of an irrelevant age!