Bob Beckert Run 2013

  The Bob Beckert 5-K Run is an annual event for me and many members of our health club, as chronicled in earlier posts. It is an important run for me. Our club is one of the sponsors, it's local, I practice on the course dozens of times through the year, and it's my first race following the Long Branch half every Spring.
    Held on the first Sunday of June (and benefitting a scholarship fund at Watchung Hills High School in Mr. Beckert's name), it transitions the winter training aspect of my running year to the summer racing part.
    It's my favorite part of the running year, as the doldrums and pain of intervals on the treadmill hopefully pay off with decent times in my races. I love the heat as well, and the Beckert Run did not disappoint, with the temperatures in the 80's, and sticky!
    Two weeks prior to the race, our club's running group did three race-paced mile intervals on part of the course, finishing with the killer hill up the high school parking lot at the end. I also took two days off from
running before the race (just lifting), to be fresh, and to also rest a mysteriously aching right knee.
     My traditional mile warm-up on the high school track felt good, and I was mentally and physically ready to go.
     The first mile is mostly downhill and key to getting a good finishing time. Although it takes me longer and longer to "get in fifth gear" every succeeding year, I did start relatively fast, and reached the mile at 6:02.
     I was neck-and-neck with a runner in his mid-20's at that point, and we informally ran together through the duration, each within two steps of each other throughout. This helped us both through the middle of the race, as we held in fifth and sixth places in the field of 200 or so.
    When it came to the aforementuioned hill at the end, he gained a step on me, I closed near the end, but finished sixth overall in a satisfying time of 20:02, seconds off my best on the course, and first in the 50-59 age-group.
    The key, I felt, was maintaining contact with the other runner throughout the race. I never started daydreaming or thinking of body parts hurting or things going wrong. It was steady oxygen-debt running, but focused, focused, focused. On to the next race...!