25 Years of Race With Grace

Race director Bob Dyjak will be completing his 25th and final RWG 10k (as director) on Thursday, November 26. More than 1,400 runners will be at the race. I have had the privilege of completing 22 of those races (assuming I finish tomorrow). Jan will have completed at least 15 of them.

I have never run the race particularly fast, only one year breaking 40 minutes. Usually the race came 1-4 weeks after a fall marathon when I would have a good aerobic base but not the speed. Now my predicted race time won't be much, if any, faster than my marathon pace used to be. Jan is fighting for a Rochester Runner of the Year top 3 spot, so this race, the last in the series, is important to her.

The weather is going to be unusually warm for November, with temperatures between 45 and 50 at the start of the race (9am). We will have a nice headwind of 10-15 mph on the way back up Manitou road for the last 1.2 miles. It's always a pleasure to race into the wind while running on an incline for a mile and being tired from the first 5 miles.

Twenty-two years, that's a lot of races and running. I'm glad to be healthy enough to run the race whether I finish in 47 minutes or 51. I'm not predicting a finish place or beating anyone as so far this year my RROY races have been less than stellar. I do predict I will race, not run, as hard as I possibly can, the Bear will be out and in my mind I'll have the feeling of moving along at a 6:20/mile pace, not the 7:50/mile that it likely will be. In other words, the effort will be there, just in a 59 year old body instead of 39.


2014 RWG start (I am somewhere back there in the masses).