Equinox Age Grade and Other Numbers

AGE GRADE RESULTS

Here are some masters age grade results. It was a rough day out there for sure.  A lot of runners were off pace. It was one of those days that the longer you were out there the tougher it got. So that made for tough going many of the masters runners.

Matias Saari (44) 2:55:01 - 75.62%

Roger Sayre (56) 3:15:51 – 75.25%

Jane Lanford (59) 4:15:42 – 71.19%

Erika VanFlein (54) 4:24:24 – 64.15%

Martha Brettell (61) 4:35:44 – 68.01%

Not only was Saari the oldest winner of all time at 44 on Saturday, he has the highest men’s age grade for the Equinox Marathon with a 75.91 in 2012. He almost matched that, and had there been better weather probably would have gone faster. With the 75.25% I jumped from 3^rd all time runner to 2^nd , ahead of Frank Bonzanich’s storied 2:58 in 1984.  I was hoping to take the all-time lead, but that would have required a sub 3:14:10. That was definitely not in the cards considering the poor weather on Saturday. And with a top weather advantage, Saari could have broken his 2012 age grade. So I’ll happily take the 2^nd spot for men.

Jane Lanford scored an excellent 71.19% to lead the women. Maybe not the time record she was hoping for, but a very good age grade result. Marth Brettell of Cody Wyoming scored 68.0% with her age group win in the 60-64 category and Erika VanFlein was at 64.15%.

SPLITS 2013 vs 2014

I won’t post up all the splits but some definitely did it different than 2013. Last year I went in with a goal of sub 3:15 but felt ready maybe for under 3:14, so I paced myself for that. My goal this year was just to beat last year’s time and maybe run in the 3:15s. So I held back for the first 9 miles.

Splits

2013 3 mile was 20:55 compared to 22:03

2013 5 mile was 34:57 compared to 36:09

2013 9 mile was 1:02:29 compared to 1:04:53!

2013 12 mile was 1:30:20 compared to 1:31:09

2013 turn around was 1:54:50 compared to 1:55:10

2013 18 mile was 2:19:24 compared to 2:18:35

2013 22 mile was 2:46:14 compared to 2:45:23

So the upshot was that even though I was way back by 9 or 10 miles, I made it up on the out and back and final miles. The snow last year had a factor, but I also locked up a bit due to the cold, which had as much or more effect than the wet weather last Saturday.