4 May 2018 - Annual Mason State Bank 5K Race

4 May 2018 - Commercial Bank Mason 5K Race

This was my ninth year of the Mason 5K race. My goals were (1) to finish the race and (2) to improve on last year's finishing time. Unlike last year, I did some preparation by going to the gym 2-3 times a week, concentrating on the treadmill in an attempt to improve my stamina. I was able to make some imrovements in this area, going from 20 minutes to 60 minutes on the treadmill (at an incline of 11%). My wife Anne and I have concentrated on using our Fitbits to track our hourly and daily nuymber of steps. Since Anne had noted that many experts recommend a daily goal of 10,000 steps (and noone recommended more than 10,000) we both set our goal at 10,000. Today I got more than 18,000 steps. Of course, on many occasions I walk more than 10,000 steps, but that isn't my goal and I frequently achieved only a few more steps than 10,000. We also walk at least 250 steps in each hour over an 11 hour period. All in all our walking regiman seems to have had positive results. My extra efforts in the gym improved my stamina and helped me finish the 5K race with an acceptable time. As you can see from my times recorded at the right, I improved on last year's time by over a minute and actually was able to better two of my previous times (both 2017 and 2014). I'll probably never be able to match my 2011 time.

I noted that the final three blocks, a brutal uphill finish, was less difficult for me than last year. However, after finishing I discovered I was indeed shaky and has to find a place to sit down to recover. I had decided that I would celebrate a good effort and finish with some ice cream. I headed to the local ice cream store and went home with my treat. I wasn't up to eating for a while but eventually had an ice cream sundae with homemade chocolate sauce and whipped cream. Excellent! I rode my Terra trike to the race area and back home. I get no steps recorded on my Fitbit for riding the trike but I still achieved over 18,000 steps for the day.

As with last year, all photos were taken with the iPhone 6 Plus. The iPhone provided a compact camera with adequate quality to document the event. I tried jogging as much as possible to keep my speed up. It was a pleasant day with cool temperatures and some sun. The trike ride home was a bit cool. The bank personel did a fine job along the race route. Altogether a good experience, but at 76 years old I'm starting to think of retiring from racing. I find walking over 10,000 steps in a day leads to sore feet. But I do enjoy the challenge, even though my results are certainly not impressive (this year I finished with the 9th best time in my age group Male 70 and up), that is 9th and of 11. My overall finish was 426 out of 531.

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My Times

2010 - 41:26
2011 - 39:24
2012 - 41:59
2013 - 41:08
2014 - 45:33
2015 - 43:59
2016 - 43:39
2017 - 46:48
2018 - 45:27