I have to admit that I have gotten older over the years. Everybody gets one year older every year. Some people have aged well and others not so much. I feel good physically and mentally as I have aged, but this week, I found out that not all people agree with me. I had a couple eye-opening experiences that prevented me from achieving what I wanted to do because, “You are too old.” It was my first time getting recognized that I am indeed older.
I started thinking about the age groups in running over the years. In our first years of putting on races, the upper age limit was over 40 years. We rarely had any runner in years above that, so why have an age group if there are no runners to compete in it. One senior aged runner told me the older runners don’t come to your races because you do not have age group awards for them. So, to counter that statement we added age groups up to “over 60 years.” And there were enough runners in the older age groups that they were most often filled for all places.
The consideration for the women’s senior age groups would be a minimum number of runners. Looking back in history, the women that are now in their 50’s and 60’s never had the opportunity to play sports or run track when they were young as the girls and women have today. The latent talent and the opportunity to get out and run was now available to them, and they took advantage of it by entering local 5K and 10K races. And while they were award winners in their age groups they often were some of the top finishers overall in a race. Races today now often have a 70 years-andolder age group for these senior runners. There are a few races that have included a 90 years-andolder age group, and, more than likely, there will be several runners entered.
