3 Men, 3 Different Half Marathons, 2 Countries, Connected by The Reggae Marathon

The world works in mysterious ways, one minute you are sitting sifting through Facebook the next you are involved in a half marathon race with 2 other people in a different country and 2 different cities on the same date. I guess I should explain.
It’s Saturday March first minding my own business on Facebook, which I guess is an oxymoron, I noticed my friend and fellow blogger of the Reggae Marathon (http://www.reggaemarathon.com/blog/) mention that he is running on half marathon on the 6th of May, coincidentally I had recently signed up for one myself on that very same date. Very excited, as I often get, when some one else is running i immediately messaged back that I too had a race on the same date. Some time later that day a mutual friend via the Reggae also is running a Half Marathon on that same Sunday in May. What are the chances?? 3 men all connected and have run in the Reggae Marathon, all running the same distance on the same day.

Well long story short, I asked them both what kind of time they were looking to do, I actually first thought of just flat-out asking to race but decided to go a round about way seeing of any would pick up on it. Dan Cumming of Vancouver, did and being more direct just came out and asked “want to race??”

Dan is 67 years old, Chris Morales of Toronto 54 and I will be nearly 47 the day of the race. How is this fair? you might ask.  Well straight up finishing time would be unfair (maybe, I may be the youngest does not make me the fastest) but assuming we get slower as we get older there is such a thing as age grading. Let me explain, no it’s too much let me sum up. There is a complicated mathematical equation that takes your finishing time and you age and the equate that time to about the age of a 32-year-old. Well this is how I understand it you can send any question to Dan who is much more versed in this than I (if you do be prepared for a very long email). A quick example: if Dan age 67 ran a 2:05:00 half marathon his age grade result would be 1:34, if i was to run a 1:47:00 my age graded result would be 1:37. So even though  I ran 18 minutes faster due to his age he would have a better time than me.

All this means I have to run my ass off.

All three of us plan to blog this experience on our respective pages. A Facebook page will also be created for this momentous event. Please join in for the trash talking the will ensue for the next 9 weeks.

Dan Cumming  –  www.runnininginthezone.ca

Chris Morales – http://thatrunninguy.com/

Larry Savitch – if you are reading this you already know where I am.