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I had never heard of the National Senior Games until a year ago. I was planning a bike race in Tahoe last June but my race got cancelled. I had organized a vacation around this race and it just so happened that the National Senior Games qualifying races were happening that same week, around 30 miles from home. So on a whim, since I was off work anyway, I raced the qualifiers and did well enough to make it into the National Games this year.
Long events are my forte and these races were short- a 5K and a 10K race, about 7-8 minutes and 15-16 minutes, respectively. I am also bad with heat and altitude, and the National Games were in Albuquerque (5800 ft elevation) in June (hot). My expectations were low. Nonetheless, I went all in and literally spent a year prepping for these races. I thought it would be an interesting challenge to prep for something outside your wheelhouse (but not so far outside as to be unrealistic).
My coach predicted my times and that I’d make the podium in both races, I was polite and did not argue with him but thought it was a pipe dream. Based on the record books, I expected to finish mid pack. But races times are way faster at altitude and in the heat (both make the air thinner and my races are time trials, just a race against the clock in which the air is your biggest enemy, aerodynamics rule and thin air is faster up to the point where there’s not enough oxygen to perform well).
Coach was spot on in his predictions and I went a little faster even than he predicted. Won both my races by a comfortable margin, got two gold medals and even made it into the 5K record books for the 8th fastest time ever in my age group (50-54 years old). It was so cool, both my races were personal best times for me, exactly how you hope things would go when racing on a big stage. My prep was perfect, I really give credit to my coach for getting it just right.
I had a number of friends racing too, it was really fun to hang out with them this past week. We hosted two bike-racer dinner parties in our rental and went to a 3rd lunch party at someone else’s rental. My friends did well in the races too. One got a bronze in his time trial and a silver in a road race, one got 8th in a road race, one got top eight in all four races and yet another friend got silver and 5th in the road races.
Coach wound up getting a bronze in the 5k time trial, a race in which he tied a mutual friend (with times measured to the tenth of a second!) for the bronze and 1st through 5th places were all within one second of each other. Then he got a silver in the 10k time trial. He competed in two road races, on the first day his finish was an absolute cluster. He was in position to sprint for the gold but traffic control got messed up and there was a line of 10 vehicles that had gotten onto the course and stopped right at the finish. The vehicles were confused and trying to get out of the way at the last minute, he had to pull up to avoid a pick up truck and came in 10th. It was completely dangerous, someone could have been killed.
He was so mad that he almost didn’t race the next day, but the race organizers assured everyone they’d fixed the traffic control issue. In the second road race, he got into a two man breakaway in lap one and they managed to keep the field away for the entire rest of the race. It was so cool to watch him sprint for the gold at the end and win by a few bike lengths.
This was such a fun event. Fourteen thousand athletes competing in a variety of athletic events, including 450 people racing the cycling events. Amazing to see the athleticism of these 50+ athletes. And so cool to race with people from literally every corner of the USA. I’ve never competed on a national stage before. Of course, it was really awesome to exceed expectations too.
Pics are me on the top step of the podium for the 5k race, coming into the finish of the 10k race and posing with coach in the backyard of our Albuquerque rental with our matching time trial bikes and wearing our TT medals.
Long events are my forte and these races were short- a 5K and a 10K race, about 7-8 minutes and 15-16 minutes, respectively. I am also bad with heat and altitude, and the National Games were in Albuquerque (5800 ft elevation) in June (hot). My expectations were low. Nonetheless, I went all in and literally spent a year prepping for these races. I thought it would be an interesting challenge to prep for something outside your wheelhouse (but not so far outside as to be unrealistic).
My coach predicted my times and that I’d make the podium in both races, I was polite and did not argue with him but thought it was a pipe dream. Based on the record books, I expected to finish mid pack. But races times are way faster at altitude and in the heat (both make the air thinner and my races are time trials, just a race against the clock in which the air is your biggest enemy, aerodynamics rule and thin air is faster up to the point where there’s not enough oxygen to perform well).
Coach was spot on in his predictions and I went a little faster even than he predicted. Won both my races by a comfortable margin, got two gold medals and even made it into the 5K record books for the 8th fastest time ever in my age group (50-54 years old). It was so cool, both my races were personal best times for me, exactly how you hope things would go when racing on a big stage. My prep was perfect, I really give credit to my coach for getting it just right.
I had a number of friends racing too, it was really fun to hang out with them this past week. We hosted two bike-racer dinner parties in our rental and went to a 3rd lunch party at someone else’s rental. My friends did well in the races too. One got a bronze in his time trial and a silver in a road race, one got 8th in a road race, one got top eight in all four races and yet another friend got silver and 5th in the road races.
Coach wound up getting a bronze in the 5k time trial, a race in which he tied a mutual friend (with times measured to the tenth of a second!) for the bronze and 1st through 5th places were all within one second of each other. Then he got a silver in the 10k time trial. He competed in two road races, on the first day his finish was an absolute cluster. He was in position to sprint for the gold but traffic control got messed up and there was a line of 10 vehicles that had gotten onto the course and stopped right at the finish. The vehicles were confused and trying to get out of the way at the last minute, he had to pull up to avoid a pick up truck and came in 10th. It was completely dangerous, someone could have been killed.
He was so mad that he almost didn’t race the next day, but the race organizers assured everyone they’d fixed the traffic control issue. In the second road race, he got into a two man breakaway in lap one and they managed to keep the field away for the entire rest of the race. It was so cool to watch him sprint for the gold at the end and win by a few bike lengths.
This was such a fun event. Fourteen thousand athletes competing in a variety of athletic events, including 450 people racing the cycling events. Amazing to see the athleticism of these 50+ athletes. And so cool to race with people from literally every corner of the USA. I’ve never competed on a national stage before. Of course, it was really awesome to exceed expectations too.
Pics are me on the top step of the podium for the 5k race, coming into the finish of the 10k race and posing with coach in the backyard of our Albuquerque rental with our matching time trial bikes and wearing our TT medals.
