a mile at hayward field

A few weeks ago I got a call from one of my running buddies. He is actually Mallory's boss', boyfriend's, brother. He got into running a few years ago like I did except for the past year or so he has been running ultra-marathon races. For those of you who are not aware of this little niche in the running community, they are people who decide they can run further than the 26.2 miles in your standard marathon. So they train for races that are 50 kilometers and even 100 miles long. They're crazy dudes, my friend Nathan finished his first 100 mile race back in September in 28 hours.

Anyway, some of the guys that he trains with are these crazy middle aged men who love to run and compete with each other. As I understand it, one of these middle aged men ran a 5:00 minute flat mile a few months ago. So one of his friends (who lives in Idaho and was traveling through Oregon) said let's run a mile at Hayward field so I can beat "so & so's" mile time. So these crazy middle aged, 100 mile marathon, men put together a little race. My buddy Nathan called me up and asked if I wanted to run, I said, "you better believe it". I showed up the next day and this is what it looked like.



Now the weird guy they are interviewing at the beginning is the guy trying to run the 5:00 min. mile. My buddy Nathan is the only other dude besides myself with long hair. The idiot in the denim is just that... an idiot in denim who succeeded in getting in my way for the first 400 meters. The guy who lines up in front with the white on is the dude who ran the original 5:00 minute mile. He only runs 2 laps because he is just helping set the pace, same story with the guy in the black. Now, the guy in the green is a collegiate runner or once was a collegiate runner who has been hurt for the past several months. He's going to set the pace the entire race. I overheard him before we started, he said, "I haven't been on the track in 3 months". The guy runs a 5 minute mile after rehabing for 3 months and isn't even fazed afterward. It's amazing what you can get your body to do with enough training. It was a really fun experience and something I'll always remember getting the opportunity to do. Plus, someone filmed the whole race so I'll always have it to look back on.

-Trey