Challenged!

It's Youth vs. Middle Age on June 28th!

I was at work minding my own business, when Christine, one of my co-workers, pulled me aside and asked in a conspiratorial whisper, "Are you the fastest runner in the office?" I was somewhat taken aback by her bluntness, and I wondered whether it would be prudent to evade the question and respond with some witty, light-hearted remark. But then again, we're a very small company -- only 75 people, and I knew them all and knew that there were no other serious runners there -- so I admitted that yes, it was possible that, provided we were talking about a mile or more, I might be able to cover the distance in less time than my colleagues. Christine brushed aside my attempt at modesty and got right to the point. "My son says he wants to beat you in the corporate challenge next week," she said.

Ah, the Chase Corporate Challenge! A 3.5-mile race that comes around to Boston every June and attracts an enormous crowd of would-be champions (12,000 people at least), most of whom are running in their only race of the year. My company always enters a team, and although I don't much like the race, I always participate because, after all, I'm "the runner" in the office, the crazy guy who runs a lot. I find it easier to do the race than answer the questions about why I find it so annoying (let's start with the fact that the front of the pack is inevitably crowded with 15-minute-per mile power walkers, that there is no electronic timing, that the t-shirt contest is more important than the race results...)

I remembered that Christine's 19-year-old son Riley was working as an intern in our office for the summer. Christine had signed him up to run the race for our team. I was delighted to hear that he was planning to beat me. But it turned out that actually Christine didn't want that to happen.

"Riley is super-competitive," she said, "but I think it might be good for him if he lost to you."

I pondered this for a moment. "How fast," I asked, "does he think he can run 3.5 miles?"

Well, Christine wasn't exactly sure, but she knew that a couple of years ago he had run a road race and finished fourth in his age group. That didn't tell me much, nor did Christine's additional confidence that he was the fastest kid on his soccer team. I needed more information. Would Christine be able to find out his time for the mile, for 5K, for any measured distance? Christine said she would find out. I went back to my work.

The next day, Christine came by again.

"Riley doesn't know how fast he can run a mile, but when he was 16, he ran a five mile race in 34 minutes." Then she added, "And he's been running 30 minutes a day."

"Very impressive," I said.

So... Riley had run 6:40 pace for five miles when he was 16. He hadn't done any races since, but he played soccer throughout high school and was surely in good shape. Now he was running half an hour a day. How would he do running 3.5 miles?

Compared to Riley, I felt boring and predictable. I knew that, barring disaster, I would run between 18:40 and 19:20 -- 5:20-5:30 pace. There was no mystery at all to me. But Riley was a young pup, full of enthusiasm and competitive spirit, and surely improving by leaps and bounds every day.

My old coach used to say "youth must be served," meaning that the next generation must always overtake the current generation eventually. Had my time come?

What do you think, readers? The race is on Thursday, June 28th. Let's hear your predictions. What do you think Riley will run? Which one of us will win?