"Each step forward has a sacred meaning of its own"   Sri Chinmoy

Sri Chinmoy Sports Day 1-Mile Race - St John's University - Queens NYC - 25 August 2025

Sports Day came just 2 days after my comeback race, the 2-miler I had run after several months without being able to race. My main aim was to get through a race or two intact, without aggravating the slight calf niggle I picked up in the Spring. My secondary aim was to try and sneak myself into the medal places in the over-50s. A few weeks beforehand, when I was just starting to run again after the long layoff, my plan was to have a go at the 800m race-walk, then maybe also do the mile. I had misremembered the order of events though - I discovered when I got there that the mile came before the walk! I decided to have a crack at both anyway, and went off to warm up with 20 mins of slow jogging on Union Turnpike and Utopia Parkway.

Sports Day had a wonderful atmosphere - the international family gathered in the sun, starting with a blissful meditation on the infield then the action getting underway with shot and long-jump. I sat out the 400s and the 100s, as I thought they would be way too risky for my injury-prone body, but when I got back from warming up I found I had mistimed things a little and there was a another round of field events to get through before the 1 mile race. We did have a ten minute warning though, so I did my second warmup with some strides and high-knees on the shady side of the track. Lining up at the start, I looked around to see who else was wearing a vets' yellow number and immediately I clocked only Pratul and Marek who looked likely to be faster than my comeback pace (which I was estimating at 6.15 for the mile, based on the 13.35 2-miler on our hilly Jamaica High School loop 2 days before). Of course, there could be others in form I didn't know about, but I decided to pace against those two and see if I could stay with them.

From the start, it was Pratul who went off like a hare and set the pace for the over-50s, so I stayed with him in a bunch just behind Cliff from South Africa who was miraculously racing in the gap between a 3.33 marathon at Rockland earlier in the week and the 47-miler only 2 days away. We ran into the heat of the sunlit side of the track and I edged ahead of Pratul, feeling pretty good, trying to hang on behind Cliff who was stretching out the gap ahead of us. For the rest of the race, I just focussed on not letting Cliff get too far ahead, which forced me to keep working and pushing the pace. Tarit was on the finish, calling lap times, the first a rather surprising 1.31 and the second not much slower. I was running above myself but managing OK.

A couple of guys passed me in laps 2 and 3 but I saw their white numbers and considered them part of a separate race. Then, coming into the final bend, I heard someone call out Marek's name and heard him coming up fast behind me. That was the signal to push and fortunately I had the energy, the surge carrying me the final 100m to finish first in agegroup in 6.04. Compared to last year that was a disappointing time, compared the the last few months it was better than I ever could have hoped for. I was pretty happy to have sneaked a medal in race missing the most talented vet-50s and it felt like a very special moment, either a reward for keeping on keeping on despite the setbacks or (and this was the stronger feeling) just pure, unconditional grace to give me the joy of a good result.

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