Jamaica may have Usain Bolt, but we have Rae Baymiller. Rae ran a 6:09 mile Sunday, which, had it been run on a track, would have been a world record, according to www.world-masters-athletics.org. And it would have broken the old mark by seven seconds. Her age-graded score reflected the uncharted territory of her run: 100.1%.
On the men’s side, Neil Fitzgerald played Asafa Powell to Rae’s Bolt, except for the Olympic foul-up. Neil continued his streak of fast Fifth Avenue Miles, scoring an 86.5%, which is a top-10 masters performance this year for the club, and the best men’s score for the day.
Several runners showed particular improvement this week. Runners who broke into 80% national class territory for the first time this year: Mary Rosado, Lynn Blackstone, Steven Monte and Douglas Labar. Also fast was Andrea Ostrowski, who jumped 5 percentage points from her previous best this year.
Just plain fast people: Jill Vollweiler ran a superquick 86.2%, Sid Howard tore up with a 85.4%, and Yumi Ogita was right there, also with a 85.4%.
Going forward, none of this will affect Faster Masters because it seems whatever calculation the Road Runners Club uses to calculate the age-graded scores favors the mile. No fewer than 19 of the 22 CPTC masters who ran the race set yearly PRs. If I keep these races in the data, it will be hard for these athletes to set PRs in other races over the next 52 weeks. And I will be left with little to write about, except Rae Baymiller. So good work, congratulations, but see you at the 18-miler this weekend.