Meet directors Tom Hartshorne and Charlie Fay say star milers can race for free at the 50th annual Hartshorne Memorial Masters Mile in late January. “The $20 race entry fee will be waived for elite runners,” Charlie writes. “On the Webscorer registration site, enter ELITE in the Discount Code field. Once you click the Calculate button, the entry fee will be deducted from the total fee due.” Deadline for entering the January 21 meet in Ithaca, New York, is January 7. Tom, son of race founder James, also wrote a touching mile memoir:

Tom’s terrific essay:

50 YEARS YOUNG: HARTSHORNE MASTERS MILE
1968 – 2017

Years ago at a USATF National Masters Track Championship out in Spokane, WA, a gentleman in his young 80s sitting next to me in the registration area under the cover of a tent in 88 degree weather turned to me and asked, “Does it get any easier?

I replied, “What do you mean?”

He answered, “Well, I am racing the mile in a few moments and I am nervous as hell. I have only been doing this track thing for a couple of years and before every race I get very nervous.”

Laughing to myself, as I was half his age, and had raced the mile for 33 of my 45 years, I said to him frankly, “No, Sir, it doesn’t get any easier, but you are going to need that nervous energy to get around the first couple of laps. By the time you hear the gun your nervous energy will be gone and you will have to find another source of energy to get through that final lap.”

He looked over at me and examined the spikes I held in my hand and quipped, “You look like you know what your doing. I will take your advice and consider the nervousness a good thing. But will you cheer for me on the last lap as I think I am going to need some help getting to the finish line as it is very hot today?”

And cheer for him I did that day in the hot sun in Spokane. He came in a very proud third. I always enjoyed cheering for the other sections even if they were run ahead of my own mile race. Cheering briefly takes your mind off the coming race and allows you to focus on others who are as motivated as yourself to commit to the training and the effort of competition requisite to race the mile.

So for all of you hard training milers out there, it is once again time to register for the 50th racing of the Hartshorne Memorial Masters Mile this coming January 21st in Cornell’s Barton Hall here in Ithaca, NY.

Bring your megaphones to cheer on the mile sections before and after yours; and remember, “It really doesn’t get any easier as you get older, but neither does it get any harder to race the mile.” The mile is always tough and as someone who ran his first timed mile at age 12, and is now 62 years young, I might even say that after 50 years of racing the mile, the first one was the toughest mile I ever raced.

As a 14-year-old in February of 1968 I photographed my dad and other masters milers racing in the first Hartshorne Masters Mile held in Barton Hall with a little single reflex lens Kowa camera. To this day I remember the intensity of expressions on the faces of the competitors as they went zipping by every lap.

The intensity of the endeavor has never changed whether I am photographing masters runners or my kids racing, or I am racing myself in the magical mile competition. The Hartshorne Memorial Masters Mile is certainly the oldest mile competition of its kind in the world. The incredible fact about masters mile running is that the best masters milers in the over 40 crowd are now hitting mile times that the Olympians ran 50 years ago.

The mile race doesn’t get any easier as one gets older. However, it is more rewarding to take on the oval at an older age and complete the last lap to the finish line with the help of friends.

So bring your family and friends, as I will mine, and let’s celebrate together the 50th anniversary of the Hartshorne Masters Mile, the oldest event of its kind in the world.