Among the many great events at Saturday’s Striders Meet of Champions was a deep and fast 3,000-meter run. I’ve posted complete meet results, but consider these unofficial (I note a few typos). Also posted are results from the Southeasten Masters meet (aka Bob Boal Open and Masters) May 2-3 in Raleigh, North Carolina. In the Striders’ 3K at Cerritos College, M45 Pete Magill clocked 8:36.92 — just off the American record of in 8:36.86 he set in March. He described the race in a post.

On the letsrun.com message board, Pete posted:

Yet another week spent nursing my way back from the brink. Spent the first 5 days of the week treating my swollen knee from last week — ice around the clock for the pain and swelling, Benadryl for the poison oak inflammation, hydrocortisone cream for the itching.
Had to cut Monday’s interval workout short when I nearly fell over after the first three 800 reps — guess all that Benadryl leads to some pretty wobbly legs! But managed to cut the pain in the knee by mid-week. And then get the knee back to normal size by Thursday. And actually felt good for Friday’s pre-race day jog.
The 3000 at Cerritos yesterday was a blast. Though we had the typical no-shows at a masters race (God knows, we masters get injured at the drop of a hat … or an ill-advised roll onto our sides in bed … or by tying our shoes in the morning). But still had a good field, with Peter Hegelbach flying in from Boulder, Andrew Duncan in from Las Vegas, and Joe Carnegie traveling down from Northern Cal. Also, lots of top locals. We also had two pace-setters in their 20s whose job it was to bring us through at 4:36 for the first 1600 — a compromise between the 4:32 I wanted and the 4:40 that Danny Martinez preferred.
Of course, then Danny never showed up and the pacesetters surprised us by running 3:30 for the first 1200 and then dropping out. I mean, what’s wrong with the youth of today?! 😉
So I had to lead it from there, meaning that I immediately turned cautious. When weighing the joy of setting a new record against the shame of running too hard and then bonking in front of my teammates, fear of shame won out.
Besides, I had Joe Carnegie on my shoulder. And I figured my bonk would immediately precipitate a 28-29 second last 200 by Joe that would increase my shame tenfold.
So I settled on a safe pace, figuring I’d probably help out the guys behind me more that way anyway. And I like to think I did. Joe fell off after a couple laps, but Christian Cushing-Murray moved up, staying competitive for the win until the final push with about 600 to go. At that point, I was able to gap him a little, but he still held on for second place, with Duncan a few seconds behind him (both under 9 minutes), then Hegelbach right behind Duncan, and then Joe and a bunch of others — including Rich Burns, who ran 9:11 or 9:12 at age 53. Ken Stone writes that Gunnar Linde ran a M80 record, but I have to admit that I missed that … wish I hadn’t! I’d have loved to ask Gunnar about his training and racing at that age!

Actually, the results say Gunnar is 79, not 80. So nevermind about that.