The official riders list for Mount Washington came out today. The 623 names span seven pages, and when I sorted the results from lowest age to highest age, I found myself halfway down page one. A scant 54 names ahead of the 10 year old dynamo who’s back for another shot at the hill. Oh to weigh 40 pounds again…
Dare I forget to mention, 568 names below this year’s oldest racer, who tops the field at 74 years old/young/wow.
This is the one strange phenomenon about Wash; perhaps hill climb events in general. At age 32, I enter any given race and I feel like an old man. Except here. Here it’s a different ballgame. Call it a function of midlife crisis, call it the rich man’s hill climb; I’m not sure I have the answer, but here’s this year’s distribution:
Confirmed riders: 623
Average Age: 44.2 years
Median Age: 44
Most Occurring: 45 years (33 riders)
Most Entrants: Massachusetts (191 riders)
My age drops me inside the lower 10% of the age distribution. Which really is meaningless. For all of that “youth”, last year I finished right around the 50% mark for all racers.
As with wine and underpants, better with age it seems.
chasing 1:20 