Ramblin’ On
I ran the James Joyce Ramble 10K in Dedham MA today, the 40th running of this race. I have done it 12 or 13 times. The course is fair but challenging with a four-mile loop bookended by a one-mile out and back at the start/finish. What makes this event rather unique is that the founder, Martin Hanley, is a James Joyce afficionado and has always had readers along the course dressed in traditional Joyce garb quoting from the Ulysses. Today there were four readers clustered in the hilly fourth mile section through the Greenough and Nobles School campus, providing a welcomed distraction from those hills.
This was the 11th straight year the Ramble has served as the National USATF Masters 10K Championship. Being a national race, it draws an impressive array of Masters runners from around the country. More than half the field was from out of state. Those of us who have run these races over the years have gotten to know each other. These are the hard cores! While the national races are not large, the depth of the runners is deep. Case in point, the Masters race, which preceded the larger Citizen’s race by three minutes, had only 213 runners. But 40% of the field achieved at least an 80% age-grading, a level considered national class, with many of those in the mid to high 80s and four over 90%, which is simply off the charts! In most local races 1% to 3% might race above the 80% level. Further, 58% age-graded at least at 75%, which denotes a high-level regional runner. In comparison a typical race might have 6-8% achieving 75%. Stiff competition!
This is also a rare race (that is not a Senior Games event) where the 60+ year olds outnumbered those under 60, though the split was close. For the men 67 vs. 59; for women 45 vs. 43. Granted, the field starts at 40 but it’s still great to be part of an event that values older runners while still drawing serious competitors at scale. Yet, it does not obscure the fact that as we age, participation declines. Combining the men and women, there were 29 in 70-74, 12 in 75-79, and 8 in 80+. An unusual result was that the largest men’s age group was 70-74 with 20 finishers. Sometimes, it just works out that way. In my 75-79 group, some of the “regulars” did not make it, which enabled me to take second out of seven with a time just 16 seconds slower than 2025, when I was fifth (the age-grade tables suggest I should have expected to slow by 52 seconds, so my age-grading improved year-over-year.)
It’s great having at least one National USATF Masters race in New England. Overall attendance was down some this year and I wonder if the Ramble will make it to 12 straight in 2027. A continuing drawback is the race is either one or two weeks after Boston — this year it was one week, which may have affected turnout.
Meanwhile, we all keep ramblin’ on as best we can.