Agism?

• 3/04/2009 Mile Time: 7:28 (Fifteen Witnesses.) 
  
• 5/29/2009 Mile Time: 7:43 (I ran for twenty minutes prior to timing my mile.  I had a fifteen minute hiatus between my twenty minute run and my mile time.  The temperature was eighty degrees and the wind was blowing fifteen mph.)
  

Dearest Mr. D Participants,

You should all defeat me in this competition.  I am the standard by which you will judge your fitness level.  As the oldest competitor at nearly 39 years of age, I should be destined for failure, but will I fail?  

Graciously, the commish has allowed me to run the mile twice so that I can demonstrate my flirtation with failure.  Remember, I might finish last, but I will be there under your athletic souls and peering over your shoulder.  As Sir Winston Churchill so eloquently stated," This is not the end nor the beginning of the end; it is the end of the beginning."  Please don't judge the elderly.  

Sincerely,

Gheetz