Do you ever look around at the faces at the races and notice the older gentlemen who are almost always there? And wonder, not only who they are, but how they keep going at that age? Well, some of the most prolific runners in our area are some of the oldest. Our featured runner this issue is Ray Blue, a member of the Fifty Plus Club. In the first nine months of this year, he had already run more than his requisite 50 races.

Ray Blue graduated from high school in 1943, having participated in all seasonal sports, including overlapping ones like baseball and track, even trying some boxing and swimming. We were involved in a war about then and Ray chose to join the Army. Then he stayed for thirty-one years. Being on the job, he had little time for sports other than staying fit with periodic PT tests. He was stationed overseas, mostly in Berlin, from 1956 to 1966, which he enjoyed.

After retiring from the Army in June 1974, he went to work for the Post Office for thirteen years, leaving just about the time I ran my first race. All this time he smoked big fat cigars. When he decided, wisely, to stop he put on some unwanted weight. He kept on working, but he also headed for the Bolling AFB fitness center and made the weight room his friend. That worked so well at three days a week that he bumped it up to five days a week. In about 18 months, he took off 20 pounds. In the spring of 1993, he got up enough courage to enter a race and the fun began. He first race was a 5K in Lake Ridge that had a fifty and over category. Novice that he was at age sixty-nine, he had a rough time. Later that year, in September, he won an age group award and a pair of running shoes. Needless to say, he was hooked. He won three more 5Ks before the year ended.

Turning seventy did not make it easier for Ray because the competition in that age group is tough, racing against local runners of national class talent such as Walt Washburn, Bill Osburn, Paul Lackey, and Dixon Hemphill. Still, more than once, the Washington Running Report's Rankings placed Ray at number one. Now that he is edging toward the upper end of that ten-year age group, he is learning what most of us knew already. Five- year age groups are necessary.

For more than four years now Ray has been a member of the 50 Plus Club, a club where members attempt to run fifty or more races in a year. Ray loves the camaraderie of the club. You will get a call or E-mail message if he does not see you at the race. With 60 races by September, this will be Ray's most prolific year. He loves the competition, fondly remembering beating Dixon Hemphill at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial 10K. Still, he is just as likely to brag to someone about the race of one of his many friends in the racing community.

Ray tells me that, "Without question my favorite type of race is a flat 8K course." He highlighted his running career in 1996 by going out to Utah for the Alta Peruvian 8K. This somewhat aided course starts at 9,000 feet and finishes at around 6,500 feet. He won his age group in a leg shivering 32:59. He has always used the grade school racing plan: Run a race as hard as you can from the very start. If you are caught, then you lose. Otherwise, you run away and hide and will probably win. While it is always hard to be what you once were, Ray's racing days are far from over. Ray hurt his hand recently, which only slows his running down a little, but it makes him awfully sympathetic to people with handicaps. When he does decide to stop competing, you can bet you will see his smiling face at the finish line as a volunteer.

(In the last year, Ray has occasionally worked for Capital Running Company when he has been injured and couldn't run, or just wanted to see a race "from the other side." You may see him at the packet pick-up tables or in the finish corral, collecting chips. Be sure to say "Hello." Editor)