…Or is it “back to the future”? Who can tell? CRR Charlie Roth looks like he’s in good form, as this past weekend he completed the Princeton Half Marathon. What’s interesting about this piece of running news is that Roth, who did his graduate work in chemical engineering at the University of Delaware more than two decades ago, had not run a half-marathon in 21 years (since Caesar Rodney in 1993), in what he calls his “previous life.”

OK, so his 1:44:03 was 22 minutes or so more than his PR, but haven’t we all lost more than a few steps in that same period of time?

Back in the early 90s, Roth was a bit of a speed merchant on Creek Road, yet he would humor some of us older CRRs by running longer distances with them on weekends, during which we could try to wear him out.

Roth reflects on this achievement:

In the early part of this year, I started incorporating a longer run into my 3x/week running. It had reached 8 miles in late spring when registration for the Princeton Half Marathon started heating up, and I figured 8 is almost 10 and 10 is almost 13, so why not try. I managed to do it while maintaining my 3x/week, 15-20 miles per week by just ramping up the long runs slowly. It was a lot of fun running in my hometown with lots of family and friends along the way. [My son] Alex even rode his bike around and saw me half a dozen times. I was just trying to be under 1:50 so was thrilled!

We are thrilled for you too. Well done.