Week 39, Day 273, January 23, 2010, Hartshorne Memorial Masters Mile

The Hartshorne Memorial Masters Mile is the oldest Masters Mile race in the United States.  It was started over 40 years ago by Jim Hartshorne at Cornell University.  In attracts many local milers, but also World Class runners.  It's an incredible event.  As a runner, I am amazed at this event and the people who organize and participate in it.  It looks like another World Record was set today at the event.  I'll leave it to the Event organizers to make the official announcement, but it was incredible.

Three years ago, I ran in this event.  Two years ago I began photographing it.  I really enjoy the photography, and the runners seem to appreciate it.  My new camera seems much better at dark conditions like this one.

This photo is one of the slower heats that is made up of a lot of the local runners.  They are all heroes in my book.  They've trained hard in their spare time to compete here today.  Great job to everybody who participated.

Lessons Learned:

• In the past two days I have taken over 5000 photos.  It takes a long time to upload them, and sort them all on my computer.  I still haven't gone through them all.  I guess the lesson is that photography can take a lot of time, especially when an event is involved. (Let alone 2 events.)
• A terrible thing happened with the photograph of the fastest race.  It was a photo finish with two runners that were neck and neck.  I was facing them coming strait down the track.  When I was taking their photo near the tape, they were far enough apart that my camera began focusing on the far wall 100 meters away.  Neither of the runners were in focus in my photo.  I think this happened to most of the photographers that were there.  The local sports photographer was smart enough to focus on the tape instead of the runners, but I'm not sure if he was happy with his photo either.