It’s downright eye-opening when a runner not only stages a masterful performance but a ‘master’-ful one as well.
Confused?
Well, let’s give an example:
Perkasie’s Stephanie Savastano, age 45, mastered the over-40 female masters division of the July 4th Revolutionary Run 5K in Washington Crossing, and, not satisfied with that, she mastered the entire field as well.
Anyone who knew she was coming off a personal-record three-hour, nine-minute, 14-second time at the Boston Marathon back in April shouldn’t have been surprised by her recent “double” in Bucks County.
Savastano credits consistency with her training for recent improvements in her race results. Knowing she’s been out there on the roads and trails, often accompanied by her 11-year-old daughter, Meadow, on her bicycle, provides a feeling of confidence during races.
“I would say it’s the consistency,” Savastano confirmed in a phone interview. “I’m very consistent and it seems to work for me.”
Making Stephanie’s July 4th effort all the more impressive is that she broke the 20-minute mark (19:30.1). According to Runners’ World magazine age-calculator, that comes out to an age-graded score of 80.51 percent and an age-graded time of 18:19.
The only tangible thing Savastano has added to her program was a slight increase in her weight training.
She’s particularly happy with this year’s Boston Marathon because last year was a challenging one due to unusually warm conditions. Race times were down across the board.
In a sense, the 2024 race in Massachusetts provided motivation to do better this time around. Plus, the conditions were much more conducive to fast running.
However, she wasn’t thinking about breaking any personal records.
“I just said, ‘run your own race,’+” she recalled. “I didn’t want to run a repeat of last year because I blew up and my stomach, the heat, and it just didn’t go well.
“I said, ‘make sure you stop if you have to stop and take a drink.’ I was dumping water on my head. . .I just wanted to make sure I finished and did the right things while I was running. That was my thought process. I did not think I would run my fastest time.”
Yet she did and it sounds like she’s on to new challenges. There might be still more in the tank, even as she competes against runners half her age.
The Boston numbers should provide her a feeling of confidence of their own moving forward.
In Beantown, she finished 41st out of 1,813 female runners in her age group and, overall, 931st out of 12,230. And that 7:14 per-mile pace is nothing to yawn at either.
“It’s still shocking to me that I’m running marathons at all,” she said with a chuckle. “But I will say that the last couple marathons I’ve run, over the last six miles I’ve actually sped up compared to the ones prior.
“Like I said, in my long training runs, there’s been a consistency. That helps out with the speed.”
As for the future, she’s already run a 50K ultra-marathon, so that one has been taken off the checklist. Just getting faster in the marathon will suffice for now.
Stephanie and her husband, Don Bradley, own three Manhattan Bagel franchises – Chalfont, Lansdale and a new one in Dublin-Bucks County. It keeps them busy, to say the least.
She still finds time to train for big races and even though the calendar is not supposed to be working in her favor, somehow she’s turning back the clock and proving conventional thinking wrong.
Confused?
Well, let’s give an example:
Perkasie’s Stephanie Savastano, age 45, mastered the over-40 female masters division of the July 4th Revolutionary Run 5K in Washington Crossing, and, not satisfied with that, she mastered the entire field as well.
Anyone who knew she was coming off a personal-record three-hour, nine-minute, 14-second time at the Boston Marathon back in April shouldn’t have been surprised by her recent “double” in Bucks County.
Savastano credits consistency with her training for recent improvements in her race results. Knowing she’s been out there on the roads and trails, often accompanied by her 11-year-old daughter, Meadow, on her bicycle, provides a feeling of confidence during races.
“I would say it’s the consistency,” Savastano confirmed in a phone interview. “I’m very consistent and it seems to work for me.”
Making Stephanie’s July 4th effort all the more impressive is that she broke the 20-minute mark (19:30.1). According to Runners’ World magazine age-calculator, that comes out to an age-graded score of 80.51 percent and an age-graded time of 18:19.
The only tangible thing Savastano has added to her program was a slight increase in her weight training.
She’s particularly happy with this year’s Boston Marathon because last year was a challenging one due to unusually warm conditions. Race times were down across the board.
In a sense, the 2024 race in Massachusetts provided motivation to do better this time around. Plus, the conditions were much more conducive to fast running.
However, she wasn’t thinking about breaking any personal records.
“I just said, ‘run your own race,’+” she recalled. “I didn’t want to run a repeat of last year because I blew up and my stomach, the heat, and it just didn’t go well.
“I said, ‘make sure you stop if you have to stop and take a drink.’ I was dumping water on my head. . .I just wanted to make sure I finished and did the right things while I was running. That was my thought process. I did not think I would run my fastest time.”
Yet she did and it sounds like she’s on to new challenges. There might be still more in the tank, even as she competes against runners half her age.
The Boston numbers should provide her a feeling of confidence of their own moving forward.
In Beantown, she finished 41st out of 1,813 female runners in her age group and, overall, 931st out of 12,230. And that 7:14 per-mile pace is nothing to yawn at either.
“It’s still shocking to me that I’m running marathons at all,” she said with a chuckle. “But I will say that the last couple marathons I’ve run, over the last six miles I’ve actually sped up compared to the ones prior.
“Like I said, in my long training runs, there’s been a consistency. That helps out with the speed.”
As for the future, she’s already run a 50K ultra-marathon, so that one has been taken off the checklist. Just getting faster in the marathon will suffice for now.
Stephanie and her husband, Don Bradley, own three Manhattan Bagel franchises – Chalfont, Lansdale and a new one in Dublin-Bucks County. It keeps them busy, to say the least.
She still finds time to train for big races and even though the calendar is not supposed to be working in her favor, somehow she’s turning back the clock and proving conventional thinking wrong.
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