M80-99 at the B.A.A. 10K: Engstrom Takes the Title at 80

• Robert Engstrom won the M80-99 group in 1:20:10 (12:54/mi), finishing ahead of fellow 80-year-old Maurice Bourque.
• Maurice Bourque crossed in 1:22:53 (13:20/mi), a gap of 2 minutes 43 seconds separating the two.
• Both men ran on a warm Boston morning — 77°F with a 12 mph wind — making every mile a test of resolve.

Just two men lined up in the M80-99 age group at the 2022 B.A.A. 10K, but what they accomplished on a warm June morning in Boston deserves its own spotlight. Robert Engstrom of Farmington, CT and Maurice Bourque of Lakeville, MA — both 80 years old — went the full 10 kilometers through city streets in 77-degree heat with a stiff 12 mph wind.

Engstrom held the edge throughout. He clicked through the course at a 12:54-per-mile average, building and maintaining a lead that he never surrendered, finishing in 1:20:10. His pacing was steady enough that he actually moved up in the men's field between the 5K and 8K marks, climbing from 2,197th to 2,172nd among the men — a sign he was finding his rhythm while others around him faded in the heat.

Bourque ran a disciplined race of his own, crossing in 1:22:53 at a 13:20-per-mile clip. He settled into a consistent position in the men's field across all three checkpoints, never straying far from where he stood at 5K. The 2:43 margin between the two men was the story of the day, but the bigger story is simply that both men — at 80 — finished a 10K road race on one of the warmer mornings Boston has offered in recent years.