I've had more than my share of senior moments lately. I don't mean forgetting where I put my car keys, or the remote, or the phone -- I've been forgetting those things for years, long before hitting the age where AARP sends me membership notices every other week (and the local cemeteries send half-off flyers in the mail).

I mean senior running moments, where age is rearing its ugly, wrinkled, balding head and toothlessly snarling at me. Einstein became the 20th century's first science superstar when he wrote about the relativity of time, weight and the length of things as they travel at different speeds relative to the speed of light.

But there is runner's relativity, too, where different laws apply to those younger and those older, even if they move at the same speed. Here are some that apply to me now, that younger folks running near me might not notice or be affected by:

* There are no downhill courses.

* There are almost no flat courses.

* All loop courses have a net uphill.

* All loop courses come with a wind in your face.

* There are no tailwinds.

* There are no short courses, there are few accurate courses and nearly all courses are long, and getting longer.

* Car odometers have become woefully inadequate.

I train at eight-minute pace. Always have. When I bought my 1989 Ford Probe, I'd go for a run, then measure the course and 40 minutes by foot would equal five miles on the odometer, on the dot. A good car, a good odometer.

Now, though, all that highfalutin' electronics has produced inferior odometers. Did an eight-mile run the other day, hitting 64 minutes flat on the watch. The car said 7.1. Stupid car. No wonder GM is having trouble selling Azteks.

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Congratulations to Detroit native Katie Chapman, who won't have to worry about senior moments for quite a while. A 1997 graduate of Cass Tech and a three-time All-American at Ferris State in the 800-meter run, she has joined the Indiana Invaders' nationally-renowned running team.

Chapman won the Detroit Public School League title three times in the 800, was a four-time all-stater in the event, won three conference championships at Ferris and holds the Bulldogs' school record of 2:06.94.

She also excelled in the classroom, earning a bachelors degree in English education in 2002. She'll receive another degree in history this spring. Chapman plans to move to Indianapolis, the club's home base, in July.

The Invaders are a team of post-collegiate elite runners, a la Team Hansons. In 2001, in the club's third year of existence, it won the national club title in track and field, plus the women's national championship in cross country. ****

Cold weather is common at early-spring marathons, but there was nothing common about the conditions that faced 11 runners from six countries and three continents -- including two from Michigan -- who ran through Arctic winds and over snow and ice for 26.2 miles at the North Pole Marathon April 17.

Dave Kanners of Rochester Hills, for many years one of the top age- group runners in Michigan, finished third; and Don Kern of Martin finished 10th. (You can find Scott Sullivan's January 2002 story about Kern in Michigan Runner's website archives, www.michiganrunner.com.)

Soft, loose snow and still winds that produced a wind chill of minus-29 C slowed things considerably. Martin Tighe of the United Kingdom was first in 5:02:10, Richard Donovan second in 5:20:35.

A helicopter was waiting at the finish to take competitors back to base camp, but the slow times resulted in the chopper -- which had to keep its engine going throughout -- running low on fuel. So other runners were picked up out on the course, and the distances they had covered were recorded.

After they got back to base camp, they all resumed running and finished the required 26.2 miles. Times were not recorded, though, for the last nine finishers.

Kanners, a drag-car and motocross racer, is also a cross-country biker, triathlete and ultramarathoner.

Kern started running at age 38 and completed his first marathon a year later, in 1995. He has made up for lost time since then, doing 26.2- milers in the Antarctic, Norway, Venezuela and on Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Results and photos of the North Pole Marathon can be found at www.northpolemarathon.com.

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Kelly Waldo of Lake Orion was one of the unsung stars of the year's Boston Marathon. She was the first Michigan woman to cross the finish line on a hot, sunny day, in 3:03:19.

What made her time particularly impressive were her age -- at 19 she is young for a marathoner -- and training regimen: she didn't run for 12 weeks leading up to her 26.2-miler.

Kelly, a student at Grand Valley, was diagnosed during the winter with cysts on both hips, which curtailed her running. She kept up her fitness by swimming and doing other non-impact exercises.

In addition, Matt O'Mara, who ran the Disney Marathon in 2001 as a fund-raiser for the American Diabetes Association, recruited Kelly to join the Kids at Heart Marathon Team, sponsored by the Children's Hospital in Boston.

She kept in contact with two of the patients there leading up to the race, took them gifts on her trip to Boston, went out to dinner with one of the families on Saturday night, then ran in their name on Monday.

Because of the cysts, the race was likely Kelly's last marathon. Despite them, her time was just a minute slower than what she posted at Chicago last fall.

At the other end of the Boston time scale, Dr. Jim Puklin of Detroit, a member of the Downtown Runners and an eye surgeon at Kresge Eye Institute, made his annual trek to Beantown and suffered through the heat to finish in 5:54:07, a far cry from his best Boston time of 3:07.

When asked to comment on what the loss of speed over the years has meant to him, Jim summed it up with an anecdote: The year he ran 3:07, he was able to get back to his hotel, change, get to the airport, catch a flight to New York and be in a seat for a concert at Carnegie Hall that evening.

Nowadays, if he wants to take in a concert in New York, it's got to be on Tuesday.

Jim, I know the feeling. Sounds like some more senior relativity, needing two days to do what used to require just one.