masterstrack.com

Older, slower, lower: Ken Stone's hobby blog for showcasing and watchdogging adult age-group track and field

Seeing is believing: Videos and photos capture Kamloops, Boston

It’s time to savor some photo and video gems of recent masters meets. Britain’s Lesley Richardson and Canada’s Doug Smith shot a gazillion photos at Kamloops worlds, and Chris Kalafarski (providing images to usatf.org) has posted 2,570 incredibly sharp shots of Boston indoor nationals. Over at YouTube, folks are uploading great clips from Boston and indoor worlds, including this dramatic W50 duel over 800 (below) between Cheryl Bellaire and Julie Hayden at Boston, won by Dr. B 2:33.19 to 2:33.30. Some M65 mile videos are here. A set of Canuckcentric videos from Kamloops is posted on the Canadian masters channel.

Read the rest of this post »

April 6, 2010  4 Comments

Pete Magill pulling the plug on Younger Legs for Older Runners site

This was a shock but not a surprise. My masters distance-runner friend Pete Magill announced today that his year-old site is closing shop. He writes: “So why end the blog? It’s simple really: there just isn’t enough time in the day.” This was my fear from the start, which I shared with him privately. He was burning the candle at both ends and the middle. But let it be known that his masters-centric site was the best that ever was or ever will be, short of a second coming of Jim Fixx teamed with Dr. George Sheehan. His stable of contributing writers — including Earl Fee, Dr. Cheryl Bellaire and Liz Palmer — was world-class. His training advice and videos were (and are) state of the art.

Read the rest of this post »

April 5, 2010  13 Comments

Don’t blink! Two dozen world records set in the past 2 weeks

Whew! I should go on vacation more often. It’s good luck for would-be record-setters. In the past 10 days, dozens of world age-group bests fell. Fortunately, the Italian masters observer Andrea Benatti kept track of WRs in my absence. At Boston nationals alone, he counted 21 (listed below). And in the past couple days, we’ve been informed of more potential world records — including Australia’s Marie Kay claiming the W50 long jump WR at her masters outdoor nationals in Perth and Britain’s Helen Clitheroe taking 19 seconds off the listed W35 indoor mile record.

Read the rest of this post »

April 5, 2010  3 Comments

Back from vacation — tanned, rested and ready for more blogging!

Some things are more important than masters track. Sorry. Excommunicate me. But faith (Easter and Passover, for example) and family get higher priority. And sometimes long naps. Last night, after more than 9 hours of driving, Chris, Bobby and I got home from an unforgettable vacation to northern Arizona and southern Utah. We spent eight days exploring and photographing some of Earth’s most magnificent landscapes — Sedona’s Red Rock country; the south rim of the Grand Canyon; the upper slot canyon of Antelope Canyon near Page, Arizona; Bryce Canyon’s jagged spires in Utah; and the Navajo Nation’s treasures of Canyon de Chelly (pronounced Shay) and the incomparable Monument Valley. So that’s where I’ve been the past week, shirking my blogging while going off on a book-review tangent. (Sharp-eyed readers may have noted my cryptic aside of March 27: “I’ll be on vacation.”) So I’m sorry for not reporting on Boston nationals — or even British nationals, where a Debbie Brill masters high jump record was broken. I’ll give these my full attention in coming days.

Read the rest of this post »

April 4, 2010  6 Comments

Book review: ‘Second Wind: Rise of the Ageless Athlete’ is No. 1

Lee Bergquist and I shared some time at Oshkosh nationals, and he brought his middle-school son along. I hope the kid appreciates what kind of superstar his dad is. Not as an athlete, but as a professional newsman, investigator and storyteller. As a reporter for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, he specializes in the environment. But a few years back, he focused on the sprints, and he became a fan of my Web site. One thing led to another, and he was traveling across the country interviewing masters athletes (not all tracksters). The result was “Second Wind,” and it’s absolutely first-rate. I judge such athlete-profile books by how they satisfy my curiosity and sate my need for the new. Like a 300 bowler, Lee nails the line every time. “While it’s true that America is growing more sedentary,” Lee writes, “older athletes have never had it better.” This book captures that joyful spirit, but also the forlorn pain of spousal loss. (Read how Gerald Vaughn became a demon thrower after losing his first wife.)

Read the rest of this post »

April 3, 2010  One Comment

Book review: ‘Creating Amazement’ is a long motivational talk

David O’Meara doesn’t merely walk the walk, he runs the run. The mile run. Again and again. Of course, he rarely competes on the track (Boston nationals being an exception, where he was a DNF), but his string of sub-5 miles in his mid-40s is an amazing feat. During his mile circuits of 2008 and 2009, he kept a steady patter of promotion going via his Web site and blog. And now he boils down those entries into a book. The purpose? To inspire people, aggregate his blog — and keep himself in the public eye. Like all good motivational speakers, he has a hook. (I won’t call it a gimmick, since it’s kind of poetic.) He advocates “amazement,” and attributes a quality of mind or heart to each sub-5 mile he ran in 2008, including “humility, dedication, kindness, strength, drive, gratitude, enjoyment, honesty, peace and patience.” (This is a partial list.) Boy Scouts of America should sue for copyright infringement.

Read the rest of this post »

April 2, 2010  No Comments

Book review: ‘The Masters Athlete’ is Aussie’s magnum opus

Outside of Earl Fee’s book, this is the best guide for older athletes in existence. Like Earl in “How to be a Champion from 9 to 90,” Peter Reaburn shares his own sports history. Like Earl, Peter draws together many strings of sports science. But Peter’s book is so chock full of new information he blows me away. Chapter titles burst with promise: “Recovery strategies for the Masters Athlete,” “Weight Control and the Masters Athlete” and one we rarely see: “The Female Masters Athlete.” And the promise is delivered every time. His Web site adds:
Peter has a passion for ‘bridging the gap’ between sport and exercise science and athletes and coaches. He has been an invited contributor to Australia’s premier coaching magazine Sports Coach for over 10 years, has been invited every year to speak at national and international coaching conferences, and is an invited author of review articles focused on masters athletes for the European Review of Aging and Physical Activity. Through the late 1990’s Peter and his wife Claire wrote and self-published a hardcopy publication titled The Masters Athlete until a young family came along.”

Read the rest of this post »

April 1, 2010  3 Comments

Book review: ‘Running on Third Wind’ a second look at top columns

Mike Tymn is my hero, and my envy. He lives in Hawaii, writes almost exclusively about masters running and — like one of those everyday-streak-runners — just keeps churning out marvelous slice-of-life vignettes. Year after year. National Masters News, from which these 72 columns were taken, has been his home base for more than 30 years. He’s also written for Runner’s World and Running Times, which makes him one of the deans of our craft (along with Hal Higdon). But this mini-bio tells you nothing about the charm of this anthology. It’s simply the cream of the crop of 350 columns. And what constitutes cream? Mike has captured the guts and heart of our sport, its stars and the culture surrounding them. He quotes his subjects extensively, doing justice to their stories.

Read the rest of this post »

March 31, 2010  No Comments

Book review: ‘Masters Athletics’ is an academic tour de force

Authors Kryzysztof Kusy and Jacek Zielinski sent me their academic masterpiece three years ago, and I’m ashamed it’s taken me this long to give it proper due (even though I noted its existence in February 2007). The book, which debuted as a “monograph” at the July 2006 Eurovets championships, is a serious look at masters track and covers our history, demographics, records and societal significance. Bravely, the authors also tackle — in a dense, 17-page chapter — “Anti-doping in masters sport.” They give attention to doping education and the prospect of gene doping. KK and JZ doubt illegal doping in masters track is as extensive as elite track, saying we don’t have the same commercial incentive. But “masters are likely to reach for doping agents in order to relieve the consequences of an injury. However, the main reason seems to be the prevention of aging processes and the consequent unavoidable reduction of physical fitness that older competitors find hard to accept.”
Read the rest of this post »

March 30, 2010  3 Comments

Book review: ‘The Ultimate High Jump Manual’ falls short of promise

Since Ron Lee, my M45 high jump friend, isn’t a professional author, I’ll forgive him the hyperbole. This is far from the “ultimate” book on high jumping. That would mean chapters on the history of the event, its superstars, record progressions, top coaches, most dramatic competitions (like the Atlanta 1996 men’s high jump I witnessed in person), color diagrams and a DVD with video clips of well-executed jumps. (His club site says a DVD is available this month, but it didn’t come with my review copy last year.) Other techniques should be addressed besides the Fosbury flop. Ron writes: “It is rare to find a high jumper that does not use (the flop). Therefore this book will only discuss the flop technique.” (Just don’t tell masters straddlers like Bill Murray, Charlie Rader, John Dobroth, Phil Fehlen, Willie Banks, Jason Meisler, Dave Perry and most over-70 jumpers.)

Read the rest of this post »

March 29, 2010  2 Comments

• « Older Entries
• Newer Entries »

• SEARCH MT&F

• About Ken Stone

  

  Ken Stone

  Ken has followed track as an athlete, writer and web-master since the late 1960s, and saw most sessions of track and field at the 1984 Los Angeles and 1996 Atlanta Olympics. He also attended the 1988, 1992, 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012 Trials, the last three as a blogger and Patch correspondent. [More...]
•