Make a Nike star out of M40 masters sprinter Scott Meier
M40 sprinter Scott Meier — a coach and teacher in Farmington, Minnesota — is Rocky Balboa in spikes. See him run stairs, pull a sled, take block starts. In masters track, he’s not quite national-class. But man does he have heart. He also has a video entry in a contest sponsored by Nike and The Sports Authority store chain, and he could use our helpful clicks. Scott writes: “Most of the entries are geared toward road races, but mine is based on the track, from a masters perspective.” On our Forum, he notes: “As far as I can tell, it’s the only masters track entry in the contest.” So check out his video and vote him up the pop charts. You’ll also get ideas on how to train in the snow.
Scott has a chance at some cool gifts if we just give him some click support.
Drake Relays vault conditions were ‘fantastic,’ Sparks says
Doug “Bubba” Sparks writes of the Drake Relays masters vault: “The meet conditions were fantastic with a nice day and warm tailwind – 75 (degrees) at jump time. Sometimes when conditions are really good it throws your timing off just a little. I struggled with that too. And at our age, ‘a little’ can affect you by a foot in height.” Despite their no-heights, the four vaulters who opened high “actually did vault well,” Bubba says, “just had little room for error at a higher starting height in the good conditions. Lesson learned. The facilities and the officiating staff were beyond outstanding. It was an honor to participate.”
Drake Relays masters vault field introduced with Olympian Jeff Hartwig (left)
Lindenburg wins Drake masters vault as several studs NH
Hometown submaster David Lindenburg, 31, won the event, but the story of the Drake Relays masters vault was NH’s by potential record-setters M45 Paul Babits and M55 Jeff Kingstad. I’m unsure of the conditions, but Paul and Jeff apparently passed too often. They opened at 4.77 and 4.01, respectively — 15-7 3/4 and 13-1 3/4. Then they missed three times. M40 Trevor Richards, an assistant coach at Drake, was the first true masters finisher, going 4.46 (14-7 1/2) and M60 John Altendorf cleared 3.71 (12-2), a foot under his own WR of 4.00. M50 Gary Hunter faired likewise, going 4.46 (14-7 1/2), a foot under his own American record. Event organizer Doug “Bubba” Sparks jumped with a heavy heart, as you’ll see below.
22 masters entered Friday in 800 meters at Drake Relays
Nearly two dozen men between the ages of 40 and 59 make up the field tomorrow in the masters 800 at the 100th Drake Relays in Des Moines, Iowa. Notable is the Midwestern makeup of the entrants. All except mile race coordinator Mark Cleary are from neighboring states. This is good. Why should the Left and Right Coasts hog all the attention? Thanks go to Jim Schoffman for sharing this info. I just hope we don’t have a NASCAR pileup with a field this large. They might consider splitting into two or three sections. Also: The size of this field contradicts the assumption, made a few days ago, that you can’t get runners out to a meet on a workday. On Saturday, the masters mile — part of the USATF masters invitational program — has an all-star field of 14 that includes M40s Sean Messiter and Olympian Rod DeHaven, M45 John Hinton and nearly 60-year-old Nolan Shaheed.
Epidemic in results screw-ups? Siddons Games the latest
Nearly three weeks after the fact, I’ve received these results for the Al Siddons Games in Santa Ana, Calfornia. The annual meet, long known as the John Ward Masters Games, was April 5 at Santa Ana College. It’s now named after longtime Santa Ana College coach Al Siddons. But when Al ran the masters meet, he never botched the results. This year’s results are worthless in several sprints. (I didn’t run a 28.41 in the 200, for example. My 29.58 was instead assigned to M65 Tony Craddock.) The women’s 800? Results aren’t even given — despite an amazing run by W45 Jai Black. She went out crazy fast, then faded. But what guts. Landover’s debacle was unforgiveable, but smaller meets still need to be held accountable. And yet masters aren’t the only ones afflicted. The prestigious Mt. SAC Relays had results problems for a few days, as documented by this thread on the Track & Field News message board. Anyone else notice a trend in results/timing breakdowns?
USATF press operation finally acknowledges our AOYs
USATF today formally announced our annual Masters Athletes of the Year — Bill Collins, Kathy Martin and Kay Glynn. Finally. Indy was only five weeks late doing so. (And it buried the info in a News & Notes, rather than giving our folks a stand-alone, headlined release.) In fact, Indy had the information March 17, but the release was delayed to avoid stealing thunder from Bob Weiner’s promotion of the then-upcoming Landover indoor nationals. (Bob is a member of the Potomac Valley Track Club, the host of Landover nationals.) Of course, we had the news first. The Landover meet program also carried the awards lists. So why did Indy release the news today (or at all)? I bugged them.
Hartwig to MC masters vault exhibition at Drake Relays
How cool is this? Not only do the masters vaulters jumping Thursday at the 100th Drake Relays rate their own press release, but they also get a celebrity MC — none other than M40 world record holder and 2008 Olympian Jeff Hartwig! Too bad he’s not vaulting in Des Moines as well. The 10-man field has scads of record holders, in assorted age groups, so there may be many delays as the bar goes higher — and gets remeasured. Friday’s meet also has a men’s masters 800. Have a great time, gents.
New photos of Landover meet (but same old sucky results)
The meet ended a month ago, but now I see a new batch of 157 shots from “Day 2” of Landover posted on the USATF page devoted to indoor nationals. Great images of Bill Collins, Neni Lewis, Rita Hanscom, Mary Harada, Phil Raschker, Kathy Martin and dozens of others — by Cheryl Treworgy. Of course, the results are still screwed up. And masters national chairman Gary Snyder hasn’t blogged since March 25. Helloooo? Knock knock. Anyone there?
Courageous Carmel Papworth-Barnum wades onto the Web
Carmel, the new webmistress.
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Carmel Papworth-Barnum loves taking risks, venturing outside her comfort zone. (She married a world-class sprinter a couple decades her senior, after all.) And she moved from her home in southern Australia to northern Nevada. Now Carmel, the former editor of National Masters News, is moving onto the Web. She writes: “I wanted to share with you what I’ve cialis been working on for months. It’s a website for women runners. I’m just starting to feel like it’s ready to put out there. I’ve still got so much I want to add but it’s rolling along. . . . My focus is women runners of all ages and at ages with advice on training, racing, nutrition (Nancy Clark), motivation, etc. I want to motivate women to take order xanax up running and to keep running. I’ve also put up my travel guide to the Sydney Masters Games.” Her site is called women-running-together.com. It’s a wonderful resource, even straight out of the blocks.
MacLeod, Bellaire and Henderson also speedy this weekend
Mt. SAC was great, but it wasn’t the only major meet to feature masters. Up at Hayward Field, masters ran the 100 and 800 at the UCLA-Oregon dual meet Saturday. Results are posted here. Perhaps the top mark was an 800 in 3:46.68 by Suzi MacLeod, not far off the listed W75 American record  3:37.19 by Pearl Mehl in 1989. Here is video of the masters 100. And here is video of the masters 800.  And out in Chester, Pennsylvania, at least two masters posted great marks over the weekend at the Widener Invitational.  Dr. Cheryl Bellaire, 50, lowered her season best in the 800 to 2:34.71, and national champ Renee Henderson, 44, blasted the 100 in 12.59 and deuce in 25.58.
