Peter Taylor urges qualifying standards for masters nationals
Peter Taylor, our dedicated meet announcer, gave a great interview to Peter Magill this weekend. In the course of a 3,300-word Q&A, Taylor revisits the much-debated issue of whether USATF national masters championships should have qualifying standards. He says yes. Magill asked: “Masters athletes sometimes complain about the lack of attention they get from the press, but is there a problem with the lack of attention National Championship events get from the athletes themselves? Our turnout for national meets lags way behind some of the European countries.” Taylor replies: “We must remember that in the U.S., very few athletes see our national masters championships as a ‘must.’ The problem is not one of attraction as much as it is retention.”
Illinois writer reads masters records, takes the mistaken bait
When age-group records err, it’s not just athletes who are wronged. It’s anyone who reads about the records from erroneous press accounts. Latest example concerns Charlie Kern, the M35 indoor national champ in the Landover mile and 3000. Charlie would eat my breakfast, lunch and dinner in any race from 5 meters on up, but he’s nowhere near being the best American age-grouper in these indoor distances. In suburban Chicago’s Daily Herald, Dave Oberhelman writes: “Charlie Kern stands a good chance of global conquest. The former York assistant track and cross country coach set new two age-division American records at the USA Masters Indoor Track & Field Championships, March 20-21.” I’ve detailed the mistakes here and here. And here’s a flub I didn’t recognize until now: USATF’s Day 2 press release from Landover refers to “Charlie Klein.” Can’t even get his name right. Sheesh squared!
More details on Landover nationals: 4 got expenses paid
Jay Jacob Wind
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Jay Jacob Wind, secretary of the Potomac Valley Track Club, which hosted the recent Landover indoor nationals, has posted a revelatory comment on my entry regarding Henry Rono. Turns out I didn’t know the quarter of it. He says that he and masters publicist Bob Weiner privately brought in four athletes — Rono, Phil Raschker, John Tuttle and Joan Benoit-Samuelson. And Henry and Joanie also got appearance fees. Fortunately — and significantly — none of this money came out of other entrants’ pockets, or from the Local Organizing Committee. Three days ago, I had written meet director Craig Chasse (pronounced Chessy), and he replied: “No, we did not pay for anyone’s travel, housing etc., nor did we authorize anyone else to do it; that was done entirely by private individuals on their own behalf.” So I erred in taking Henry literally when he said “meet organizers” flew him out from New Mexico. More accurately, it was meet organizers privately paid their way. So my apologies on missing the nuance. I’m revising my article for Masters Athlete magazine.
French champion added to Mt. SAC masters hurdle field
Jerome Millet
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Richard Holmes updates us on the Mt. SAC masters hurdles exhibition April 18: “I received an email from Dexter (McCloud) and unfortunately, he injured his quad, so he’s backing out. But to replace him, we’ve got confirmation that Jerome Millet (France) will take his place. Jerome’s credentials . . .Age 40. Personal best of 13.52. Member of the French national team. The European Masters champion 2005 and 2006. With the cancellation get xanax online of the California (Modesto) Relays this week, this will be the only showdown between masters hurdlers this year. So please gentleman, stay healthy and train smart.” Jerome is a SoCal-area soccer coach and track coach. Last year, he ran a 15.11 in the 110 highs (probably 42-inchers) at Cal State Los Angeles. I’ve never seen him run. This should be fun.
Portland meet in June featuring masters events — and mile!
Check this out: The Portland (Ore.) Track Festival returns June 13, and masters again are invited, especially elite milers. Last year, Tony Young outlegged Pete Magill in the mile, setting an M45 world record (4:16.09) in the process. (Here’s the race video.) An added bonus this year: “Olympic Throws Competition and Clinic Olympic gold medalist Mac Wikins will be teaming with fellow Olympian Tom Petranoff to host the throws competition at the PTF. Events will be conducted at the Concordia University Throws Center and will be open to Youth, Open and Masters athletes.” Cool! Maybe Mac and Tom will compete as well.
Masterstrack.com unveils handy-dandy pace/split calculator
Chris Dellinger, the brains behind our Trainlog online diary, provides a cool new tool — a split/pace calculator. Of course, this isn’t a first. (Lots of sites offer pace calculators). But ours is the best! Type in a desired time for any given distance and hit CALCULATE to see splits and other info on this pace. It works great. Chris has been working on this for a while, and he writes: “I did make some changes based upon your feedback as well as from several other sites that use our functionality. . . . The biggest change you’ll see . . . is that we put two tabs on the page to let you either calculate your pace for your splits or predict a time for one run based upon a time from another run.” Here’s what a 6:30 mile yields:
Earl Fee appeals for a work-around on 800 WR at Landover
Earl Fee has more records in sight at Lahti worlds.
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When you turn 80, you realize every day is precious. In Earl Fee’s case, it’s every world record. So it’s no surprise that he’s miffed over the timing debacle at Landover nationals, because it potentially robbed him of an M80 world indoor record for 800 meters — a monster 17 seconds under the listed record. Now he’s shared details of his run — and his hopes that his record race will be ratified with some alternative to the phototimer picture. He wrote me: “I hand-timed the professional Media high-quality video of my 800 race three times in 2:49.76, 2:49.87 and 2:49.88. The video also showed the wall scoreboard which starts automatically when the gun is fired. It showed 2:48.92 when I crossed the finish line. The video is very accurate to 1/30th of a second and the Media people were asked to provide a certified time to the USATF. Also there was one official hand-timer at the track. So there is plenty of verification.”
Aaron Thigpen notches his latest sub-11 in 100-meter dash
At 44, you’re supposed to be cruising. The new age group is less than a year away, and the new M40s are eating your lunch. Not with Aaron Thigpen. Over the weekend at Stanford, Aaron ran a 100 meters in 10.97 seconds. With a legal wind of 0.6 mps. Of course, that’s mediocre in Aaron’s mind, since he ran a legal 10.60 at Mt. SAC two years ago — which never not American record recognition. In any case, Aaron has a few years to go before claiming the title of oldest man to run sub-11. That remarkable achievement belongs to Bill Collins, who ran 10.95 at Baton Rouge in April 2002 — at the age of 51.
This Week’s Sign of the Apocalypse: SI errs on Tony Young
Great news! Sports Illustrated has hired me to write a weekly column on masters track! Serena Roberts has been fired, and I’ll be taking her spot on the back page! And if you believe any of that, you haven’t looked at today’s date. Enough foolishness. Here’s the real scoop: Tony Young is in this week’s issue of SI — one of six Faces in the Crowd. I’ve known about this since Friday because I nominated Tony three weeks ago. And I spent 10 minutes on the phone buy ventolin online with a lady from SI fact-checking the item. Only she (or her editor) screwed up and wrote: “Earlier this year he ran personal bests in the mile (4:13) and the 800 meters (1:55.7).” Oops, they should have said world age-group bests. (His real PRs are 4:02 and 1:48.79.) Sigh. At least they used the photo I sent. (Taken at the 2008 Olympic Trials.) When I informed Tony of his FITC selection, he wrote: “Thx Ken, I will renew my subscription today!!” Yer welcome, superstar.
More highlights of Ontario masters meet: Canadian records
Complete results from the Ontario masters indoor championships haven’t been posted, but Doug Smith put up a stunning series of images. Most show new Canadian record holders, including my fave Karla Del Grande (only a little older than me but two seconds faster in the 200. Sigh.) Karla ran 8.54 to break Carol Lafayette-Boyd’s W55 national record of 9.18 and dashed the deuce in 28.15, taking down Diane Palmason’s 30.33 Canadian record. Three hours after his 400 WR, Earl Fee clocked 32.07 in the 200 and just missed American Mel Larson’s 31.86 world record. (But Earl shattered Aleks Ernesak’s 35.5 national record.)
W55 Karla Del Grande is Earl Fee’s female clone (but younger and prettier).
