Senior Olympian Sprinter

Hurricane Sandy is bearing down on the East coast.  I was supposed to fly into Newark, NJ  tomorrow, but Delta cancelled my flight.  I was planning on not going anyways, but now I have a real excuse.  I suspect they will get drowned with rain, lose power for extented period and have a major mess on their hands.  I will reschedule to go in two weeks.   I will    work out my schedule on Monday with several changes the next couple of weeks.  I am basically traveling every week except for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  For professional travelers, those weeks  are way too busy with rookies and it is impossible to get the flights you need to get anywhere. I did do a couple of work outs over the weekend in the weight room.  I did heavy legs one day followed by an upper body the next.   I am a little sore which is expected in the legs.  I think next week, I will have some time to do some running and k...

I think my little training vacation may be coming to an end.   The busy meter is going to be pegging the next 8 weeks.   Linda and I are buying a house in Brentwood, TN.  The current owners want to close by mid November and we need to have the money, insurance, other messy details completed.  Throw in moving around the Holidays and we have the real American dream coming true.   The moving is pretty straight forward, we do that a lot and we are quite good and 2 Men and a Truck do the rest. I have my heaviest work load of the year is also coming up with a new tissue machine start up and the annual deer hunt thrown in the middle of it all.    But I have always liked challenges and this winter will be up at the top of the list.   I am in Corvallis, Oregon this week and the weather is quite winter like in comparison to Tennessee.  I ran on the treadmill tonite and actually ran 1 miles in 8 minutes. ...

I am in Minnesota this week, and the clouds are telling to "run boy, run".  get out of here before the winter starts.   There has been the low clouds all week, that are  common to the upper Midwest during the winter and they are a major reason that I will not return.  They just sap the energy from your body for some reason.   I like the sun, without a steady supply of sun, I get weak and can descend into some pretty nasty depression.    You will get to hear about this as the days grow shorter.  Early January is when I can feel the slippage into the darkness.   Like the clouds are saying--"Run Boy, Run"  I am a getting home today.   A little correction on the weight gain, I forgot my blood pressure medicine last week.  It is strong water pill, so to speak, so I was retaining too much liquid.  I took them as normal when I returned and peed about 75 times  the next day and the scales ...

I have been resting or loafing since last weekend's meet in KY.  Well, this is really overrated.   I have not worked out in any form, but I have gained about 5 pounds!!  It seemed to show up in two days.   I have a lot of other activities this weekend and next and may get to do a little running this week, who knows.   I will go to Brainerd, Minn and I would like to do a little slow speed running and work on my fitness some.   Next weekend, Linda and I will travel to Ohio and help make a batch of homemade applebutter,  My great grandfather Gustav Saunier was making this stuff before I was born and the family still uses the original copper kettle and recipe.   It is fun day  with the family--who I rarely get to see--and the applebutter is really good.  It is a winter time staple, it gets some quick energy in the diet-- apples, cider, sugar and cinnamon.   Yumm!  I can remember it bei...

The starting pistol at the Ky races was by far the loadest I have ever experienced.   I swear the guy had a .45 caliber or deer rifle!!!   Wow.   On the 50 m dash, he started us and the gun when --click.   Everyone just stood up, laughed,  and he used the other blaster to get us started, even the click was load enough to start a race.  I am in KY today and working at the new tissue mill that will start up in a couple of weeks.   It is always exciting to get a new tissue machine out of the box, set it up and make bath tissue.   Kinda like Christmas, but you need 200 people to get your present going properly. I am still doing some resting and will probably work on some running this weekend.  I think I will start my training over, and do the 5K stuff at 8 min/mile pace and work on my stamina.  I also need to settle on a target weight for next summer.  I will have to do some ser...

I ran in Kentucky Saturday,  at their State Finals.  The weather was not as bad as I had expected--I thought it would rain, but it was dry, clear and really crisp.   It was in the mid 50's but the wind made it feel a lot colder.   I had entered all four sprints and my intention was to see if I could improve on my times  and see if the different type of training was effective.  I ran a 7.27 second 50 meters which was an 0.08 improvement and the 100 was also the season best at 13.25 or an improvement of 0.12 seconds.   I was second in both events.  I was beaten by Jamie Tyler who is from Tennessee and had an injured calf and was out of the Tenn Finals in July.  He  was healed, because he did run very well.  He has great speed out of the blocks. I won the 200 meters with a time of 27.73 seconds.  I ran faster at the district meet in May, but it was an absolute neck and neck race the whole way, so I reall...

                                     Linda videoes a lot of my events and you will hear her during the race.  I did win this one.  I was in the center lanes--I have a green top-- and Jamie Tyler--in black-- who beat me in the 50 and 100 was outside of me.  I was able to run a real race and actually check them out rounding the curve and then I accelerated coming into the home stretch.  This strategy has been effective in my last couple of 200's.

                                                2012 Kentucky State Finals I ran last weekend at the Kentucky State Finals and place second in the 50 and 100 meters with my best times this season and won the 200 meters.   I did not run the 400 meters beacause of the wind and also we were getting very little  rest and I was really whipped after the 200 meters.  So, skipped the one lapper.

Is early in the morning and it is race day.   Guess what, the weather is not real friendly today, or in other words, it sucks for sprinters.     The weather has taken its first really big change for the season last night.     I expect  sprinkles, 50 degrees with little sun.  I think some snow even went thru the track last night.   Yesterday would have been perfect, warm and dry.  It is amazing how 24 hours makes that kind of different.   I tried a different prerace routine this time, I had a light work out yesterday and did a really complete stretching regiment. I worked the legs, core and arms. I have noticed in my speed work, that if I am sore from weights that I get some really good times in the 50 meter.  So, I tried to get a little weight work in and we will see what happens.   I had spaghetti last night for dinner and no beer yesterday--that part is the toughest. ...