Senior Olympian Sprinter

Today the Greater Nashville Sr Olympians met at a track near the Cumberland River to run our district qualifier for the State Finals in 2015.    Very nice day to run, sunny with very little wind and pleasant temperatures, nice.  There was a heavy dew still on the soccer field in the center of the track, so I, like every one else warmed up on the syntethic track.   I got a really good, warm up and was ready for the 9:00 AM start with the 100 m dash.   I felt about as good as I felt in weeks-- the gout medical has been pretty effective.    They were getting the heats arranged when the meet was suddenly called off!!  There is a juvenile detention center close by and there have been an incident of several inmates ( I guess that is what they are called) overpowered a guard and one got loose.  So, they meet was cancelled for our safety.   We would all qualify for the events we were entered in, so no harm no foul.   This is similar to the flood year, you are all in, meet cancelled.   I doubt

If you like before and after pictures, here is a good example of our kitchen Saturday morning and Sunday morning.    We had discussed a remodel and finally the under the house work was far enough along to do the above floor work.  Access under the house was impossible and I have removed 16 yards of dirt to improve the access.   We removed a set of steps which were incredibly steep and a brick facade on the fireplace.    Once we started the work, I noticed some odd looking construction and finally figured out that the fireplace brick work was all a facade to the original--which is yellow and brick colored in the bottom picture.   We had not planned on removing all the added brick work, but until the dust starts flying, you have no idea what is going to appear.     In the end, it turns out we will have significantly more room than we had anticipated from this job.  The corner where the stairs were will be a kitchen workspace/ storage that we will close in with some new walls. The

Last weekend Linda I traveled to Lexington, KY for their State Finals track meet.   The weather was perfect temperature wise, but a stiff breeze was blowing down the finish straight and fast times were not going to happen that day.  I would call the meet frazzled in term of organization.   It started on time, but the heat races were all intermingled and you had no idea who was in your class.   Also there was almost no rest between the different heats.  It was 50, 100, 1500 --some resting--200, 400, 800.  I ran the 50, 100, 200 and skipped the 400.  I would have had about 5 minutes to recover from the 200 and was still gassed.  I wanted to run the 200 as fast as I could and finished second by 0.03 seconds, had it won and it slipped away in the last 15 meters.  In the 50 and 100 I finished 6 th in each!!  We did not get the results on race day, it was electronic timing and they had to sort the classes out and they it plenty tangled.  I found out about my finishes the next day when I chec

Next Sunday I will be running in in the Kentucky State Finals.  Kentucky is fun event, no pressure to qualify and the field has a lot of people from surrounding states, so you get  really good competition.   The lack of pressure makes a big difference, pressure can kill a great performance.     I made some changes in my training and want to see how it effects my speed-- I have worked a lot more on fitness and less on speed and strength.  I am looking to break 27 seconds in the 200 m which would be a personal best with electronic timing.    I will work on starts and a little speed work this week and make sure I do a very complete stretching routine each day.   I do have a couple of minor dings on my left side.  My hip is sore and and my left foot has the beginning stages of turf toe.   Neither will be a factor in what I will be running this weekend, but long term I will need to address them.   I will have a lot of tape on my feet to hold them together for a couple of races.  Now the