Day 3. Of Nationals. Finals Day!
Finals day, everything counts today. Although this is actually written on Wednesday, we will for the my sanity, write as if it is still Monday. The weather was warm and still breezy, but the wind was now at your back down the main staight, this was a radical change from the first two days. My first race is the 200 and I am in lane 1. I went through my normal routine and felt ready to go when we ran. I got a good start and was ready to kick it after the curve and looked around and I was already in the dust!! Since, I had two more races and I was definitely out of the money here, I basically crusied home which is really rare for me. I ran a 27.9 seconds, which was on 0.2 seconds off my qualifying time, it was OK, but not near good enough. I ran 7 th. Some days you got it, some days you don't, today was not a got it day.
Now the pressure is on to perform in the 400. After a couple of hours of waiting and warming up we lined up, I was in lane 6 and Jerry Crowe was in lane 5. I felt good and was in a good position, but when the stagger from turn 3/4 kicked in, I was fading and ended up 5 th. My time was one second faster than the qualifier, a 63.5. Jerry ran a very solid race and scored a Silver medal with a 62.96. After reviewing the video, my last 200 meters was pretty weak, I will start addressing that ASAP. Jerry Crowe is 59, Michael Murray -Bronze-from Louisiana is 59 and was podium at 2013 Nationals, I am 59 and made the podium the last two Nationals. It was an old finals, only two people were 56 or under. Three of the podium people were from the 2013 race, me, Michael Murray, Daniel Waugh --and he is a newlywed. I was very excited that Jerry Crowe medaled in his first Nationals.
I had about 30 minutes to recover for the final race, the 4x 100 relay. The Tennessee Tri Stars were against the Oreo Cookies in the 55 to 59 age group--just two teams. They race organizers put us in lane 2, Oreos in lane 7 and between us 4 teams of the older men. All on big heat of 55 to 65 year olds. By the way, the older guys won the heat, they ran a 48.03, Oreos ran 48.32, TTS ran 51.86 for a silver. I finally got one. I had been chasing a medal for 6 years, and I finally have one to hang on my neck!!! The relay is a lot of fun, I ran the third leg turn and laid down a great effort with little rest. My body responded when I went to the whip. I was tired, but ran well and will get a chance to collect some metal...
Now the pressure is on to perform in the 400. After a couple of hours of waiting and warming up we lined up, I was in lane 6 and Jerry Crowe was in lane 5. I felt good and was in a good position, but when the stagger from turn 3/4 kicked in, I was fading and ended up 5 th. My time was one second faster than the qualifier, a 63.5. Jerry ran a very solid race and scored a Silver medal with a 62.96. After reviewing the video, my last 200 meters was pretty weak, I will start addressing that ASAP. Jerry Crowe is 59, Michael Murray -Bronze-from Louisiana is 59 and was podium at 2013 Nationals, I am 59 and made the podium the last two Nationals. It was an old finals, only two people were 56 or under. Three of the podium people were from the 2013 race, me, Michael Murray, Daniel Waugh --and he is a newlywed. I was very excited that Jerry Crowe medaled in his first Nationals.
I had about 30 minutes to recover for the final race, the 4x 100 relay. The Tennessee Tri Stars were against the Oreo Cookies in the 55 to 59 age group--just two teams. They race organizers put us in lane 2, Oreos in lane 7 and between us 4 teams of the older men. All on big heat of 55 to 65 year olds. By the way, the older guys won the heat, they ran a 48.03, Oreos ran 48.32, TTS ran 51.86 for a silver. I finally got one. I had been chasing a medal for 6 years, and I finally have one to hang on my neck!!! The relay is a lot of fun, I ran the third leg turn and laid down a great effort with little rest. My body responded when I went to the whip. I was tired, but ran well and will get a chance to collect some metal...
Tennessee Tri Stars with Jerry Crowe who we loaned to another team after an injury, they scored silver in the young man group with Jerry's help! The guys in this picture won a total of 8 medals in track and field and PJ a gold in hoops. Tennessee was presented well.
After taking a bunch of pictures and a lot are on Facebook or Tennessee Senior Games web page, Linda and I stopped at the first palce we found and ate. When I race, eating is just nibbling and I was ready to fold up, I was spent. There will be a lot more in the next two days and a lot more pictures posted. Phones take great video and digital pictures.
The venue At St Thomas college was immaculate , a first class college with beautiful grounds. Parking was a challenge, but what a great place to race.
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