Senior Olympian Sprinter

  This picture of June  just makes Christmas worth all the effort.   All the wonder is rolled up into this shot with Rudolf and the tree.   June  will be going through her first Holiday Season and I hope she has a blast just like the rest of us.  The dress she is wearing was used for her baptism a couple weeks ago.  She will be our star this season!!  Josh Simon married Betty and Linsi and also did the baptism.  I would say this is the first fruit of his marriage ceremonies.... Josh is finally graduated from school and is now ordained and will  start building his flock in Vermont very soon.  He is a great person and we wish him the best of luck. He is one of Betty's friends from high school who would occasionally hang around our farm house with the other kids.  What a great story!  Josh is batting 1.000...... This next photo is an absolute classic.  While waiting to see S...

If the Canyon was not enough torture I ran a 5K on Thanksgiving morning.    I run this race every year to support the local charity --Graceworks and to remind myself of why I am a sprinter.   I am a sprinter because I cannot get enough air into my system to do longer distances....period.  This year we did run the complete 5.0K course and I finished in 30:56, which was 13 of 43 in my age group.  I have always be trying for beating 30 minutes but I have too many excuses this year, and they do not matter because they are just excuses.  Last year they cut off a section because the lead out people screwed up badly.   We ran a 4.45 K last year and I was really fast in comparison!  The weather was substantially cooler this year with a race time temperature( 8:00 AM)  of 30 degrees and clear. There was over 3000 that started the race and it grows a little bigger each year.   The event is well organized and is easy...

https://youtu.be/OyK1yZz56zg This YouTube link is to a 10 minute video of our group finishing the Rim to Rim hike.   I was wearing my GoPro on my head and tried to give a flavor of the scenery and the physical nature of the hike.  The person behind me is Patrick Church our guide and we were yapping about various stuff as we finished up.   https://youtu.be/z4qB0ZA5G14 This link is for the trip to Plateau Point and Colorado River view Enjoy

I just finished a fantastic adventure when a family group hiked the Grand Canyon from the North Rim to the South Rim.  The group was 7 hikers and two guides.  The guides Chad Teerink and Patrick Church were fantastic hosts and a lot of fun to boot.   Good Morning at Phantom Ranch The hikers were my daughter Rosemary, step son Aaron, brother in law Buck (aka Glen) and his daughter (Heather) and her friend (Leslie). Emily was also added to group and she fit in very quickly to the quirky fun.   Emily was trying to go on another trip but her tent mate was having a melt down and just could not make it and she jumped in with our group because she was serious about getting to see the Canyon.    The actual hiking is done over a four day period and is a great way to see the Canyon.   We used Just Roughing It outfitters from Phoenix to guide our trip.  In the past we had stayed at the Phantom Ranch near the ...

Life is a journey.   Some people make many trips, some people never come back to the same place twice and others will stay in one place and make a different in that place.  I have moved around a lot in my life chasing opportunity and I am very satisfied with that life.   I went to a funeral over the weekend of someone who stayed put and was a big influence on my life and was a neighbor for over 30 years when I lived in Cooperdale, Ohio.  Judy Cunningham was 75 years old and died last week and was someone who made a difference.  She had 6 kids, a throng of grand and great grand kids, was involved in building one of the best Brown Swiss dairies in the world and was a giver in the community.   She was also a fantastic neighbor and will be missed by a lot of people, including me.  I could ramble on about her cooking and chocolate chip cookies, but some people lead by example she could walk the walk.  Life in Cooperdale was be...

Life and Art are hopelessly intertwined and that is how is has always been.  The cavemen drew on walls with charcoal to celebrate their bounty and lives.  Fast forward to today and we have digital pictures in our pockets and purses by the billion--celebrating our bounties--this will never change.  Pictures of kids, pets, loved ones, beautiful sunsets, friends, parties, medals from track meets--this is a running blog.    Family portraits have always been a staple of "normal" life.  Every parent and grandparents have the head and shoulder portrait that they had made at the local Olan Mills.  These pictures were retouched to eliminate any defects and highlite the stuff that needed to be highlited.  I have some in my attic right now from deceased family.   Linda and I have never had the family "portrait" done because we just were not ready to take that plunge.  I had some work commissioned a few weeks back of Linda and it was s...

 We ran the Greater Nashville Senior Games last weekend at Brentwood High School.   I ran in 4 events and also high jumped in competition for the first time since 1975!    I won the 100 and 200 meter events and was beaten in the 50 by David Schmanski who was in the other heat and it was hand timed.  Last year I got beat in the same event by somebody in another heat..  It is hard to race them in another heat.  But it is just a qualifier.   I also ran the 400 in 80 seconds.  It was the fourth event of the morning  and I was getting fatigued at that point and I wanted to jump in an hour or so, so I did mail that one in.  Two gold and 2 silver for the morning was great meet already. I had been playing with the high jump at Ravenwood and was clearing 53 inches on a regular basis and wanted to give it a try.  The last time I had jumped in competition was in 1975 when Mike Baker, Dirk Cox and I won the Newcomerstown ...

I was chatting with Linda this week and I told her that I thought that my 60th year was my pinnacle year.   I explained what really incredible things had occurred to me this year and she agreed and then added her Pinnacle Year which occurred in her very successful high school years.   Did it take me 40 years longer than her to get it together ??  Ummmm....  June Rosemary arrived this year.      The first grandbaby holds an exulted place in everyone's family and she has taken that throne and it will never be relinquished.  I am very happy she is on that throne! Linda has made a massive improvement in her health and appears to be turning the corner on the pain that has plagued her of recent. I earned my first individual National event medal at the Senior Games in Birmingham.  That was a big bucket list item for me.  I also won a Gold medal at the USATF Outdoors Nationals in Baton Rouge in a relay.  Actually w...

I am still around.   But, I have been getting some serious rest in since the Nationals and I am at my peak of rest now.    Some how that sounds like a  Garrison Keillor line.  The Greater Nashville qualifier is coming up in two weeks and that means 4 races and high jumping in one day.   The times are now that important, but I need to have enough endurance to make it through each event and get qualified.      Last week I started to do a little running--indoors due to a lot of rainy crap from Irma-- and working on getting the muscles tightened back up for a day at the track.   My calf is doing fine and I needed to get going again because my weight is slowly creeping up.   Football on TV will not help, since the entire time you watch a game you need to be eating something-- healthy or not, feed that face.   I have two weeks to work on my sprinting and then I will switch to power and strength wi...

My daughter was curious about her ancestry--her Mom was adopted and little is known from that side of the ladder-- and I know a lot about my ancestors. So  we both did the DNA testing and my results were finished this last week.   I thought I was mostly from the UK and a bit of France, but it was a little different from that.  But my ancestry is 37% Great Britain, 29% Scandinavia, 14% Ireland, 9% Greece, Italy,  6% Iberian Peninsula---99% Europe.   The Vikings invaded Scotland, Ireland and England and that explains most of the DNA.   Ancestry.com had some interesting maps that indicated the folks with similar DNA settled a narrow belt from Pittsburgh. PA to Indianapolis, IN.  I broke out of this range years ago, but the vast majority of my kin is still in that area.   This mapping was interesting info about how the immigration of the US was actually done as the West opened up to the settlers. ...

It has been two weeks since we finished up in Baton Rouge and I had a calf muscle that was quite tender.   After two weeks of no running and no exercise that flexes the left calf muscle, things are much improved.  I made it to the gym today and worked on my core and upper body and just gingerly stretched my calf to see how it is healing.  I think I tore my soleus muscle and it is healing nicely and it is probably 95%, BUT I am waiting another two weeks before trying it out.  It is difficult to have the discipline to lay off.  Two more weeks of rest for the injury-- and that is final.   I have a funeral to attend this week near Baltimore, Md.  My Dad's brother married a women from that area and she died at the age of 78 last weekend.  I will fly over and attend. It has been nice to get some rest from working out, but it can get a little boring at times.   To cut the boredom, Linda and I have started to repaint the front fence.  I have...

Everybody has a scoreboard, whether it  is dollars earned and accumulated, trophies won, fish caught, golf score,  square feet in your house, grand kids,  ACT score.........  Masters athletes have their own scoreboard, and it is a Master Ranking web site that accumulates times from all the meets globally and compiles them for comparison.  I found this site last year and it keeps up with all the big meets and any USATF event as well as some of the NSGA events.   You get an overall ranking versus the US or global competition and an 1 to 100% score to rank you against a hypothetical 100% maximum.  I have been watching my progress on this site and I think this is where I should finish the year as a 60 year old in the outdoor season.  50 meters,  91.55%, 7.33 seconds, 14th in world, 12th in US.  The US is basically the only country to run this event. 60 meters, 93.63, 8.26 seconds, second in world, first in US.  The ...

A couple months (or years) ago I wrote a blog about "How Big is Your Stage?" and last weekend it was pretty darn big.  That blog was basically yelling at my kids to challenge themselves and see how they do when they near the top of their professions.  They have done well and I guess I also heeded my own advice as well.   How big was the stage this last week--the biggest one in the USA for Masters Track athletes and I would like to think I held my own.   The Nationals is a 4 day meet and I was entered in the 100, 200 , 400 meters and the 4 x 100 and 4 x 400 relays.   If things went well I would race 8 races.   Prelims and finals of the 1,2 and 4 and each relay would be a final.  That is a lot of racing anyway you cut it.  It ended up with only 7 races needed and I was really glad to miss the one we did not have to race.  Day 1--My first race was the 400 prelim and I just needed to run about a 64 or 65 to make the finals...

It is humid when you are running and water is flying off your finger tips and when you are resting it runs off your nose and drips off your belly as well.   I ran tonight and was working on some arm swings and finish line approaches and water was flying everywhere.  The humidity was really high tonight and it is amazing how much water your body can produce.   I was running without a shirt and just had water dripping off everything.   Next week in Baton Rouge I expect the same amount of water flying. I ran a 400 meters yesterday with the all the gear to see how I am progressing.  I timed it as a 64.4 which should put me in the finals at the Nationals next week.   That time is pretty solid and I was not tying up on the final stretch, although the wind was to my back at the finish.   All my injuries seem to be under control now and I am desperately trying not to round up anything new.   My training seems to be spo...

Last weekend the State Finals Track meet for NSGA  was held in Franklin, TN.   As you know from my previous blog, my back was hurting.  But I just shut up and ran. And good things did  happen.  I won the 100 meter dash for the first time in 5 or 6 tries at the State Finals.  It was getting so frustrating, that a couple of years I did not even sign up to run it.  That was how bad my prospects of winning were.   But this year I finally broke through. Thomas Siegle beat me last year and we had raced earlier this year and we were basically shadows of the other when we get to the finish. This year it was my turn and I finally took a gold in the 100!   The victory margin was 0.03 seconds or less than a foot.   I got a great start and had a little bit of a lead and within 20 meters Thomas was on my hip and it  went this way to the finish.  Absolutely neck and neck.  Linda videoed the event ...

Nobody wants to hear it!    It have had one of my more difficult weeks while my eye on the Tennessee State Finals this weekend.   I will fill you in shortly, but I need to offer up some hope before I dwell in sorrow and agony on end.  I am also going to use ever bad pun and saying ever created. I remember many years back the late great Dale Earnhardt Sr had a massive wreck in Nascar and broke his shoulder.  6 days later he won on the road coarse in Watkin Glen--he ran away with the race.  He had absolutely no business driving and kicked their butts plus he had never won on  road course.  Mind over matter for this one.  A couple years prior to that Ricky Rudd had a wreck at Daytona that should have killed him.  His eyes were swollen shut and 6 days later, he taped his eyes open and he won the next race.  Nikki Lauda almost was incinerated in a wreck in Germany in the early 70's and came back after recovering (partially...

Birmingham was a good meet in terms of my racing.  I earned an individual in the 200 meters and also set a PR of 28.26 and again got a silver medal in the 4 x 100 relay.  Two medals is a satisfying result for me.   The down side was skipping the 400 meters due to the ouchy knee and missing by 6 inches the 100 meters final.  The knee is much improved because it resting this week and hopefully I can avoid the issue I had one week ago where the knee seemed to jump out of joint. Senior Olympians do have to invest quite a bit in our sport and that includes a large tape budget.  I had a mad right knee and used KT Tape to keep it in position and it very effective.  I also have some bad feet and they need some protection and are taped up as well. The final piece of protection was on my second toe on my right foot and it was in the process of losing the nail and it was completely taped up as well.  With all this tape needed it requires a lot of razor ...

We just finished a 5 day meet in Birmingham and it started really slowly and finished at warp speed.   Whew, the last day was nuts.   After missing out on the 100 finals and skipping the 400, I needed to deliver on the 200 meters with a finals on Sunday to get a personal medal.   I ran a PR 27.26 in the prelims on Saturday  to win the heat and make the finals.  We were scheduled for 6 heats and there was enough scratches that they redrew the heats and then we then had 4 heats with the winners making the finals and the 4 quick times going through as well.  My original heat was going to be winnable, but the new heat was an absolute slug fest.   I was in third place with 20 meters to go and won the heat!  I have made some miraculous finishes of late and this one is at the top of that list. I did not want to miss the finals--again.  All three of us transferred to the final and I was at the top of the heat sheet for the finals!!...