Senior Olympian Sprinter

Racing when you are older-- 59 years old in my case--is risky business.   Injuries are a part of any sporting activity, whether you are running on the track, the sidewalk, or driving a car very fast.  You are going to get hurt if you take enough chances and in many cases do not take the right precautions.  The hard part of the entire process is to know how to challenge your self and perform training that will address your weaknesses and make you more competitive.   And when meet day arrives,  running at the best of your ability and not exceeding  your capability is very tricky.   When we arrive at capability and ability the waters get very muddy and experience is the best teacher if you listen to your body properly.  The real difficult part of this process is that there is almost no material that has been published to address training as a senior athlete.  I have looked, it does not exist.  The material currently available is for younger athletes that are still growing, not on the de

Saturday was the Greater Nashville Qualifier race for the Tennessee State Finals next summer.   It was probably one of my best meets.   The competition was not the best, but there was plenty of incentive to put up some fast times and I did get in one really good race that was incredibly satisfying to win!  And winning a great race is what the sport part of this is all about.  This is racing in the most basic form.  Saturday started as a very nice day at Brentwood High School track.  A light wind out of the South and that is great for sprinters,  a tail wind down the finish straight--my favorite wind when racing.  But right after that race, the rain started and it kept coming down for the rest of the running events.  We were lucky that we did not get a storm with lightning, just rain and everything  was soaking wet.  I do not get to run in the rain much, but it happens and you race through it the best you can.  It started to rain hard right around the 200 meters race, and I just looke

The District Qualifier is tomorrow.   I did my last day of race prep this morning.  I warmed up at the gym and did a very thorough stretch.   Ran a few cool down laps and that is it for today.  I feel pretty good, although my left buttock has been a little tight for a couple of weeks.  Nothing bad, but I think the lactic will show up there first tomorrow.   The weather should be warm and sunny--which means dehydration issues.  I will be drinking a lot of water today and working on some electrolytes as well.  The running order for me is 100, 200, 50, 400.  The 100 is right at 9:00 and then a small break before the 200.   I am not that concerned about the 100, but want to run hard for the 200 to see if I have made any progress with the training this summer.   The 50 is always crazy fast and what is left will be used on the 400.   My weight is stabilized at 194 pounds and that is as light as I have been in years.  I have reduced my waist size by 2 inches and hopefully that is a perman

Greater Nashville qualifier meet is coming up and it will be next weekend at Brentwood High School on Sept 16. I have been doing some training with Lyon Fleming as he recovers from a nasty heel injury.  He is getting up to speed pretty quickly and actually looking at doing the 400 as part of his sprint racing.  Taking on the 400 is just crazy in my opinion, but he is actually doing pretty well.  He ran a 67 second 400 the other morning and I think he should be very competitive in the younger man's group --55 to 59.    He is going to do fine.  I have been running about every other day with a lot more weight training this cycle.  My weight is around 194 and I am actually feeling some gains at the lower weight.   My recovery for the 400 meters is much better now when training.  I have actually done a lot more 400's as part of my training this summer.  I recovered so poorly in the past, I basically avoided any 400 meter work.  I can run several under 90 seconds in the same sessio