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Pinnacle Year

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.... 

  1. 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!
  2. 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.
  3. I earned my first individual National event medal at the Senior Games in Birmingham.  That was a big bucket list item for me. 
  4. I also won a Gold medal at the USATF Outdoors Nationals in Baton Rouge in a relay.  Actually won two golds in that event.   Total medal haul for the summer was 2 gold, one silver and the bronze!!
  5. I ran in my first Indoor track meet and rally enjoyed the experience.  Amazing that it took so long to get to race indoors.
  6. I finally won a 100 meters in the State Finals in Tennessee..  I was a bridesmaid so many times, I just quite racing that event.  I may have improved enough to win it again.
  7. I set my personal best in the 200 meters since doing the Masters and Senior track. It has taken several years to learn the training and racing skills to get the time down to my current level.
  8. And lastly, I learned a very valuable lesson this season.  I was involved in three National events and one State Finals events and struggled with leg injuries for 3 of those events.  I found that racing is 90% mental.  Nagging injuries and pain do not slow me down.  Shut up and race, just do it and you will be fine.  It might hurt like hell for a while, but you are just as fast.  Lesson learned.

I think these results would be near the peak if not the real thing.   In my 61th year, I am going to work for a trip to Spain and run in an International Track event and be on the USA team.  And the peak may go a little higher, but June Rosemary is gonna be tough to top!   I am an engineer by trade and I love a nice graph with curves and peaks, we will see how this graph looks after next season. Stay tuned .

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