Senior Olympian Sprinter

      I made a trip to Oregon this week and stayed in Eugene a couple of nights--that only means one thing to me--Hayward Field.    I did not get to run on the track this trip, it was only open in the morning the day I had a chance to work out.  I checked the track out in the morning and it was open and busy with runners, but in the afternoon when I returned to do my work out--it was locked up.   U of O has a lot of very nice field right behind the track for intramural soccer (4) and also a warm up track that is square and 3 lanes wide. I think it is used for events at Hayward Field when they hold the meets.    Running conditions were about as good as you can imagine.  No clouds anywhere, 85 degrees, breezy and humidity under 30% !!!!  The lack of humidity was very noticeable the entire trip.   As soon as the door opened in Nashville, that blast of wet air reminded rather quickly a...

150 mark and we are bucking the wind   I made a short trip to Oakland University in Michigan for their Senior Games State Qualifier  the last weekend.   Linda was supposed to join me by taking a later flight on Friday that was cancelled by Southwest. Her flight was scheduled leave Nashville at 8:40 PM and was delayed until 3:40 PM takeoff !!! before it was cancelled.   She missed the show.   And I missed my cheering section.   I got into town on Friday afternoon and made it to the track to stretch and check out the facility for shade, restrooms and all that stuff you need to survive a meet.  I got in a good stretch and shot the breeze with another sprinter who was from Ohio and was in the 70-74 age group.  He still refs high school football and had a bad injury a few years ago when his patella and quad separated on a inception play where he planted his leg at the goal line and it just went. He looked ...

    Linda and I made it last weekend to the Pro Football HOF induction in Canton, Ohio.  Brett Favre was going in along with Ken Stabler, Tony Dungy, Marvin Harrison, Orlando Pace, Kevin Greene and Dick Stanfel and Eddy Bartolo.   Some of the well know Raider fans were there as well.  I really feel bad for the Raider Fans. Stabler died just before the announcement that he was going in the hall.  If you get inducted after you die, the speech is eliminated and you get short changed.   We enjoyed ourselves and met a lot of great football fans.  The Raider fans were really good fans and were fun to talk football.  The majority of the fans were Green Bay and most were drunk. It was game weekend to them.   PARTY !!!    We attended the induction and the roundtable.  The roundtable was a great way to get some off the cuff stories and get a feel for the real person.  The game was cancelled,...

  With the hot weather the last couple of weeks, the tomatoes have been turning red by the bucket.  I planted some Roma tomatoes for sauce--pizza and spaghetti, and I found a variety that claimed to be good for sun drying.  Linda likes sun dried tomatoes, so I thought I would give them a shot.  I have two large cookie sheets in the oven now drying.  Sun drying is basically done in the oven if you do not live in an arid area.   Hopefully they work.  I am allergic to garlic and that allergy is not getting any better as I age.  So getting any sort of tomato sauce or sun dried tomatoes without added garlic is nearly impossible.  We fixed that problem by doing it ourselves.  We did make a batch of pizza sauce--picture above--that was olive oil, basil, salt and  Roma tomatoes.  Add some heat and cook it down and you have pizza sauce.  We have already eaten on jar and I am going to repeat the process this weeken...

1975 Track photo I found this photo in my box of track memories and this was the state of the art of track wear in 1975.  A little singlet  and the billowing lightweight pants with your jock strap underneath.  I would probably cry if I had to wear this today.  I need the modern systems that support the calves, hips and upper body.  I do not miss wearing this stuff.  And the shoes were just really starting any sort of development, they were still awful. Time marched on and I am really glad!   I have been adding some additional core work to get the waist a little trimmer.  It is helpful, as is the fresh garden veggies that we have been eating for a couple of weeks.  Beans, tomatoes, corn, peppers, carrots and cukes are all plentiful and we are enjoying picking and eating them.  The fence I put up last winter is keeping the deer out and we can keep our veggies instead of feeding the wildlife. Another big help on the core and r...

Most engineers, at the least the good ones,  like to learn from their experiences and take notes and just kind of keep track of things.   Engineers are just stupid about calculating fuel mileage, gas prices, project costs, household budgets, loan principal remaining, exercise journals and so on.   I have done all of these and still continue to keep an exercise log( two formats) also keep track of my projects and loans.    My training log is actually in Excel and is over 2600 lines at this point.   I keep track of location and any environmental oddities and the calories, body weight, time, intensity and the heart rate and elapsed time for each distance ran.  Excessive recordkeeping?  Maybe, but it is helpful to review after good or poor performances and try and find the key factor that has effected the outcome.  The latest meet was very successful.  I felt very good and still had a little left at the finish of the 20...

400 meter race with Richard Westbrook 70 meters to go  Richard Silver, I took Gold 200 meter with 70 m to go. World class speed, 55.55 sec 400 meters on left, 55.78 on right!   Another successful State Finals over the weekend! It was the usual hot Tennessee summer weekend spent on a black rubber track!  The competition was very spirited with multiple records in all the classes--just great athletes from Charles Baker to William Yelverton.   Charlie Baker is in the 90-94 age group and was running by himself and still setting records in the sprints.  His doctor did not want him to run, he had something acting up, but Charlie stated -"I have to run" and indeed he did.  Charlie is nearing the end of his career but wants to go to Birmingham next summer and win some more National medals.  He is truly Senior Olympian royalty.   Yelverton usually does the USATF Masters but lives relatively close to Birmingham and wants to b...