Ageless Pete Magill pushes the M40s in winning M45
Pete Magill turned 45 six months ago, but someone forgot to tell him. At today’s USATF National Club Cross Country Championships in San Francisco, only two M40s beat him to the finish line in the 10K race: Tracy Lokken (32:44) and Danny Martinez (32:51). A second back was Pete, whose 32:52 was nearly 50 seconds ahead of the second M45 — Todd Coffin (33:41). Track stars Brian Pope and Tony Young, both 44, showed their age, however, taking 18th and 22nd in the M40 race. No matter. It’s all good conditioning for the spring and summer.
In the 6K masters women’s race, Linda Somers Smith did Pete a couple better. She won the W45 race in 22:15, ahead of the first W40 finisher, Alysun Deckert (22:25). Linda was a 1996 Olympic marathoner.
The M45 race, BTW, included some prep track gods of the 1970s — Jeff Nelson and Thom Hunt, who took 10th and 35th, respectively this morning at Golden Gate Park. Jeff ran for Burbank High School in 1979 when he did 2 miles in 8:36.3 and Thom for San Diego’s Patrick Henry HS in 1976 when he ran a mile indoors in 4:02.7.
Addition on Dec. 11:
USATF posted a story on the races, and quoted our kids Linda and Tracy:
“Linda Somers-Smith (women’s masters): “I had bunion surgery in May, and I was told that I might not get to run again. The surgery actually fixed my stride. I ran the Pacific Association championships three weeks ago off three weeks of training. The plan was to get out fast. I went out too slow, and got boxed in. I wanted to go out hard even if I died. I felt great until about mile two, then it hit me.”
Tracy Lokken (men’s masters): “This is a great feeling winning my first national title. I felt pretty good. This is the second cross country race I’ve run in seventeen years. I was patient after (defending champion) Pete Magill tried to pull away after four miles. I’m pretty strong on the hills. I knew that if I could get ahead with about a half mile to go, that I’d have an excellent shot at it.”
2 Responses
GREAT JOB PETER and “i told you so”!!!!Congratulations to you..your team ..and all the athletes participating. I disagree with Ken regarding you being “ageless” you are OLDER..WISER..and TOUGHER…excellence and a willingness to do the work needed to achieve ones goals knows NO age boundaries….KEEP IT UP.
Great job Tracy…and I thought the article had to be about 40oz. not 40 years.
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