Tom Fahey at his day job at Chico State University in central California.

Tom Fahey is a gentleman and a scholar. And a freakin’ good discus thrower. Today the Californian enters the M60 age group, and none too soon for the M55s he embarrassed at Riccione, where he took silver, or the Americans he defeated in winning gold at Orono. I’m grateful to this guy for purely selfish reasons. He generously gave my wife some throwing tips at Orono (but not while she was competing). And he writes as well as he throws. Tom is a prolific poster on our Forum (and this blog), having contributed 99 comments (with thousands of page views as of this date) that are intelligent, educational and sometimes just a hoot.

Example of a hoot:

I tried creatine for the first time 10 years ago before the Nationals in Orono. I made the mistake of bringing along an old girlfriend whom I met at Club Med a few years before. It turned out that she had a serious problem with alcohol.
I threw at the meet and then trained with Carl Wallen at Dartmouth for a few days. We drove back to Boston for the airplane trip back to California. We sat in the middle seats of a 747 (8 seats across).
I developed two massive hamstring cramps but was hemmed in by other passengers. By this time my girlfriend was three sheets to the wind (I think she drank a liter of vodka). She started screaming, “He’s having a heart attack. I’m a nurse and he’s dying.” I tried to get her to shut up and finally stood up and stretched until the cramps relaxed.
I’m not sure if the creatine caused the cramps (I trained pretty hard at Dartmouth). I learned one thing: don’t take old girl friends who drink to track meets.

A sample of his serious scholarship:

From Tom Fahey’s Supplement Research Column in Muscular Development Magazine and Fitness RX for Men
Nietzsche and Conan the Barbarian said, “Anything that does not kill us makes us stronger.” This certainly applies to exercise because intense training disturbs body balance (homeostasis) and triggers inflammation. In response, the body gets stronger so that the exercise is less stressful in the future.
While adaptation to exercise is positive, the stress can suppress the immune system. Also, chronic, excessive exercise (overtraining) slows progress in the exercise program. Blood markers of intense training include increases in cortisol (stress hormone), TBARS (marker of oxidative damage), interleukin-6 (IL-6, a chemical that helps fight trauma), and neutrophils (white blood cells that fight infection).
Cortisol is important in blood sugar and blood pressure regulation and the inflammatory response to disease, stress, and injury but high levels suppress the immune system, which increase the risk of colds and flu. It can also slow the response to exercise training by promoting muscle and bone breakdown and interfere with carbohydrate metabolism.
British scientists found that supplementing the diet with 1000 mg of vitamins C and 400 IU of vitamin E per day for 4-weeks reduced cortisol levels after intense exercise (2.5 hours cycling at 60 % effort) but had no effects on other measures of immunity. Vitamins C an E can reduce some of the negative effects of intense exercise but cannot completely protect against immune system depression.
Proper program design – balancing intense training with adequate rest – and a good diet containing adequate calories are the best protection against over training induced suppression of the immune system and illnesses that will interfere with training gains.

Of course, what would you expect from an award-winning California state university professor of exercise physiology?
Tom is terrific at the discus especially. (And calling himself ‘discusdoc’ is no accident.) His season best was 51.59 (169-3) into the wind.
Now he gets to move from the 1.5-kilo disc to the 1-kilo — and take aim at Joe Keshmiri’s American M60 record of 59.52 (195-3). Joe, a three-time Olympian for Iran, died in his 60th year of colon cancer on February 6, 1999.
Tom would honor Joe’s memory by challenging his record.
Please join me in wishing him well as he moves up in age and down in implement weight.
You’re a true champion, Tom.