Nevada sportswriter Joey Crandall has announced his goal: running in July and August all-comers meets. He’s apparently well short of masters age, but he cites us in his column. (He admits that he’s just learned that you’re supposed to run on your toes.) But he’s the tip of the iceberg when it comes to novices seeking masters info. Another is someone calling himself/herself stooperduck — who wrote on our Forum: “I have my first meet in 2 weeks. I never ran track before. I’ve never even been to a meet. I have no idea what I am supposed to do. Where do I go at the times of my events? Where do I go to warm up? What do I wear?” These folks are a big slice of our future — utter newbies to track. How can USATF best welcome them?

Here’s Joey’s column:

Running blog: It’s not just about putting one foot in front of the other
Just a little background here: I got this wild idea in my head a couple weeks ago that I was going to attempt to compete in the all-comers track meets at South Lake Tahoe this July and August.
The idea up there is that these weekly meets, held on Thursdays and conducted by area track official Anthony Davis, are open to anyone ages 2 to 99.
I now have a little over a month to get into competition shape before the first meet.
I don’t have any clue what event I’ll try (I’m looking at the middle distances), but I’m looking mostly at the 800 because I can only be lapped once by each competitor (and I completely expect to have that happen).
In the last three weeks, after watching several videos online and reading a number of articles on the topic, I figured out that there was something severely wrong with my running technique.
I wasn’t too surprised by this, because even when I’ve been in my best shape over the past five years and I was able to put out my best effort, my times were still nearly double that of what you would see in a masters’ track meet in my age group.
Basically, I’ve been running strictly with my feet landing on my heels for the past five years. Not only does this create unnecessary impact on my joints but it leaves me in poor position to pick my foot up for the next stride.
Instead, I’ve learned, the object is to land toward the rear of the ball of my feet, with the foot touching the ground underneath my center of gravity. This propels my upper body slightly forward and makes for a much easier and much more efficient stride.
The best advice I read was that if you watch a five-year-old run around a playground, they’re always coming down on the front ends of their feet. It’s a natural form that we lose over time as we get used to walking heel-to-toe.
The thing is, it works.
I’ve cut almost a minute and a half off my three-mile time since implementing the change without increasing my overall effort at all. My focus has simply been to run with the correct form and it has paid some early dividends.
A couple of warnings before you try a similar shift: Make sure your feet, particularly your arches and achilles’ tendons, and your calf muscles are well-stretched before attempting to run like this.
Also, don’t just go out and run a mile (I know from experience). Ease into it with stretches of about 30 seconds to a minute and slowly build up to whatever your targeted distance is.
Whether or not I’ll actually run in the meet remains to be seen. I think I’m just looking to prove to myself that after eight years behind a desk and a diet that largely consisted of fodder from the McDonald’s extra value menu, I can get back into some reasonable shape.
After it got difficult for me to climb the bleachers at events I was covering, I knew it was time to change something.
I don’t have any aspirations of actually winning an event. Instead, I’m just hoping to use competing in a meet as a goal that will keep me running on a consistent basis.
I’m going to make this a weekly column item through the summer, so anyone with any tips, suggestions or stories of their own is more than welcome to contact me at jcrandall@recordcourier.com

Any advice for Joey and stooperduck? Recall how you felt at your first masters meet. What did you learn? What should J&S know?