Jess Brewer is my oldest masters friend and original inspiration. This Canadian scientist, now 59, posted the original piece that drove me to start the Masters Track & Field Home Page in 1996. But his conquering of prostate cancer may be his biggest victory yet. And this past weekend, he competed for the first time in several years.

Jess sent me the news in the form of a poem, which he titled “Ode to my 200.”
He wrote:
If you can compose a plausible time
consisting of three twos, a point and a nine,
and if the result ain’t particularly fine,
then the chances are good that that bad time was mine.
A world-class M45 hurdler a decade ago, Jess may not have run 22.92 for a world M55 record, but his indoor mark of 29.22 at a University of Washington indoor meet on Feb. 13 was smashing enough. He was 79th out of 80 sprinters in that open meet. But few have endured so much to run so fast.
Today he offered some details on his recent triumphs and travails.
On his 200-meter dash:
“Actually I did have lane 4, randomly assigned; it was great, especially with the horseshoe-shaped 200m on a 307m track, we actually got about 30m in the straight for the start! And for once I HAD a decent start out of the blocks; but it wasn’t enough to compensate for tying up in the last 50m. And I thought I was in shape. Well, life’s for learning.”
On his being a cancer survivor with bad legs:
“Only one bad leg, and it’s been OK for the past few months. I’m short of excuses; I think it’s just a matter of not running for 14 months and starting back in slowly. I hope so. But look at it this way: my post-cancer PB is going to be easy to improve upon! I look forward to at least a year of regular PCPBs.”
On his poem:
“Do I get to make corrections? I misspelled “partic’ly.” Throws off the meter if you sound out the whole word (like no one ever does).”
On his injuries and ailments of recent years:
“2000: pulmonary embolism in June; 2nd in WMA regional (Kamloops) in Aug.
“2003: News of prostate cancer in Feb; chemo & androgen ablation Apr-Aug (actually they stopped the chemo a month early on account of they overdosed me because the dosage is in mg/m^2 surface area and they use a [wrong] universal formula in terms of height & weight to calculate your surface area, so all athletes get OD’d); tore my meniscus in June stupidly trying to stay in competitive shape on chemo; radical prostatectomy 9 Oct; regained marginal bladder control by the end of the year so I could go back to work.
“2004: struggled back to almost normal bladder control; knee (torn meniscus) ‘scoped July 31 (it was cool, I got to watch on TV!); able to run again (after over a year off) in Sept; ran with the UBC gang all Fall.
“2005: got back in with Kajaks and the rest is history. Or will be soon.
“Think of me as Lance Armstrong without the bike or the talent.”
On why he runs track:
“Well, (a) I’m not dead yet; (b) watching TV sports I don’t do myself has absolutely no appeal to me [what’s the MATTER with people who watch but don’t DO?]; (c) I couldn’t stay awake at a baseball game; (d) football and hockey make about as much sense as signing up with the Army to go to Iraq for the excitement of warfare; (e) basketball wrecks your knees; (f) balls are for producing sperm, not for playing games with and calling them “sports”; (g) my skin can’t tolerate chlorine; (h) I don’t like fighting, whatever you call it; (h) there’s a limit to how far I can get from natural human activities without bursting into laughter. So what’s left? 🙂 Hopefully I have insulted everyone but fellow athletes with that. Oh wait, I forgot the “fitness” folks.”
Jess concludes:
“Some people work out to look good; others work out to feel good; I work out to BE good. (Doesn’t always work.)”
Good on you, Jess Brewer.
Godspeed in your comeback season.