Masters Track News and Muse

Ready to rock? After nearly seven years of fits-and-starts, this site has gone high-tech. No more procrastinator webmaster. No more weeks between News updates. When the muse strikes, I can post to masterstrack.com instantly -- from anywhere -- thanks to the miracle of blog software. That's blog as in Weblog. An exploding form of online journalism, blogs have become a fast-and-easy way for people to express themselves to a worldwide audience. I'm indebted to my brother Al Stone, a Santa Monica acupuncturist and expert in Traditional Chinese Medicine with several world-class sites of his own. He set up this blog over the holidays. Equally cool, you can comment on anything you see here by using the Comments form. And you can search the archives with ease. So runners, take your blocks. Gun's up!

Ross Dunton has started posting seasonal rankings for World Masters Athletics. But unlike the elite performance lists on the IAAF site, Dunton's are a complete botch. Utterly useless. What's wrong with Dunton's lists? Gawd, where do we begin?

The cruelest word in masters track isn’t DQ. It’s retirement. Unlike retirement in open/elite track, which means easing off the professional treadmill, masters athletes who bow out are usually forced to do so by injury or life circumstances. It’s not something they look forward to. National Masters News runs letters from athletes announcing their retirement, and it’s always a kick in the teeth.

Recently I ragged on USATF Masters for choosing Charlotte, North Carolina, to host the 2006 masters outdoor nationals even though bids for that year weren't supposed to be entertained until December 2003. Other potential bid cities -- including Los Angeles, Spokane and Orono, Maine -- were effectively aced out of the process. But now I realize USATF Masters delegates were pikers compared with the folks at the National Senior Games Association.

Every few months I read about some fatcat bailing out a sports program on the verge of vanishing. Today’s news brings a report that a group of students, parents and alumni dove in to save Dartmouth College’s swimming and diving teams with $2 million in pledges. John and Becky Moores (owners of the Padres baseball team) alone have given San Diego State’s sports programs $28.6 million. So how come masters track remains in perpetual poverty?

My idol is Bert Morrow. He'd be yours too, if you knew his story. At age 69, he started hurdling. He's since competed in 11 world masters championships. At age 89 he was the oldest human hurdler in history. Then a challenger showed up. A Japanese gent, age 90, ran hurdles -- taking Bert's Oldest Hurdler title. Now Bert is champing at the bit to start running barriers this season, his first in the M90 group.

A champion is more than someone with strong lungs and muscles. One must have strong character as well. I've just posted a humdinger of an interview with Anna Wlodarczyk, a W50 jumper and hurdler who has overcome the biggest barriers of all -- anger and bitterness over being robbed of perhaps two Olympic medals.

Sometimes when I rap masters “volunteers” like Ross Dunton and his wretched WMA rankings, someone replies: Well, can YOU do better? Maybe not. But I know someone who can. He’s an M40 runner from North Carolina named Alan Sigmon -- who just happens to be one of the most respected track statisticians in the world. His latest contribution is a list of all sub-30 minute 10K track runners in the M40 ranks.

Got results? That's a prime query during and after meets. It's also the prime consideration of rankers throughout the season. But unless we see a sea change in attitudes and activity, 2003 could be another sad year on this front. A prime example: M60 sprinter Paul Edens ran a scorching legal 12.19 in the 100 last June at the Saddleback Masters Relays in Southern California -- easily the fastest in the world. The results weren't reported to National Masters News or world rankers (until today).

A couple years back, masters in Britain were outraged by the published comments of Malcolm Arnold, a famed coach. Arnold told the magazine Athletics Weekly: “I don’t like the idea of coaches of athletes going into veteran athletics. I have a personal hatred of vets athletics. I feel someone of my age should be doing something better with their lives. We are losing a lot of people that way.” Malcolm should meet Gary Bloome, a masters miler going the extra one for track in South Florida.

On March 3, 1938, Glenn Cunningham of Kansas ran a mile indoors at Dartmouth. His time of 4:04.4 would have lowered the day’s outdoor world record by two seconds. The 4:04 was an indoor best, of course. But not one for the record books. It came on a dreaded “oversized track” – illegal for record purposes. Last Saturday, Tony Young of Washington state ran a mile indoors in Seattle. His time of 4:08.6 crushed the previous American masters indoor record by more than two seconds. His performance will be consigned to the asterisk trash heap as well. It was on an oversized track – 307 meters to the lap.

Masters records continue to flow fast and furious -- and all fouled up. Beside’s Tony Young’s brilliant 4:08.60 at age 40 on Jan. 18, we’ve also learned about M55 Harry Nolan of Shore AC running a 4:50.8 mile a few days earlier in New York. But you can’t trust everything you read. Here’s how Runner’s World Online reported the Nolan run: “Masters Mile Record: New Jerseyan Harry Nolan set a new 55-59 U.S. Age-group indoor record and world best of 4:50.8 for the mile at last week’s Thursday Night At The Races at the Armory Track & Field Center in New York. Nolan surpassed the former standard of 4:52.8 set by Vic Heckler of Chicago.” How confused are we? Let us count the ways.

For the past few months, the Web address for the AURA track club -- the (Howard) Adams Unified Racing Association -- has led to a Viagra advertisement. See: www.auratrack.com/ Since this New York City-based club still has athletes competing (and well), I doubt the club has dissolved. But the Viagra ad is plum mystifying. Here's an example of the AURA site before it switched to a puerile penile page I'd like to restore my link to Aura on my Links page, but someone has to point me in the nonerect direction.