Angela Jimenez, a former Penn heptathlete (late 1990s), has been following masters track in recent years — as a photojournalist and fine-art photographer. She shot 2007 Riccione worlds and 2009 Landover nationals, in fact. More recent images were used in the August 2009 New York Times story on geezer doping. Now she’s going to exhibit her photos — all black-and-white — starting tomorrow in a Brooklyn restaurant called Superfine in DUMBO (which stands for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass). She focuses on the elders. (Black-and-white makes them seem historic, I guess.)

Johnnye Valien of Los Angeles, one of the world's oldest female vaulters and hurdlers, is part of Angela's exhibit.

Angela writes: ” ‘Racing Age,’ my first solo show of images from my documentary photography project on (very senior) masters track & field athletes, opens this Thursday, March 18, from 6-8 pm in Brooklyn, NYC. All runners, past and present, are especially welcome! The show will also be featured as part of the DUMBO First Thursday Art Walk on April 1st if you can’t make it this week!” See some samples here. She also has this Facebook page.

Here is how Angela is profiled on another page (but someone misspells masters as master’s):

[Introducing Angela Jimenez, our new resident photo-blogger. That’s her in the photo above, running as a child. We’ll be working with Angela in the coming months to put together a series of photographic essays covering the urban workout scene in New York and beyond. To kick things off, she’s gathered together images from her wonderful ongoing investigation of the wild world of senior athletes. We’re thrilled to present them here for you. -Oliver]

I always loved to run. I was that kid, crouched deep in starting position, waiting for the whistle to go off at field day and backyard birthday parties. I discovered that my spindly little legs were fast, and there was glory in crossing the finish line first. I loved the nervous feeling in my stomach, the wind in my hair, and the weight of a cheap trophy in my hand. I loved to win.

I was at it all through college, competing in the Division I track & field heptathlon for four years. When that was over, I decided I wasn’t good enough to make the Olympics, and I hung up my track spikes forever.

The point is always to get faster, higher, farther, better. Isn’t it? And once you reach your pinnacle it’s all over. Isn’t it? Well…

A few years ago, I photographed a doctor giving anti-aging oxygen treatments to seniors on an assignment. I thought it was unnatural and depressing, but I discovered the doctor was a master’s track & field athlete, and I was intrigued.

Soon I was going to meets. I wound up in Kentucky, then in Italy, then in East Stroudsburg. The more I saw, the more I was amazed. Master’s track is a sport for athletes aged 30 and up…and up…and up. Athletes are divided into 5-year age divisions, with 99 and over as the oldest grouping. The older athletes, seemingly elderly people racing wholeheartedly around the track on spindly and wrinkly legs, moved me.

I saw in them my deeply competitive inner child, still alive and running. Why were they doing this? At their age? What was the point?

A unique aspect of track & field is that, beyond the simple win-loss column of most sports, it measures concrete, objective, human performance. You run the 100 meters in 12.5 seconds. You high jump 5 feet 10 inches. You throw the shot put 42 feet.

Masters track & field athletes are, literally, exploring and expanding the capabilities of the human body at a given age. Every time a new age group record is set, which is often, it is the redefinition of how fast or how far a body that old can go. People are living longer. They are doing things at advanced ages that once seemed impossible.

In the Book of Genesis, Abraham is ninety-nine when he and his equally old wife, Sarah, bear a child. This is meant to be a fantastical, impossible age at which to bear children, made possible only by the will of God. A few months ago, while doing a story on the sport for The New York Times, I watched a 95-year-old man (who happens to be on Viagra) break the age- group world record for the 400 meter-run. I think Abraham would have been impressed.

Angela, who turns 35 in early August, sent info about the photo below.

Senior athlete Helen Beauchamp, 87, of Memphis, Tennessee, is photographed participating in the 85-89 age bracket women’s javelin event during the track and field competition at the 2007 Senior Olympics, held at the University of Louisville’s Cardinal Park Soccer & Track Stadium in Louisville, Kentucky on June 28, 2007. ..The event was sponsored by the National Senior Games Association, established in 1986, which oversees 50 state and 350 local and regional competitions for senior athletes in the United States each year. There are an estimated 250,000 senior athletes in training in the U.S.

And here’s a 5-minute interview with Angela on another project: