One of the best things about nationals is meeting new people. At the Orono Athletes Banquet, I chatted with a lady named Margaret Kaufman of Madison, Wisconsin. She’s a national-class W60 sprinter. But even more interesting: She’s a world-class Greek scholar. Margaret wrote me: “I wanted to give you my website address: www.margaretgeorge.com. If you look under ‘adventures in research’ on the menu bar, that will take you to a list of items, where ‘ancient and modern racing’ is. There are photos of the Greek ancient race reenactment, and then a section on masters racing. It even has a photo of Nadine (O’Connor).”

Margaret continued:

I was hoping that I could generate some interest in masters track, and that when I had book interviews they might pursue it. It’s hard to get publicity for it. I was disappointed that SI did not even mention the
Maine meet in its next issue. Not even a sentence!
(I mean, one more football story more or less isn’t going to affect the sport, but if we could get even a short article, it would recruit more people.) And more articles about David Beckham! As if we needed them.

In her essay, Margaret praises masters track as recapturing the spirit of ancient Greek athletics:

I knew I was a dismal long-distance runner, although I tried it every year. (We have a popular local race here that is 5 miles and one year they had closed the course before I finished!) And I had never heard about short races outside of college and international championship meets; all I ever saw in the papers were 5 and 10 Ks, marathons and triathlons.
One day I was lamenting this to a friend whose entire family does the Hawaiian Ironman, and she said, “Oh, but there are! Lots of them! I know someone who’s a world-class masters short distance runner. I’ll put you in touch…”
And that is how I found out that there is a whole world of Masters (i.e., over age 30) track and field athletes.
I had once attended a lecture in which a professor talked about the decline of physical strength as a person ages, and in it he had discussed an old Scottish runner, known as “the Tartan Flash.” He said he was the fastest runner in each age group as he aged, but that his times kept going down, and that it followed an actual mathematical formula.
In the 1960s, in California (naturally — where else?) the masters track phenomenon got its start, featuring a race in which ex-champion (and still speedy) milers over 40 would compete as part of a larger meet. It drew so many spectators–twenty thousand– that a new movement was born, and masters meets sprang up all over the world. (The Tartan Flash even participated in some of those early meets!)
Today it’s an international establishment, with its own world and national meets, world and national records, publications, and its own superstars. But best of all, I think, is that it recaptures the spirit of the old Greek athletics.
It is still open to anyone, and it is amateur in the truest and best sense. The people who compete take it very seriously but as yet there are no corrupting commercial endorsements. (When I was at the Nemean Games, there was a rumor that two well-known enterprises had tried to sponsor the Games but were rejected as being out of character for the aims of the Games.) Perhaps it is just a matter of time, but for now anyone over 30 can enjoy a chance to see what athletics once were.
And they can rediscover the joys of sports, for so many who have put them aside for many years. I have been competing in meets in the two years since Nemea; I run the 60, 100, and 200 meter distances, and am nationally ranked. I’ve discovered an awful lot about myself–that yes, I’m fast but there are world-class women who will always leave me in the dust, no matter how hard I train. (I call them “the Speed Queens.”)
And that even though I know I won’t win when they are there, I still get horrible pre-race butterflies and nervousness. But one of them assured me, “If you don’t get nervous then you don’t belong here, because it means you don’t care enough.”
But — and here is the great thing about masters athletics — most of us are after personal bests, and as long as we keep improving, we’ve won our own victor’s crowns and can go home happy.
The people I’ve met in this have been a welcoming, warm, fellowship, and it’s also the one addiction that’s really good for you. When you have something definite to train for, it’s a lot easier to make yourself exercise, and, exercise at any age is the best thing for you!
And yes, it’ll make you sexier– honest! You’ll walk differently, move differently.
As Hal Higdon, himself a great masters athlete, wrote about “the Tartan Flash” when he was 91: “What impressed me about MacLean was not his age, but his youth! He looked young–not so much on the track, but away from the track.”
Watching him and another competitor walk, he notes, “They strode through the park with a vigor that belied their age. They moved young—and that’s something you can’t fake. Coloring your hair and removing the bags under your eyes with plastic surgery may give you a surface look of youth, but if you fail to pay attention to what’s beneath the surface–your physical fitness–you’ll give your age away as soon as you move.”
So to everyone over 30 reading this, I say, go to www.masterstrack.com and learn about the gateway to renewed youth! And, of course, sexiness.

Wow! From ancient Greece to masterstrack.com! I’m thrilled to see my site even mentioned in the same sentence.
And just FYI: More info on “The Tartan Flash,” the Scotsman Duncan MacLean, appeared in “Masters Track & Field: A History,” a book I helped write and edit 10 years ago.