Newbie M50 Mike Blackmore set an M50 American record in the 5K Friday at the Pacific University Twilight Meet in Forest Grove, Oregon. His time of 15:16.77 crushes the listed M50 AR of 15:41.67 by Mike Heffernan in 1991. (See results here.) The listed WR is 14:53.2 by Britain’s David Martin Rees in 2003. But Mike has been racing fast in recent years. At 49, he won silver in the M45 1500 at Sacramento worlds. So congrats on aging up and setting ’em down, Mike! Video is from a few weeks before 2011 worlds.

Read the rest of this post »

At least one American masters record was set today at the Penn Relays: The Houston Elite TC 4×1 team of Ron Johnson, Charles Allie, Richard Riddle and Bill Collins clocked 48.44 to beat the USATF club record of 50.9 by the legendary Corona Del Mar TC quartet of Bill Morales, Payton Jordan, Clarence Killion and Al Guidet way back in 1978. But the national and world M60 record of 47.93 set at Sacramento worlds is safe. The bulk of masters relays and sprints were today. (See results here.) And Bill Collins fell shy of the 11.8 hand-timed AR for 100 by clocking an auto-timed 11.98. Still an amazing mark. Unsure of conditions. Let us know if any of the ladies teams set records. Meanwhile at the Drake Relays in Des Moines, Iowa, Philly’s own Nick Berra was upset by Lance Elliott in the monster field 800. I interviewed Lance last year.

Read the rest of this post »

A week ago Wednesday, M55 vaulter Jerry Cahill “received a call he has been waiting for a number of years,” reports the Armory track site. “[His] double lung transplant was approved and performed. He received his new lungs that day, thanks to a very generous donor. There are plenty of challenges ahead for Jerry, including the threat of infections and the rejection of the lungs. Yet challenges are what Jerry is about. He volunteers with the Boomer Esiason Foundation, heading up scholarship and transplant grants programs. He also founded the Team Boomer – Fighting Cystic Fibrosis athletic program, hosts a regular CF podcast and produces the CF Wind Sprint video series.”

Read the rest of this post »

W40 runner Sonja Friend-Uhl was hoping for a speedy 4:22 or 4:23 last Friday night when she came to the starting line of the 1500 at the Vanderbilt Invitational in Nashville. Boy, was she way off. She writes: “I wanted to share the news with you that I ran my 4th fastest 1500m EVER Friday night.” Her time of 4:16.99 crushed the listed American outdoor record of 4:23.54 by Kris Paaso in 2011. (But not the unratified 4:08.69 by Ruth Wysocki in 1997.) Sonja reports rabbit splits of 68, 2:17/2:18 and 3:27 and says: “I’m still trying to process that I ran that fast because 1) I was hoping for merely a 4:22-4:23 and 2) My training had not been as consistent or focused the last month due to work and family obligations.”

Read the rest of this post »

Marilyn Mitchell writes from New York: “Several of us are trying to raise money in order to facilitate getting a stellar field of masters athletes to the Masters Invitational in Eugene, for the June 30th exhibition at the Olympic Trials competition. Unfortunately, except for the several people who had previously verbally indicated interest in helping, I have heard not one word from any of the active athletes nor from their friends, so I am thinking that perhaps the active athletes did not forward the message or perhaps people just do not have money to give. Bill Collins is very busy at the moment, but he is one of the people who is interested in helping with this effort and he has said that we may use his name and Robert Thomas is another individual who is helping more actively.”

Read the rest of this post »

Expect USATF to sell the sizzle now that Max Siegel has been hired as CEO of USA Track & Field. Six months after being touted as a marketing guru, USATF Prez Stephanie Hightower today announced Max as its latest Moses. [He answered some of my questions last November.] But at least USATF has a leader going into the Trials and London Games, and not a pickup team of hole-pluggers. He also meets (but barely) the CEO job description, which calls for track knowledge. A sign that USATF knew a good story when it smacked them in the face was this status report on Bill Collins from a few days back.

The former world record holder and 2004 Olympic champion had some nice things to say about us a couple weeks ago. Writing in his IAAF diary, Liu Xiang said: “During my training period in Dusseldorf, Germany, in March, I observed four older people training over several days. They were full of vigor, always starting with warm-ups and sometimes I noticed that they even wore spike shoes for starting blocks and sprints. This seemed very professional to me. When I asked their ages I was surprised by what I heard. They told me they were each over 70 years of age, with the oldest person being 82-years-old! They used to be European Masters Champions and competitors and were in the midst of preparing for the World Masters Championships.”

Read the rest of this post »

Like a favorite rock melody of youth, the John Williams composition “Summon the Heroes” will always be associated in my mind with where I heard it first — as the fanfare for medal ceremonies at the Los Angeles Games in 1984. It has a powerful pull on my heart. So I was delighted to see it used as backdrop for a wonderful slide show of photos from Jyväskylä worlds. Rob Jerome created the 6-minute video, which is heavy on the jumps and special effects. But what a masterful depiction of our stars.

So what is this PTV ad at the left? What’s a “Penn Relays Viewer”? Glad you asked! It’s a link to a Penn Relays video player, which includes clips from last year and now a press conference with some coaches from Wednesday. The video player will show official Penn Relays highlights and interviews, and I’m hopeful this includes the masters 4×1 and 4×4 relays and 100-meter exhibitions. Folks who want to watch Penn live April 26-28 can pay for video stream as well. I see 16 masters events scheduled a week from Friday and Saturday. Lots of old friends are listed, including Bill Collins and Charles Allie in the M60 100. Four years ago, Bill set the M55 WR of 11.44 at Penn. The mark he’s shooting for this time is the M60 WR of 11.70 by Britain’s Ronald Taylor. Godspeed, Bill!

This caught my eye on Facebook. National Masters News says: “The May issue of National Masters News is now posted on-line along with the latest calendars. I am very happy that for the first time we were able to put a thrower on the cover. It is really hard to get good throwing shots, especially indoors. This is Tim Mullen, the M60 shot put champion.” Progress being made.