USATF prez gives shout-out to masters and promises money
USATF president Stephanie Hightower genuflects our way, but show us the money. In her latest message, she says: “Our first year of Challenge Grants is one way we were able to put additional dollars toward traditionally underfunded programs in youth, masters and race walking.” In July, we got nearly $12,000 to support the new members recruiting initiative. But many other programs have been getting much more from the get-go from the USATF Foundation.
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How about recruiting former professional athletes to join/participate, many of whom had T&F backgrounds in high school/college, and partnering with them to reach others? Although he’s not retired yet, someone like Donald Driver of the Packers, who was an elite high jumper, comes to mind. Many of them might be looking for outlets for their competitiveness. What performances could these athletes produce as Masters? And perhaps more “common folks” would join for the chance to compete against them and just rub elbows!
Tens of thousands should be doing what we do. A gimpy knee now and then, or a sore hammy, beats the hell out of fat, diabetes, heart disease, cig hab, prescriptions, you name it. On a quiet day in Sticksville, the locals pass the time sitting in their pickups watching me train at Wal-Mart. I’m doing resistance training by pushing two carts on the run. They get a big kick out of it because most pickups don’t have TV.grrrrrrrrrrrr Smartty
Smartty,
Get somebody to video you doing resistance training with those carts at Wal-Mart. I guarantee you it will go viral and might help others to get off their butts.
Smartty makes an excellent point !
Roger that, Rob. I’ll send along a pic from my Wal-Mart sessions. Repeat 100s pushing the carts uphill. “I get my thrill on my Wal-Mart hill…” It’ll be a few days. We’re snowed in. Total of 20-some inches. Smartty
I had the absolute pleasure of finishing in a similar blanket finish in a heat of the New England indoor championships last winter at Harvard (no picture, unfortunately.) As I recall there were six of us in the heat, and five of us were nearly abreast at the finish. We were all older than 50, so our times were a bit slower than this Toronto race, but all were around 27 seconds. We were dead even coming off the final turn and the straightaway was a real battle. I bumped arms with the next lane at the line and went down on my shoulder. My wife was horrified when I told her I’d fallen, but I said it had been the most exhilarating race I’d run in a long, long time. It made my season last year.
that comment above was supposed to go on a different thread. I’ll repost
Give ’em hell Smartty! Too bad you are not over here in STL or the Eastside because Principia Collge allows the public to use their indoor facilities. You get access to a flat 200M mondo track, weight rooms, swimming & diving and tennis courts for the paltry sum of $20 per month.
http://principiaathletics.com/sports/2010/7/2/GEN_0702104936.aspx?id=58
I hear you, Stone. I’d love to be where I’d have indoor training but that would mean living somewhere that has more than one stop light. I’m mellowed out here in Lost Acres where folks endearingly refer to me as “that’s the old guy”(I omitted the F-word). The closest rubber track is 40 miles on a 2-lane “road” so that’s out. I’ll be ready to fly at Sacto. Smartty
I see that masters got the $12,000 for recruitment of new participants last year.
Are there any reports on how this money was spent and what results might have been enjoyed?
I didn’t see anything in this region, not even info about the regional meets. In fact the regional meet was run in combination with the Dallas local club meet rather than a separate meet as it had been done for over 15 years.
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