DALLAS MASTERS TRACK & FIELD CLUB

Here goes another attempt at writing a newsletter. I hope it goes well. There are several things that have happened since I last wrote my thoughts. Some of them are good and some not so good. Many of you have competed in two or three meets by now and some are still trying to get in shape for that first attempt of the season. Since my National Masters News comes late in the month and has very little in it, I really haven’t seen many results to write about. I saw several of you at the Dallas Senior Games and at the meet in Elgin this past week-end. Dallas still cannot run a track meet in a decent manner and refuses to get automatic timing. Hand timing by rank amateurs just stinks. When the third place finisher has a better time than the winner of the race, something is wrong. When the time turned in is faster than you know you can run and a reliable timer has you a second slower than their time, something is wrong. Thanks to Tony Deatherage, I know approximately what my real times were. Tony knows what he is doing. Goodness knows he’s been doing it long enough.

As usual we ran our age-graded 200 meters at the UTA Invitational meet on March 31. I try to get the top 200 runners from at least 7 age groups together for this event. This year’s race once again proved that the age graded tables are fair and correct. Six of the seven of us finished within 0.7 seconds of each other. Rick Riddle, 55, won with a time of 21.98 with myself second at 22.04. the others in the race in order of finish were Reggie Garner, 47, Ed Jones, 62, Michael Labay, 43, Don Denson, 66, and Rick Easley, 53. Thanks to Rick’s wife, Kathleen, we got a good video of the race and Masterstrack.com put it and the write-up by Rick on their website. Rick also put it on youtube and we have heard from people all over the country who thought it was great.

I hesitate to write too much about myself, but since I don’t know what the rest of you are doing, I’m going to take up some space by relating some events that I have been involved in. After the age-graded 200, The Why Guy on Channel 8 wanted to do a piece on me and this aired on April 4. I made sure that the shirt I wore for the shoot had Dallas Masters in bold letters on it. I hope that maybe it might inspire some one else to try our sport and lifestyle. What we do and the level that we do it, makes us the best athletes in the nation.

I won’t call it a national championship, but it ranks right up there with one. On April 27, I participated in the Penn Relays. I won the M 70 100 meter dash with a time of 13.98. It was cold and raining so the time was not the greatest, but a win at Penn is a win. The competition was Larry Colbert and Dick Camp among others. Bob Lida was injured and could not make the meet. I also ran the second leg of a 4 x 100 relay that won gold for 70 year age group. We missed the American record by less than a second, thanks to some very sloppy baton exchanges. Again Lida was not there to anchor for us and Rich Rizzo is not nearly as fast. The Penn Relays are a unique experience and you should go if you ever have the chance. It is an invitation only meet, but a number of our members are qualified to get invited. The state of Texas was well represented at the meet, primarily by Houston Elite and Southwest Sprinters teams. Bill Collins just continues to overwhelm people with his amazing performances.

Elgin Meet

The South Texas Association meet was held on May 19 at Elgin, Texas. This meet was run well with automatic timing. While we encourage youth participation in track and field, they need to be a small factor in our meets. Thanks to Seth and Jeff Brower, that happened. They ran all the masters men and women before running the youth heats. This kept the meet pretty much on schedule and that is always a plus. Several of our members were there and ran very well for this early in the season. Good times were turned in by Don Denson, Bill Lewis, Rick Riddle, Pete Clark, Don Isett, Ed Jones, Wayne Bennett and Cindy Steenbergen. I haven’t checked on the results to see how our throwers did, but know that John Cantrell, Pete LaBarge and Wendell Palmer were there. Don Isett also continues to put up good marks in the pole vault and high jump events.

An unfortunate accident occurred at the discus event. Mr. Clarence Cook was hit in the back of the head with an errant discus throw. He suffered a massive cardiac arrest and was care-flighted to an Austin hospital. As of this writing, he is still in ICU and the family is not releasing any information yet. Keep this gentleman and his family in your prayers. A cardinal rule to remember is to never turn your back on a throwing circle of any nature. If you are helping at one of these events, keep your eyes open and your head up even in the shot put area.

Southwestern Association Meet

The Southwestern Association Meet will be held on June 16 at First Baptist Academy in Mesquite. Entry firms are available on our website, www.dallasmasters.com. This should be a good meet and hope we have a large turnout. The facilities are good and timing will be fully automatic. Hope to see a lot of you there.

TEXAS MASTERS CHAMPIONSHIPS

Our Texas Masters Championship meet is scheduled for July 21 at Jesuit High School. Coppell High was not available this year. I am attaching an entry form to this letter. Most of you will get it via e-mail, however for those who do have e-mail, you will receive it via regular mail. As usual we need volunteers and officials to run an efficient meet. We pride ourselves on putting on a quality meet every year and plan on doing so again this year. Jesuit High School is located at 12345 Inwood Road just south of I-635. I think the exit number is 22D off I-635. We will have the usual medals and also tee-shirts for sale. Some of the duties for volunteers include keeping ice water at the different venues, helping with registration, selling shirts, taking heat sheets to the starter and timer and bringing results to the computer operator and posting of results. We usually like to have a hand timer to back up the automatic timing system. If you would like to help, just let me know.

TRAINING AND DIET

Take what you read here with a grain of salt or maybe a lot of salt. We all know the value of training on a regular basis. How you train and the work you do pretty well determines how you perform at the meet. Practice makes perfect only if you practice perfectly, which most of us can’t do. Technique and form is so important in both running and throwing. Diet is another thing altogether. I’m going to tell you what I think makes for a good diet. Take into account that this comes from a guy whose genes don’t let him gain weight. Breakfast is the same every day and consists of a slim-fast meal bar and a large glass of milk. A typical week needs to include at least one hamburger, barbeque ribs, pizza, smoked sausage and cheddar cheese, picante sauce with chips every other day, chicken fried steak, fried chicken and fried fish or shrimp or clams. An essential item is a glass of milk with two oatmeal cookies at bedtime every night. Some kind of dessert, pie or cookies should be eaten with lunch or dinner. By the way, that hamburger needs to have mustard, cheese, onions, pickles, lettuce and tomato on white bread. Your pizza needs to have everything that they offer on it. It needs to be a complete meal. The barbeque ribs or brisket need to be accompanied with either potato salad or fries, onion rings and fried okra. You can’t have fried chicken without mashed potatoes with gravy and biscuits, can you? Another vegetable is optional. What about race day? I always eat the same breakfast and prefer a hot dog or something similar for lunch or mid morning if the race is in the early afternoon. Milk, water and ice tea are the only beverages I drink. Unsweetened ice tea by the way. Don’t want to go too heavy on the sugar intake. Get that from the cookies. One of the delights of the Elgin meet is the sausage wraps they have for sale. Lots of energy in that baby. I always eat one between the 100 and 200 meter dashes. Keep that protein level high with some red meat intake such as steak or roast. Oh, and by the way, don’t forget that all important daily multiple vitamin. Salads can also be beneficial to your overall well being, just be sure that the dressing has the calories to offset the lack of them in the green stuff. Want to share your thoughts on diet and training, I would love to hear them. You all know my e-mail address.

Wayne Bennett