50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

Brittle,

In my college days I was quite the jokester. Did myself in one time. My teammates dressed me up as the Invisible Man using toilet paper and athletic tape. I did the invisible Man routine limping thru all the women's dorm lobbies at Oklahoma State. I was picked up by campus police and taken to the infirmary for a drug test. Negative result of course. Then the officers wouldn't let me leave the patrol car until I apologized. I told them I wouldn't apologize since I did nothing wrong. After a spell they took me back to the athletic dorm where my mates cheered my return, and the head coach shook his head.

Igy

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

Brittle,

In my college days I was quite the jokester. Did myself in one time. My teammates dressed me up as the Invisible Man using toilet paper and athletic tape. I did the invisible Man routine limping thru all the women's dorm lobbies at Oklahoma State. I was picked up by campus police and taken to the infirmary for a drug test. Negative result of course. Then the officers wouldn't let me leave the patrol car until I apologized. I told them I wouldn't apologize since I did nothing wrong. After a spell they took me back to the athletic dorm where my mates cheered my return, and the head coach shook his head.

Igy

Igy,

You would have liked my uncle.

When he was in college--one of his four colleges, I don't know which one--he played a prank on his next-door neighbor in the dorm.

They both had singles on the same hallway.

When his neighbor went home on break, my uncle and a buddy stayed in the dorm. They removed the door to the neighbor's room.

Then they removed the door frame.

Then they put up dry wall covering the gap in the wall, applied spackle to make the wall smooth, and painted the wall.

It was a real professional job. You couldn't tell a doorway had ever been there.

When the hallway neighbor returned from break, he couldn't find his room. Other people living in the hall said, "I don't know, man. You must have been in some other hallway. Keep looking."

Brittle,

Funny. Reminds me when I coached at Blinn College in Texas. One of the tracksters fell asleep shortly after practice. It was in the fall, when he woke up it was dark, like in the morning. The other guys started shaving, pretending as if they were getting ready for class. They had changed his clock, watch, etc. like is was 6:30 am in the morning. This fellow get his shower, and heads off to class. Alone.

At Oklahoma State they moved a couple of fellas from time to time, out of their dorm room into a shower stall.

Igy

Igy, heh, I could go on for quite a while, describing stuff I pulled on various people when I was in college.

It would be a long list, because I was in college for a long time--I always say, college was the best eight and a half years of my life. Kind of like Bluto in Animal House, I guess.

I hear you, and probably followed a similar path.

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

I hear you, and probably followed a similar path.

Igy, yeah, but you could also run fast! Which I think is truly awesome.

But I have a good attitude about my limitations, then and now. Last Friday I averaged 9:27 mile pace on my 4-mile run. Nothing special. But it's my best run in a while, and now I'm excited about trying to get that pace below 9:00. Even though, if I do it, it will still be nothing special. To me it just feels like something fun and very much worth trying to do.

My poor wife doesn't have a competitive bone in her body, and I'm pretty sure she has no idea why I care so much about things like this. I just do. And I think other runners get that.

Brittle,

I don’t think I could keep up with you, so there you go. Pursuit of excellence is never something to be ashamed about. Striving to be better, whatever the governors may be, is what it is all about.

My wife says “you ought to be good at it, as much time you spend.” Said to keep me humble, while at the same time is proud that I still care. That is unusual. Most people just give in. Not me.

Carry on, and I enjoy your posts immensely by the way.

Igy

Why don’t you two get a room? JK ?

curmudgeon2 wrote:

Why don’t you two get a room? JK ?

We did. What are you doing in our room?

JK

Brittle, your mention of wearing a pair of Nike Waffles to shovel Buffalo snow reminded me of trekking to Jim Dalberth Sports on Genesee Street to spend my lawn-mowing money on a pair of Nike Oregon Waffles. Yellow and bright green. That was 1975, I think.

Last fall I returned for the first time since then to spend a hard-earned gift certificate (15K AG win) on a pair of New Balance Mores. The store is still on Genesee, but recently moved across the street.

I love these shoes, BTW. Low drop, well-cushioned, ample toe box. They have made returning to the roads possible.

My Waffle Trainers were purchased in 1977 in Iowa City at Eby's Sporting Goods. They were royal blue with a yellow swoosh, got 1500 miles out of them, then bought another pair that "only" got 1300 miles, then bought a pair of "slightly used" gray Tailwinds from the manager (probably a seed shoe for him) and found out you didn't run that many miles in a pair. These were the only air shoes that ever "blew out" on the side for me, only after a very long usage of them.

No joke, early in our marriage, and we'll hit 37 later this month, I purchased what I thought was a nice enough gift for my wife, that I did not get a different gift for her birthday, which is two days before that. Talk about putting myself in an unforgotten doghouse!

Yesterday I set a new PR, I walked 4 miles in 56:52, measured by Garmin, with all 4 under 15 minute pace, and the best one an all-time best of 13:46, walking only! The irony is not lost on me that the Bowerman gals are covering 3 miles in the time I cover one, but it was a very good feeling FOR ME. For those who care, my average heartrate for it was 90, and my resting is about 50 (sleeping) and about 150 max. Left me so pumped up that my evening strength work at home included 3 sets of push-ups, of 21, 15 and 10 (full recoveries in between and hand weights in between). I might be getting my youthful chest back yet! Ha, all 5'10.5" and 147# of me! Hoping my hamstrings will heal and I can start running again in a couple days.

Mike Lundgren, good luck with your hamstrings!

My run tonight:

0.5 mile warmup + 4 miles on the track in 36:00 (9:00/mile), 70 F., 88% humidity.

Mile splits: 9:23-8:59-8:56-8:42.

How about mixing it up next week. Workout: mile warm-up; 2 x mile @ 8:15 / 2:00 rest; mile easy?

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

How about mixing it up next week. Workout: mile warm-up; 2 x mile @ 8:15 / 2:00 rest; mile easy?

That's an idea...I'll put it on my calendar and see how I feel!

I don't know how it is, but I seem to need a longer warmup than I used to. Like tonight, I felt lousy the first lap, then just gradually accelerated, ever so slightly, lap after lap thereafter.

RE: socalcush quote "sharing the santa monica connection with igy, i've been privy to some of these stories and pics already and they are fascinating. also, i enjoyed many an ice cream treat at the fosters freeze igy mentions, albeit 10 to 20 years later in both the 80s (post-beach trips in h.s.) and 90s (post-workouts with smtc)."

I have been slowly reading 30 years worth of Track and Field News that I acquired a few months back. Started reading them chronologically starting with 1987 ( the year I transferred back to the Midwest from L.A.).

socalcush: Your name and at least one or two of your photos from the SMTC period showed up. As well as a some your European racing results. And the top 10 US list for the 1,500m for 1994 (3:38) I remember following the 1,500 results at the time as a young P. McMullen was training at Eastern Michigan just a mile away from where we live.

At the time I had just started back seriously training racing (at my unimpressive competitive level) 5Ks, 10ks, and getting ready to start back training for the marathon.)

Anyway it was (and interesting) to see results from someone here on the discussion boards.

Lastly, if anyone has I copy of the January 1978 T&F News, please let me know. It is completely irrelevant to anyone, but me - however I 'think' I remember making on of the U.S. additions list in the 50km RW that year. It was one of the few fleeting mentions of my name in print. haha!

Brisk 2 mile walk on my lunch hour, 69 F., sunny, 69% humidity.

These days my "recovery runs" are walks. :-)

I would like to be using the elliptical at Planet Fitness for recovery days, but I regard public gyms as radioactive right now. Sad times.

I looked up the Track and Field News site which has a ranking list, but not a times list. Perhaps you can find a copy for sale over the internet.

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

Not Done Just Yet wrote:

Lastly, if anyone has I copy of the January 1978 T&F News, please let me know. It is completely irrelevant to anyone, but me - however I 'think' I remember making on of the U.S. additions list in the 50km RW that year. It was one of the few fleeting mentions of my name in print. haha!

I looked up the Track and Field News site which has a ranking list, but not a times list. Perhaps you can find a copy for sale over the internet.

Uh, this IS the internet. LOL ?

curmudgeon2 wrote:

Uh, this IS the internet. LOL ?

Well, LRC is sort of the internet. The site design is vintage 1990s.

Not to mention LRC is the biggest memory hog anywhere. It's like a virus that eats your computer memory. If I open this site and walk away from my laptop for a while, the memory usage starts climbing rapidly toward 1,000,000 K and slows my CPU to a crawl. I've never seen anything like it.