Mass Velocity December 2007 Newsletter

Teammates & Friends:

Well the Indoor Season is upon us with one meet reported on by Bob and the Harvard Open (formerly the Harvard Invitational) looming this weekend. I hope to see many of our Mass Velociteers at Harvard all decked out in their red and white. This is a short Newsletter. I encourage everyone to submit something to share with your teammates - what are you taking for supplements that are working, how did you recover from that last injury, what have you added to your training? Remember, this is your Newsletter, it's not my personal Blog. If you want that sort of thing, visit Ken Stone's Blog (or is it Mary Harada's?). So here's your Newsletter....

- Larry

The first indoor meet of the season was pretty early this year, Dec. 1 at the Reggie Lewis Center. It was the Husky Winter Carnival Track Meet sponsored by Northeastern. It is generally a gathering of college teams, with a few members of post-college clubs there as well (I saw some Greater Boston TC and Merrimack Valley Striders).

A few brave souls from Mass Velocity signed up to run, to get the rust out of our systems:

- Tucker Taft ran some very impressive times in the 400 and 200 meters for the first time out with little advance training, in fact taking second in one of his heats while closing fast on what must have been a very surprised college kid.

- Darin Brown just missed breaking 5 minutes in the mile. He then ran what was going to be a very credible 800, except there was a snafu with a race official who thought it was a heat of the 1000, or lost track of the number of laps, and caused that heat of the 800 to mistakenly turn into a 1000, which was then not recorded in the results. Oh well, I guess it wasn't just the runners who needed to get the rust out!

- Bob Segal (me) ran the 400 and 200. Continuing his pattern of being his own worst enemy, he ran his 400 rather gingerly because the heel cups he added to the orthotics that were already jammed into his spikes caused his feet to almost pop out of the shoes as he ran. And in the 200, starting in lane 6, he stumbled down the first turn of the 200. Unfazed by the resulting mediocre times, Bob still vowed to meet this season's goal: perfect attendance.

Dec. 8th - Harvard Invitational
Meet Info Web Site
Gordon Indoor Track - Harvard
Entry via DirectAthletics.com
Online entries are now CLOSED
Late Entries taken up to Thursday, Dec 6th

Dec. 15th, 22nd, 29th - BU All-Comer Mini-Meets
BU Indoor Track, 100 Ashford Street
Enter on the day of - BU Site (caution - may still be last year's info.)

Dec 13, 20 and Jan 3rd - Brown University Age-Group All-Comer Meets
Thursday Evenings,
Meet Information

5th - Roxbury Community College Tiger All-Comers
Reggie Lewis Track & Athletic Center
Entry via DirectAthletics
Online entries are OPEN until 12/21/07 11:59 PM US/Eastern

Darin Brown - M40, Madison, NH "Hi, Larry, Thanks for the welcome and the info! I sent an email to Steve at the NE USATF and he has changed my affiliation. I haven't raced for any club since August so I am OK to race for Mass Velocity.

I don't have any recent performances except for one 1500 meter race (my first in forever) at the USATF nationals in Orono, where I managed a 13th place finish in 40-44 (it was a strong field). My time was 4:38.19, which lists me as 28th place in the master's rankings online for 2007.

My "has been" times include 1:53.29 for 800 meters, 50.0 for 400 meters, 2:26.8 for 1000 meters, 4:00.0 for 1500 meters. I won a few races in college (Cornell), but ran in the shadow of Bill Rathbun (a sub 4 miler) and was in college more for academics anyway.

I am signed up for the Northeastern Winter Carnival, so if anyone from the club is there I will try to catch up with them!

See you soon!
Darin

Dennis Melanson - M70, Westwood, MA

Better late than never in recognizing the extraordinary efforts and accomplishments of Barbara Jordan - Follow this LINK for the official award.

"Hi Team, First race since I broke down at the world champs in early Sept. I ran a 5km in a Mass Velocity uniform! 1st Master, 8th overall, Fenwick Fall Classic (proceeds go to the Danvers Fire Relief Fund) 18 min 51 sec. Not bad on a very cold day. Try again next week in Beverly another 5km!

Looking forward to moving indoors after my final Fall/winter 3 mile race. Hellish long way! 18.01 in freezing, windy conditions. A Mass Velocity vest has never been so cold. We went thru the first mile in 5. 47! 8th overall (out of 200) with an impressive last 200m, took a few young scalps down the straight. World Indoors in France next in March! BR" - Ian Smith

"John Oleski first introduced me to MassVelocity while we were long-jumping at Manchester, NH, at the 2007 Granite State Games. That was only my third track meet ever, my first having come a year earlier at Manchester. At the Maine State Games in September, Kim Williams handed me a MassVelocity club card, so here I am at the web site. I live in Gilford, NH, and hope to compete indoors when the season starts, if I can find out when the meets will be." - Steven Snow

"You will be able to attend the main session with the coaches of the top finishers in the 2007 AT&T USA Outdoor Track & Field Championships. You will hear Dr. Mann's presentations on the mechanics of sprinting, along with the highly inquisitive, and sometimes combative, questions and discussions of the HPD coaches. In addition, there will be presentations by speakers in the fields of sports medicine, motor learning, and sports psychology; all directly related to sprint performance.

On the application side, elite coaches including Clyde Hart, Amy Deem, Curtis Frye, Dennis Shaver, and John Smith will be giving presentations on various aspects of the development of sprint athletes. The highlight of this effort will be a live, on-track demonstration of how to best teach and improve an athlete's sprint performance. This session will include Dr. Mann's computer videographics based teaching system, as well as presentations from some of the HPD coaches. Bring your running gear since this will be a true application situation where you will be directly involved."

Upon my return I intend to share whatever wisdom I received that will be of assistance to both my Mass Velocity teammates as well as my high school athletes. - LL

Injury always seems to loom large in masters track & field. The obvious major factor is our age which contributes to lack of flexibility, increased body fat, loss of muscle tone and size and even loss of bone density. Then add to the mix that we don't get any or enough practices and workouts prior to competition and then it makes sense that getting to the starting line and then getting to the finish line are major accomplishments at any of the track meets we compete in.

Some would argue that unless you were in proper competitive shape, it would be foolish to enter a meet because the risk of injury was so great. Yet many of us, maybe even most of us, enter meets early in the season well aware we're not really in our best shape. Life is short and the indoor season is even shorter. We're all probably a little bit crazy doing what we do. We all probably weigh the risk of injury against our need for speed and choose to compete anyway.

Some risk-takers and adrenaline junkies jump from planes, or cliff-dive, or run with the bulls in Pamplona. We risk our lives and our health on a 200m oval. Not much difference, we just have better-looking uniforms.

Peace, speed and good health,

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