Mass Velocity TC relay team of (L-R) Roy Currie,
Tucker Taft, Lee Hess and Charles Kelley


PENN RELAYS 05 - A SENIOR PERSPECTIVE
by Charles Kelley

It is mild and overcast as we enter the stadium. We are swept along in the current of runners and coaches. It is a large open space of brick and arched openings, an old place thick with history. Thirty nine thousand people in the stands. Twenty three thousand runners will compete over a three-day period. Our racing bibs remind us they have been doing this since 1895.

After a five hour drive and a fitful nights sleep, the four of us have arrived at the Penn Relays.

In two hours we are to run the first of two relays. We are fifty year old children playing hooky from our lives. You can sense the underlying tension of athletes before a competition. The furtive glances at the watch, the spontaneous static stretching. We are in the moment now. Time is distorted. Our hearts are beating faster, palms are sweaty, throats dry.

They call us to the paddock area. An anxious moment, as two of our runners are still out warming up. The officials are entertaining themselves with our senior status. We are like cattle now, being herded to the efficient cadence of the relentless relay march.

This is the first of our relays, the 4x100 masters over 50 race. There are 10 teams, and they graciously allow us to run two heats. The first heat is called. We are positioned on the infield as the first heat gets into position on the track. Im struck by the physical stature of the other runners. Im feeling small and somehow inadequate. The gun sounds for the first heat. There is a fast smooth transition as the runners exchange their batons. Wow, these guys are fast!

I get onto the track and get into position. I run through a short sprint. My warm up has been harried by the early call. Its only 100 yards but I am not ready to launch myself at 100 percent. I can feel the tightness in my legs. The gun cracks, the runners come up fast- I start my acceleration too late and my teammate is on me before I can run away. We pass the baton but lose a stride or two. Im running as hard as I can into the exchange zone. My teammate times his start perfectly and we have a seamless pass. At the next exchange we drop the baton! The anchor leg finds it, picks it up and gets back into the chase.

We collectively try and reconcile the experience. Our spirits are a bit dampened. We do a remarkable job of putting it behind us, for the moment. After all, we have another chance to redeem ourselves in the span of a few hours.

We retreat to the cold aluminum of the stands. On the way we pass Dwight Stones (Olympic gold medalist). We set about resting, hydrating, refueling. As we watch the mind numbing repetition of relay after relay, we begin to realize that moving the baton around the track is not to be taken for granted. We are watching the best high school, collegiate & elite runners in the country. We have seen every manner of hapless baton failure. Dropped batons, passing out of the zone, pushing, shoving, falling, belly flopping, cramping, diving, rolling, tripping, missing… The common theme was picking it up and running.

As I look around it feels as if I am sitting in a damp, black and white photo. I can easily imagine it is 1922 and Eric Linell is striding on the cinder track below. Time has passed quickly, it is time to start warming up. We are allowed into the infield to warm up this time. There is something about doing your pre-race paces in front of thousands of people that really gets your juices flowing.

We are in the paddock again. We are joking in a jocular way, trying to stay relaxed as we prepare to hurl ourselves into running oblivion for the second time in one day.

We are on deck. The sun pops out from behind a cloud, I joke that this is a good omen. My eye catches the runner next to me, he smiles and asks me if I am ready. I tell him of the marathon two weeks before. He laughs and tells me to have fun. The official informs us we are to run in our own lanes for the first lap.

The sun and my nerves are taking their toll. I am dizzy and butterflies are swarming my stomach. Time seems to have stopped.

Suddenly we are running to the start, there is some confusion as the officials change the plan. It is a waterfall start, with a cut in at the cones around the corner. Im standing between two runners, wondering if I can blast by the runner on my left before the curve. The gun sounds, I take a few strides. The runner on my right has leaned into me and knocked the baton from my hand, Im stunned. I scramble, pick up the baton and look up to see the pack an impossible distance away. At the same time a runner in an inside lane trips and crashes to the track. The gun sounds again. The race has been called back. Im flush with relief. An official acknowledges my good fortune.

The gun sounds again. Im not able to beat the inside runner to the corner, I stay on his shoulder through the turn. At the cut in I pass him and race down the strait to the tangent. Im focused on the runner in front of me, five yards away. Im running as hard as I can, trying to close the gap. Strangely it feels like Im floating. My teammate is in view, I pass the baton.

By the time I recover, our last runner is rounding the first turn. The sky is blue, the stands are full of people, I am filled with elation.

I catch up to my teammates as we exit the track, we are all pleased. We have run well, and managed to get the baton around the track. We share a moment of elation, recounting our own experiences and observations. We will return.

The Penn Relay Experience
by Tucker Taft

We ran pretty well, but in the 4x100 I mucked up the exchange with Lee (who was our anchor) by sending him off too early, and he had to slow down dramatically to avoid going out of the exchange zone before I got it into his hands. The net result was that the pass was lousy and he couldn't get a good grip on it and it dropped. He gamely ran after it and finished, but by then we were out of things (still, 54 seconds with dropping and chasing the baton isn't bad).


The 4x400 had a much happier ending. We had originally planned to give Lee a break and let one of the folks who run the 400 more regularly take over for him, but with our bobble in the 4x100, the whole team wanted to get back on the horse and try again. We had a nasty scare, however, when our lead-off runner (Charlie Kelley) had the baton knocked out of his hand in the first 10 yards. Very lucky for us, someone else got bumped and took a tumble, and the rules for a "waterfall" start allow the starter to restart the race if that happens within the first 50 meters or so. So having dropped the baton twice already, we went for a third try, and that one was the charm. Everyone held onto the baton, we made problem-free exchanges, and we finished in a very respectable 4:05.51. Given our earlier problems, we were all elated with the result.


We hung around Philadelphia until Saturday to see some of the "elite" olympic-development races, which included some exciting 4x100s between USA and "the World." The real competition in the "World" turned out to be Jamaica, and there were a huge number of Jamaican fans in the stands. Unlike in the Olympics, all the USA teams made clean exchanges, and in both men's and women's 4x100, the results were USA Red, USA Blue, and Jamaica, 1,2,3. The other highlight on Saturday was to see the Michigan college team smash the meet record for the 4xMile relay, with a 16:04 time. We all laughed a bit to realize that each member of their team had run 1600 meters faster than our 4x400 relay team.


All in all we had a great time. For the record, the 4x100 team order was:


leadoff -- Roy Currie
2nd -- Charlie Kelley
3rd -- Tucker Taft
anchor -- Lee Hess


and the 4x400 team order was:


leadoff -- Charlie Kelley
2nd -- Tucker Taft
3rd -- Lee Hess
anchor -- Roy Currie