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Yesterday, Sunday, Sept. 14, was supposed to be the Greater Chicago Prostate Cancer Run, Walk 'n Roll here in Chicago. But unusual rains and subsequent flooding (nothing like Ike's damage to Galveston but still bad) forced the race to be postponed until an as yet undetermined date in October. I know this postponement is a burden to US Too International, the education and support group for prostate cancer victims and their families, which organizes the race. But maybe this is an opportunity for more of you Masters athletes in the Chicago area to sing up for the race when it is rescheduled. You can sign up by clicking here.  I was pretty geared up to run the 5k race. In Masters Athlete magazine over the summer I had challenged any runners out there to see if they could beat me in the race, which really wouldn't take all that much: Less than 25 minutes for the 5k ought to do it. I trained pretty hard and did a mini-taper with the race in mind, so I wouldn't completely embarrass myself. So when the rain cleared up on Sunday afternoon, I went for a 5k run. It was cooling and drizzling slightly -- perfect conditions -- and I ran my best time in years: 24:38. I plan to do even better when the rescheduled race. See if you can beat me.

Here's my column from the September issue of Masters Athlete. Hope you get a kick out of it.

As this issue of Masters Athlete went to press, I was spending my evenings watching the Olympics on television. As I grow older, I marvel at just how much faster, higher and farther these athletes go that I ever have or ever will.

Earlier this summer, I started doing some “speed” work. I hadn’t run a timed 400-meter run in years. So when I starting running on a track near my house once a week, I was shocked at how slow I turned out to be.

I’m getting slightly faster as I do this speed training more often, but my best 400-meter time is 82 seconds. Just how slow is that, you ask?

Former Olympic gold winner Michael Johnson set the world record for the 400 meters 1999. His time was 43.18. That makes him almost twice as fast as me.

But I’m 43 years old, so I probably should measure myself against Masters runners. I don’t fare much better in that category. Enrico Saraceni holds the posted world record in the men’s 40-44 age bracket: 47.81.

My time of 82 seconds wouldn’t set an age-group world record until the 85-89 bracket when it would shatter Roderick Parker’s mark of 84.18. (Let’s see if I can hold onto my speed until then).

If I’m slow on land, I’m not much better in the water. In fact, I may be worse. I can swim 50 yards in about 43 seconds at my local park district pool. The world record for 50-meter freestyle is 21.50 held by Alain Bernard. That’s even more humbling than it looks: Because he was swimming meters to my yards, he swam 4.7 yards farther that I did. On the plus side for me, I didn’t have the advantage of either diving into the pool (because it’s not allowed) or executing a flip turn (because I don’t know how).

Back when I played a lot of golf, I used to be decent. So maybe that’s a sport where the best in the world aren’t twice as good as I am. This year I’m averaging an 86. For discussion’s sake, let’s say that a typical round by a PGA Tour professional is 70. An 86 is about 23 percent higher than a 70.

But I think it’s more accurate to assess golfers’ skill in a different way than just by comparing aggregate score. A perfect score in golf would be a 54 – hitting every green in regulation and then sinking the putt to birdie every single hole. By that standard, a professional’s typical score of 70 is 16 more than a perfect round. And my score of 86 is 32-over – and once again, a pro is twice is a good as I am.

I don’t find comparing myself to world-class athletes as humiliating as maybe I should. Nothing is going to stop me from running or swimming or playing golf. Or from competing in triathlons, playing touch football or partaking in any game I get kick out of.

Besides, if everyone who wasn’t a world-class athlete gave up the games they play, the entire sporting goods industry would collapse.

I like activity. Humans are hard-wired for activity – whether we’re any good at it or not. Playing games keeps us healthy and brings us together with like-minded people. Some of whom kick our butts, and some where we do the butt-kicking.

I tend to like the latter a little better.  

One place where I can be as good as the typical professional player is on the free-throw line. While I was trying to decide how to close out this column, I went out to shoot a few free throws. I hit 61-of-75, or 81 percent. By way of comparison, the NBA champion Boston Celtics shot 77 percent from the free-throw line in 2007-2008.

Now, I just have to figure out how to get fouled in an NBA game.

Just this morning, I swam the 50-yard freestyle -- two lengths of my local Chicago Park District pool -- in 43 seconds. For me, that's going as fast as I can. The world record for the 50-meters (which is about four yards further than the 50 yards I swam) is Frenchman Alain Bernard's 21.50, which was set earlier this year. He had the advantage of diving in and actually knowing how to do a flip turn, but essentially he swims about twice as fast as I do. Sometimes being a Masters athlete is a humbling experience. But you know, no matter how slow I am, I can't get enough.

In a previous column, I had bellyached about 400-meter world record holder Michael Johnson running twice as fast as I can. Well, I lowered my recent personal best in the 400 meters to 82 seconds (from 90 seconds), so I'm getting faster. And gaining on Mr. Johnson.

Tags: Swimming

Bob Becker didn't start running until he was 57 when he completed his first marathon, and he's barely stopped since then. Now 63, he is preparing to run the Badwater Ultramarathon beginning on July 14. The Badwater is a notorious 135-mile race in California, which starts from Death Valley (282 feet below sea level) and ends at Mount Whitney (8,500 feet). The temperatures on the floor of Death Valley can reach 130 degrees. On top of everything, Becker is a prostate cancer survivor. He's using the race to raise awareness of prostate cancer and to raise money to fight the disease. Checks can be made out to "The Richard J. Fox Foundation" and mailed to: P.O. Box 2065, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33303. For this race, 50 percent of donated dollars will apply to offset Becker's race costs. Once those costs are met, then 100 percent of any additional proceeds will fund the cause.

Tags: Badwater Prostate Fund Raising

Let me give you an idea of how athletically ungifted I am. I hadn’t run a timed 400 meters in years. So I went out to a track near my home to do some “speed” work, I was shocked at how slow I turned out to be.

Going at almost full speed on my first of five 400-meter runs, I circled the track in 90 seconds.

Just how slow is that, you ask?

Michael Johnson’s world record, set in 1999, is 43.18. That makes him more than twice as fast as me.

But I’m 43 years old, so I probably should measure myself against Masters runners. I don’t fare much better with that comparison either. Enrico Saraceni holds the posted world record in the men’s 40-44 age bracket: 47.81.

My time of 90 seconds wouldn’t set an age-group 400-meter record until the 90-94 bracket when it would shatter Friederich E. Mahlo’s mark of 98.69. Let’s see if I can hold onto my speed for another 47 years.

Tags: Speed 400-meter World Records

I’ll be running in the 2008 Greater Chicago Prostate Cancer Run Walk ’n Roll on Sunday, Sept. 14 in Chicago. I’ll be wearing my old school gray GeezerJock t-shirt, which says on the back, “Can you keep up?” See if you can. It’s really not that difficult. If you can run a 25-minute 5k, you’ll probably do more than keep up. If you’re planning to run in the race, please join my team, Masters Athlete Magazine, by visiting http://www.chicagoprostatewalk.com/. Find “Join a Team Below” and click on Masters Athlete Magazine and sign up for the race! See you there!

Tags: Us TOO Prostate Chicago Race

It's taken me awhile, but I'm finally on pace again to swim more than 50 miles this year! I'm entered in U.S. Masters Swimming's "Go the Distance" program, where fitness swimmers like myself are recognized for swimming various distances in a single calendar year. My goal is 50 miles -- the lowest that the program recognizes. Got to start somewhere. I began the year well, and by Jan. 4, I was on pace to swim 59.79 miles. A minor operation kept me out of the pool for about a month, and by Feb. 3 when I was swimming again, my projected mileage for the year had plunged to 12.92. Today, May 8, my projected mileage finally crawled above 50. Right now it's at 50.54. I'll need to swim a lot in the next few weeks to get my projected mileage up there, because I'm going to be out of the pool for three weeks in late May and early June. That's when the park district pool where I swim will be undergoing its annual maintenance.  

Tags: Swimming Go The Distance

Later this year we plan to run a special report on Masters sports around the world. Our first stop on the Masters Athlete World Tour 2008 was Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which had a very visible Masters athletic movement.

Rio is a gigantic beach town of almost 12 million people. The city’s beaches – from Copacabana to Ipanema to Barra da Tijuca – are filledwith athletes of all ages. On the walkways by the beach, men and women jog and bicycle parallel to the Atlantic Ocean.

On the beaches themselves, permanent volleyball courts and soccer fields are set up for year-round games in the sand. In Rio’s Leblon neighborhood I saw one group of 60+ volleyball players who have met most mornings for years to play a few games on the beach.

In addition to volleyball, many Brazilians play a combination of soccer and volleyball called “foot volleyball” on the volleyball courts. Not all the activity occurs on the sand. In the water, surfers and boogie boarders ride the waves. And beyond the breakers, windsurfers and kite surfers get airborne. Away from the beaches, players filled tennis courts and basketball courts in public parks on a Friday night.

While in Rio, I met with four Brazilians who are active in Masters athletic associations: Denise Mattioli, who played volleyball for Brazil in the Huntsman Global Cup in St. George, Utah; Mario Dunlop, who plans to return to St. George this year to play for the Brazilian men’s team; Carlos Roberto de Silva, who is active in Masters swimming; and Sergio “Alemao” Sztancsa, who is a Masters rower and a Concept2 rowing machine rep in Brazil.

Because my Portuguese is non-existent, a friend of mine, Sergio Barcellos, translated. Each of the participants in this roundtable described a growing Masters base in their sport, and they were proud to be an active part of it.

Dunlop traced international Masters volleyball competition for Brazil back to 1989, when an age-group team traveled to Denmark for a tournament. Since then, Brazilian teams for both men and women have traveled from Australia to the United States for tournaments.

Mattioli added that she stays in shape both to play volleyball and because of playing volleyball. “I have a net on Ipanema (beach) where I play every weekend,” she said. Her group consists of friends and family, who have played on the beach together for decades.

DeSilva, who competes when he can and specializes in the breaststroke, said that Masters swimming officially began in Brazil around 1980. Today, the organization has about 7,000 registered swimmers, all of whom competed in a meet last year. “Swimming is a sport where more people are practicing than competing,” said DeSilva, pointing out that the Masters movement is likely much larger if you count fitness swimmers.

Sztancsa said that Masters rowing is growing, although off a small base. He traveled to Boston earlier this year to compete in the CRASH-B Sprints. When asked how often he’s been practicing, he held up his left hand, displaying a monstrous blister.

Suprisingly, Brazil’s national sport, soccer, appeared to lag behind other sports. There are many adult leagues, but few that are open only to older players.  Age-group soccer for adults may be a nascent concept, but there seems to be no shortage of skills among Brazilians who have been playing for decades.

While at a soccer game at Maracana, the stadium that will host the World Cup in 2014, I saw a man who was well past 60 step onto the field at halftime. During the entire intermission, he juggled a soccer ball with his feet while walking the sideline from endline to endline. He never faltered and didn’t drop the ball once. Somebody needs to start a veterans league so that guy can use his skills not just to perform tricks but to score goals.

Tags: Brazil Masters Swimming Volleyball Soccer Rowing

As I've mentioned in previous blog entries, I'm participating in U.S. Masters Swimming's "Go the Distance" program. The idea of this program is to extend Masters swimming's base further beyond competitive swimmers and to embrace more effectively the masses of fitness swimmers in the U.S. In this program, swimmers are recognized not for how fast they swim but for how far. I'm trying to swim 50 miles this year, which, by the way, is the shortest distance recognized in the program. Still, for me, a guy who only swims so I can participate in triathlons, it would be a huge accomplishment to swim 50 miles in a year. Right now, even staying out of the pool for about four weeks due to surgery, I'm on pace to swim 47 miles in 2008. I've easily covered more than 5 miles in both February and March, so, as I get stronger, I might be on track to swim 60 miles this year.

Tags: Masters Swimming

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