General

Peter Taylor posed with middle-distance greats Nick Berra and Lorraine Jasper after a 2013 meet.

General June 16, 2018

Announcer Peter Taylor sent home after CT scan shows no sign of stroke

Good news from famed meet-announcer Peter Taylor. He’s at home in Fairfax, Virginia, after a brief medical scare. On Friday, we was getting set for outpatient surgery when the anesthesiologist noticed his mouth drooping on the left side. Fearing a stroke, they gave him a CT scan, his sister Phoebe told me. Later, Pete called me to report that it wasn’t a stroke but possibly a TIA — transient ischemic attack. Pete says they found an aneurysm in his carotid artery, but “not big enough” to be a threat. He’s has two strokes, including one in 2012. He was sent…

General June 10, 2018

Sonja Friend-Uhl takes Portland mile, but W60 Lesley Hinz has top mark

At least three world-class milers mixed it up Sunday at the Portland Track Festival at Lewis & Clark College, with W45 Sonja Friend-Uhl clocking a great 5:07.26. But video doesn’t reflect the results, which don’t list W50 Marilyn Arsenault of Canada and Kaitlyn Barthell (who ran stride-for-stride with Sonja the first two laps). Later, I learned that Kaitlyn, in her 20s, and Marilyn were entered as open runners, with times listed elsewhere. W50 Aeron Arlin Genet was credited with a great 5:19.84. But also impressive was W60 Lesley Hinz, fifth in 5:47.16. That’s less than 5 seconds off the listed…

Brenda Matthews (red), Linda Cohn (middle) and Pat Kelly (blue) battle in a 50.

General June 4, 2018

Pasadena Senior Games gave us chance to improve, qualify for ABQ 2019

Masters track is great cuz you can still improve year-to-year despite age. So I was thrilled to run the 50-meter dash Saturday in 8.31 at the Pasadena Senior Games (held at Cal State Los Angeles because Caltech’s track is said to be undergoing rehab). A year ago, I ran 8.56 at Caltech. So that makes up for my dropping out of the 100 after four steps (calf cramp, related to high jumping). Mastersrankings.com has results from the two-day meet (with javelin held at Occidental College because or artificial turf Sunday). Many entrants tried their feet at multiple events — since…

General May 30, 2018

Blessed chance to become a paid model, jump on mini-trampolines

Photographer Meredith Bless writes: “JumpSport (maker of fitness mini-trampolines) is shooting a photo and video project in June in San Diego and is looking for models to participate. It will be fun. Needed: two men and two women, aged 45 to 65. Need to be relatively fit but do not need to be buff. This is targeted toward regular people, not professional athletes. Pay: $100 per person. Each person will be needed for roughly 4 hours.” Selected models will be provided with a fitness trampoline to borrow and asked to practice a few simple routines (provided) prior to shooting. The…

General May 25, 2018

Will Anthony Famiglietti run sub-4 at 40? Milestone is goal of steeple Olympian

Anthony Famiglietti, a two-time Olympian with a mile PR of 3:55.71 (in 2006), turns 40 in five months. He’s gearing up by training hard, pitching a documentary and letting the world know he’s shooting for a sub-4. It’s a stretch. But you gotta admire the grit. See Martin Fritz Huber’s story in Outside. The former steepler’s “moonshot mile is perhaps an unusual way to confront the beast of senescence, but it makes a crazy kind of sense. When you’ve spent more than half your life constructing your identity around the fact that you can run faster than 99.99 percent of…

General May 20, 2018

Damien Leake looms as M65 WR man after 12.40 in 100 on May 6

Results are posted for the Southern California Striders Meet of Champions at Santa Ana College. The top mark was by Damien Leake, who at 65 clocked a legal 12.40 in the 100 — with the listed world record being 12.33 by Bill Collins at the 2017 Penn Relays. On Saturday, Damien responded to some queries. “I am hoping to take a real shot at Bill’s WR,” he said. “I was a little surprised at how close I was this early in the season, as I am a little ‘soft’ because I’ve been doing a lot more coaching than training this…

Hilmer Lodge Stadium at Mt. SAC was going to be 2020 Trials venue

General May 19, 2018

2020 Olympic Trials masters exhibitions where? USATF not sure

USATF is sweating bullets over whether anyone will bid for the 2020 Olympic Trials — important for masters because we get some exhibitions and major attention. As I reported a couple week ago, Mt. SAC lost the Trials gig because of a lawsuit cloud over it stadium project. But I also learned that Mt. SAC and USATF both had reason to be red-faced — the Walnut school for not informing Indy about pending lawsuits until two months after it won the meet and USATF for not checking court records. As my Times of San Diego story noted, USATF Deputy General…

M85 legend Earl Fee overcomes all kind of hurdles, including a botched surgery.

General May 15, 2018

Earl Fee’s great scare — items dropped into his eye during cataract surgery

Our Ontario friend Earl Fee — the scholar and poet with countless world titles and dozens of world records — will compete at Malaga worlds this fall at 89. He’ll be the favorite to win most events he enters, usually including hurdles, sprints and perhaps the 800. But even Earl has challenges (besides age). He described his latest in a scary Facebook post eight days ago. He told of a cataract operation gone horribly wrong — “two dropped items at bottom inside [of] my eye — a very rare problem.” He says: an “urgent second operation two days later to…

Guys young enough to be her son fight to hold off Aeron Arlin Genet at a mid-April mee

General May 14, 2018

Aeron Arlin Genet creeping up on 1500 American record as 50-year-old

In Section 4 of the women’s 1500 at Saturday’s Occidental Invitational in Los Angeles, Aeron Arlin Genet of California’s Central Coast ran 4:54.74. Not that impressive until you know she turned 50 last June. That puts her 3 seconds behind the listed American age-group record of 4:51.86 by Marisa Sutera Strange in 2015. With the season still young, Aeron could snag the AR yet. (The W50 WR is a stretch, though — 4:36.79 by Britain’s Clare Elms in 2014.) According to mastersrankings.com, the best 50-plus woman in the world this year is Sally Gibbs of New Zealand, who clocked 4:48.49…

Bershawn Jackson, who always runs with a Nike headband, may be (at 5-8) the shortest world-class long hurdler.

General May 9, 2018

Bershawn Jackson turns 35, threatens American record in 400 hurdles

TV likes to call Bershawn Jackson “Batman.” Today we call him Birthday Boy. The 2008 Olympic bronze medalist in the 400 hurdles is 35. And despite his April 2017 announcement that he was retiring, he’s already competed at least five times this season. His most recent mark was a second-place finish Friday at the IAAF Diamond League meet in Doha, Qatar. He clocked 49.08, which isn’t far off the listed M35 American record of 48.93 by Nat Page in 1992. He’s not likely to challenge the listed WR of 48.13 by Jamaica’s Danny McFarlane in 2009. (The last time he…