Prologue
This past weekend, I had the honor of going to the USATF Master's Track and Field Championships to represent Atlanta Track Club. In most running events, the Master's division is for participants 40 and older. For the track events, USATF has set its threshold at 30. When the meets are held close to home, ATC likes to bring as large of a squad as is feasible to maximize points in their team competition. In each event, points are awarded for the top six places (8/6/4/3/2/1 points respectively). Since much of the ATC Master's team is 40+, they try to recruit a handful of people in the 30-39 group to help pick up points that might otherwise go unclaimed.
My wife and I were invited to join the outdoor meet in Baton Rouge last year, but the timing did not work out well. Fortunately, the schedule came together nicely this year, so we spent the weekend in Landover, MD.
Travel
This was our version of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.
- Uber to MARTA
- MARTA to ATL
- Fly ATL to BWI
- Airport shuttle to AMTRAK station
- AMTRAK train to Union Station METRO
- METRO to Largo Town Center
- Hotel shuttle to Hotel
We were very happy to have the team captains for the 30-39 division on the same flight. It made for a lot of good conversation and preparations for the meet as well as some good assurances that we were going the right way.
After putting our things in the hotel room, we went to the event venue to pick our packets up and to check out where we would be spending much of the next three days. We walked around the track a bit and I gave the high jump a try.
This was a marketable improvement from my at-home attempts.
Day 1: 3000m
The biggest challenge for the first day of competition, for me, was in figuring out how exactly to prepare. I was running the 3000m, which was the last race of the day. Races are also run in the order of Womens => Mens, Oldest => Youngest, which meant I was in the last heat of the last race of the day. It was scheduled for 6:45. The event ended up being about 20-25 minutes behind, so my heat did not start until around 7:15.
One thing that was a little disappointing was much of the team had to take off before my race got going. It was totally understandable, they all were getting ready for their own events the next day and, with the whole thing running late, couldn't afford to stay later. A bunch made a point to stop by and wish me luck, which really meant a lot. The ones that were able to stay behind all spread themselves around the track so I had familiar faces at all the corners. Rockstars.
While I had my cheering section around the track, the hardest part about the race was that I was all alone on it. I had two well behind me and seven or eight well ahead. I knew my first lap was very fast and spent the next couple trying to slow myself down and let the leaders pull away.
Interpolating between 1400 and 1600 gives me a 5:36 1500m split, which is (Spoiler Alert!) only 6 seconds slower than I would actually run the 1500 on Day 2. I totally had arm issues the entire back half of the race. I had complete strangers down the back stretch yelling at me to get them down. I could feel how tired I felt, though, so I'm pretty sure it's a strength/conditioning issue. Needs more push ups.
All said, this was still about a 7 second PR in the 3k. Previously, I had only ever run the "3k Indicators" as a part of our training programs, so conditions were a lot better in this race. However, going sub-6 for the first 1600 is not a small feat relative to what I "normally" run. I was very pleased with my performance here.
Oh, and, I was first in my age group (out of one). So 8 points for the team. Whoop whoop!
Results:
Splits:
| Dist | Split | Cumulative |
| 200m | 0:42 | 0:42 |
| 400m | 0:43 | 1:25 |
| 600m | 0:44 | 2:09 |
| 800m | 0:45 | 2:54 |
| 1000m | 0:46 | 3:40 |
| 1200m | 0:46 | 4:26 |
| 1400m | 0:47 | 5:13 |
| 1600m | 0:47 | 5:59 |
| 1800m | 0:48 | 6:47 |
| 2000m | 0:48 | 7:35 |
| 2200m | 0:49 | 8:24 |
| 2400m | 0:50 | 9:14 |
| 2600m | 0:49 | 10:04 |
| 2800m | 0:49 | 10:53 |
| 3000m | 0:50 | 11:43 |
Day 2: Washington Sightseeing, 1500m, 4x800m, 4x200m
Neither Angelina nor I had any morning events, so we met up with my sister and her fiance on the National Mall and rented some bikes. When we went ~8 years ago, it was about 20 degrees outside and I was a little under the weather so we had to cut the walk short. The bikes let us visit the Washington Monument, WWII Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, MLK Memorial, FDR Memorial, and the Jefferson Memorial all in a short span. I really like how they've set up the MLK and FDR Memorials as sort of links in a chain to make the Jefferson Memorial more easily accessible.
1500m
Going into the meet, this was the event I wanted to take the most seriously. It had the least point potential (since there were 3 others in my AG for the heat), but the mile is something I kind of want to focus on this year. Based on a 6min mile, I thought 5:30-5:35 was a good target.
Warming up, my legs felt very heavy from the 3000m. I never really felt that confident in any of my strides in warm-ups. Sitting here writing about this race two days later, I don't even really recall many of the details, since the craziness of the relays kind of overshadowed it. I seem to remember it much the same as the 3000: starting a little too fast, settling in at a pace a bit slower, and finishing the back half with fairly consistent splits.
Finished fourth (of four) in my AG, good enough for 3 points.
Results:
Splits:
| Dist | Split | Cumulative |
| 100m | 0:18 | 0:18 |
| 300m | 0:41 | 1:00 |
| 500m | 0:43 | 1:43 |
| 700m | 0:44 | 2:26 |
| 900m | 0:45 | 3:11 |
| 1100m | 0:46 | 3:57 |
| 1300m | 0:47 | 4:44 |
| 1500m | 0:46 | 5:30 |
4x800m and 4x200m Relays
First of all, I had some real troopers on all of my relay teams. These got completely thrown together the night before when our AG Captains met up with the Men's captain after I had expressed an interest in putting together teams. The hardest part was that I didn't know any of my teammates so I was relying on a lot of descriptions and pointing at people from across the venue. BUT they all worked out. Races got run and fun was had.
A relay team takes on the AG of its youngest competitor. As a member of the 30-34 AG, that allows for an opportunity to pull down some of the members from the larger age groups and potentially collect some more points.
The 4x800m was never going to be competitive. Our first runner got lapped twice by most of the teams. Which, I suspect, led the judges to miscount my laps. I hustled through my first three laps and, when I was coming around, the judge held up 2 fingers (for 2 laps left) which confused me. When I came around to finish my fourth lap, he held up 1 finger (for 1 lap left) and our 3rd runner stayed back (presumably wasn't counting the laps himself).
Angelina (and others) were positioned just past the Start/Finish line and I gave them a "What is Going On?" shrug which they returned in kind. I cranked out a fifth lap for the world's longest 800m and staggered in. Still, we finished fourth (of four) good for more points.
Going into the 4x800m, I actually thought the 4x200m relay wasn't going to happen. When putting together the teams, they were one person different and that person was not there for the 4x200. But he ended up coming back to the venue just in the nick of time so now we got to run another race.
The 4x200m was a lot closer. I ended up taking the lead leg and had us in third. The second leg saw us back in fourth and our third leg managed to take it back, putting a few second gap. But their fourth leg was too strong and ran us down on the home stretch and winning by about a half second.
Results:
Day 3: High Jump, 4x400m, Clemson Basketball
The last day was a chill day. Final day of the meet. We had two other DC-Area friends coming down to cheer us on. They arrived just in time to catch my High Jumps.
Going in, my High Jump goal had been 4ft. I'm not sure how I arrived at that, but it seemed like a nice round number. Arriving at the actual event, I was informed that 1.3m was the meet minimum for men (something I probably should have known, but, well, didn't). I didn't do the math in my head then, but it works out to around 4ft 3in.
Now, I have never done high jump before. In fact, this was my first field event ever. I managed to clear 1.3m. What's not shown in the video below was that the bar was wobbling all over and I sat on the mat for a heartbeat pleading with it to stay up. And stay it did.
Returning to the competitors, it was absolutely clear to them that I was, at best, a novice. Apparently, they were surprised the jump was allowed at all, as I had jumped off two feet. Rules that I would have done well to look up in advance.
I tried to take in as many pointers as I could, but it was my turn up very shortly. The 1.35m height proved to be a bit much. After my third failure (and, thus, elimination from the competition) one of the other competitors took me aside to tell me he was amazed that someone would have the confidence in themselves to come out and try something completely new like that and I had a marketable improvement each jump I took. I think that was the best I could have ever hoped to hear from the experience.
1.3m success:
1.35m failures:
4x400m
My last race of the meet was the final relay. Speed-wise, this was the strongest of the three relays. We were able to sub some of the throwers that had, dutifully, run the previous night for some runners. Unfortunately, my legs were dead from the long weekend. For how heavy I felt ahead of the 1500m, it felt even worse.
There were four teams that quickly separated into two groups of two. I had a solid first 200m (around 28 seconds) and was just ahead of the fourth place competitor. I gave out during the second lap, finishing around 1:03 while handing off. Going around, we stayed close but couldn't quite pull back into it and finished fourth.
Clemson Basketball
Our friends visiting the last day took us back to their place for an evening of hanging out and watching basketball. It was great to have an evening of decompression and relaxation before returning to work and parenting. After spending a humbling weekend consistently finishing in the back of the pack, it was nice to vicariously live through my alma mater trouncing their opponent.
Conclusion
After crunching some numbers, we figured out the 30-39s accounted for close to 20% of the team points while making up around 13% of the team's members. Atlanta Track Club ended up third in the team competition.
Overall, the weekend was a blast. It was great having a team to compete with again and I got to know a lot of other athletes
Assorted Pictures
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| Team Uniform Reveal |
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| Some race? I don't actually remember which one... |
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| Hanging out with the sister |
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| 1500m start |
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| 1500m |
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| Medals! |
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| High Jump |
