Star of
the North Games
Recap by Pat O'Regan
We haven't posted a blog post in quite some time. Thanks to Pat O'Regan for sharing his Star of the North Games experience from this past June.
We haven't posted a blog post in quite some time. Thanks to Pat O'Regan for sharing his Star of the North Games experience from this past June.
Track
and field day of the Star of the North Games was on Saturday, June 29th.
This year the event was held on the track and adjacent field of Macalester
College in St. Paul. On a fair day, though with a stiff breeze on the home stretch,
a good turnout of athletes – youth, adult and master – and appreciative fans
came for the meet.
Perhaps
my experience of running (the 800 m) in the meet is not unlike what other
master athletes go through when they have trained hard and are determined to do
well. I wake up at five and can’t fall back sleep. After tossing and turning
and two hours, I finally get up. I eat a little breakfast, drink a cup of
strong coffee, pack an athletic bag and set off – driving slowly and grumbling
about putting myself in these situations.
I’ve
done all I can in the way of training, but that “all I can” is less and less as
the years march on. I tested myself on the treadmill on Tuesday. I came up a
little short of a half mile at 10 mph (three minutes), but think the extra day
of rest will make a difference. I want to break three minutes, and determine to
leave nothing inside I can put on the track in the attempt.
The
meet is in progress when I get to the track. The festive atmosphere lifts my
spirits. Can anyone think physical effort is not good for the state of mind? I
sit in the crowd for an hour, surrounded by cheering fans. They are running the
hurdles; most of the fans seem to know one of the athletes. I spot Carter
Holmes and George LaBelle down on the track and yell a greeting. Enlivened, I
go down to talk to them. The three hours before the 800 m doesn’t seem so long.
Carter,
slowed by a heart attack some years ago, walks with the aid of a walker. He
tells me he’ll be doing the 100, 200 and 400 on the track and throwing the
shot. The man is an inspiration. No longer able to run, he pushes himself
physically all he can. The fire is undiminished. The fans clap and yell
encouragement as he pushes along. Between events, other athletes congratulate
him on the race.
George
is one of the most accomplished athletes on the planet. Last I heard, he had
over 8,000 awards of all kinds. I watch him run the 100 m. He looks good – for
all his 70-some years. When I catch up to him later, he tells me that he is
still in recovery from a stroke three years ago which partially paralyzed the
left side of his body. In the first months of his recovery, he says, he ran by
hauling his left leg after him in a stiff and awkward running motion. But he
ran. “The pain,” he says, “I get so tired of the pain.” It is the left elbow
and knee, in particular. But he doesn’t limp and, as I say, he looked good in
the 100 m.
I can’t
imagine – and don’t care to think about – the meet when someone tells me that
George LaBelle is no longer competing. It would be like some inexorable force
coming to a stop. No, I can’t see it happening. That evening, George and Tom
Langenfelt are driving to Milwaukee for a meet the next day.
I watch
the competition as it continues – a well-run meet, the rolling schedule going
off without a hitch – and lose himself in the performances. The young women,
all legs and little to carry, fly down the track, like gazelles. The young man,
lean and muscular, come out of the blocks with startling acceleration. At all
ages, the competition is stirring. Some of these athletes, one thinks, will be
competing on TV in some major event in a few years.
Tom is
a high jumper and one of the best around. Throughout the day, I see him at the
pit. A couple years ago, he told me that he had the world best high jump for
his age category (70ish) four of the previous five years. Apart from the
superlative performances, he certainly looks the part – long, muscular legs
that forgot to age. Below the waist, he’s a college kid.
As the
800 m gets nearer, I watch the competition more closely and search out the guys
for chatter to escape from the tension. Several times, I engage Jim Schoffman
in conversation. He’s another ageless wonder, a runner with the long,
thin-legged build of an antelope (and 400 m runner); I feel older and slower
just talking to him for a few minutes. He runs the 100, 200 and 400 that day,
taking the 800 off for a change. Just short of 60, his time in the 400 is 58.8.
He doesn’t seem disappointed, but talks of 57. Watching Jim compete over the
years, I get the impression he passes through years as other people do months.
I run
into Don Dornfeld – as I always do at meets. An outstanding runner, Don has to
be one of the best all-around athletes from the area. Before getting into
running, he was a champion powerlifter (ranked 5th in the nation in
the bench press). He is running most of the events on the track, including the
800 m. I hope the other races will tire him for the 800 m, near the end of the
meet.
We
assemble to get our lane assignments. I feel sluggish warming up and turn to
the others in my heat for consoling conversation. I always recall at times like
this the interview Carter and I did with Carrie Tollefson a couple years ago.
At one point, she said of a friend and outstanding middle-distance runner, “She
quit. She got tired of the pressure.” We understood her knowing look. Olympians
would know something about pressure.
“Hey,
Pat,” Jim says to me, as I pass by him, heading for the rest room. “I’ll give
you your split time at the lap.” I thank him – thinking, “as if I’m going to
adjust my pace.”
I hit
the first lap on schedule (about 1:30), but after that the race becomes a
matter of survival. I finish in about 3:17, just ahead of Don. So I can tell
people that I beat a guy who beat Bill Rodgers in a 10 k race a couple years
ago.
Hints
of mortality. Some eight years ago, I ran the 800 m in 2:37. At least in terms
of effort, my training is the same. It is the ineluctable encroachments of age
– a stiffening of the lungs – one cannot get rid of the old air as readily –
and, mostly, a growing deficit of testosterone (male and female). Recovery is
the name of the game. Following a single, hard workout, I am reduced to a slow
jog or easy bike ride for three days. How can one improve when one cannot train
enough to get better?
But I
love the running. And the Star of the North Games is a terrific meet. I’ll try
to age gracefully. But look at these guys – George, Tom, Don, Carter and Jim –
do you call that aging gracefully? Aging with a passion, I should say.
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