Hey, you — masters road runner who thinks a 1500 is way, way out of your comfort zone. Or you, masters track athlete who is only vaguely aware that a full cross country season could be had in the nearby Northeast. Read on.
One of the fun things about masters running is that without a coach signing us up for things, we can do what we want. For most of us, that means, well, doing the same thing week after week. Maybe some of us, like Stuart Calderwood, do go a little crazy and sign up for the Empire State Building insanity. And others, like Hank Schiffman, do run an indoor 1500. But then there is our world-class teammate Neil Fitzgerald.
Neil can and will enter just about anything. I give you the 100 meters, for which Neil ran a blazing 12.12 last year at age 40, ranking him 32nd in the nation. Having the 32nd-ranked sprinter in the country would be a credit to any club outside of Kingston. But that isn’t close to being his main event. How about the 400? Try 51.53, good for 7th in the country. The 800? 1:57.55, for third best in the country, and second at worlds, if a little off the 1:55-high he ran in 2007. In the mile, Neil lapped to a 4:33. So, masters road runner and masters track athlete, I hear you saying between intervals: so what – a good 800 runner should be good at everything from the 100 to the 1609.
But Neil didn’t stop there. He ran a 9:04 3000 last year, for a 7th national ranking. Spinning off the track, Neil’s fast-twitch muscles do start to yield a bit, but he medaled in his age group at the NYRRC cross country championships. And that was just two weeks after running … wait for it … the NYC Marathon in 3:35.
Yes, fast readers, Neil has raced distances from 100 meters up to the full marathon. So I called Neil to find out what was behind these performances and his range, and I learned a good deal about a complex, long-lived, and world-class athlete.
Neil has run competitively since, you guessed it, first grade. After turning in a national-class 1:50 800 in high school, Neil had an abbreviated running (but full academic) career at Brown University, but afterward found training on his own to be difficult. After hearing about the growing CPTC and New York City track scene, Neil joined the club in 2004. Like many of us, turning 35 opened his eyes to a new arena of competition – the masters circuit. Suddenly he had the chance to win races again. Indeed, the World Masters Track championships have become a goal Neil comes back to time and again as a constant goal and motivator.
Neil has flown with his orange singlet to the World Masters Championships three times – to San Sebastian, Spain, in 2005, Riccioni, Italy, in 2007, and to Lahti, Finland, in 2009. In the casa de Cacho, Neil took gold for the half mile. In the motherland of Mennea, he raced to the 800 meter final, and took silver, in a roasting 1:55.8 (and nearly made the 400 meter final also). In the land of Lasse, Neil did it again, finishing second in the 800 (1:57.55) and actually ran faster in the 400 in the semis than he had in 2007. In recognition of his effort, Neil was invited to compete with a US team in the 4 x 400. In the relay, he won his second gold medal, and missed a world record by only three seconds.
From talking to Neil, it is clear that the world championships mean a great deal to him, and that in some ways, he structures his year around them. For example, 2010 has only an indoor track championship and that is on a flat track, so he may train more for the 1500 than 800, where a slower pace will ease the turns, especially since he can train only on the banked Armory track. Beyond analytics, the promise of the big stage keeps him focused more on the track than he might be otherwise. “If I didn’t have the goal to go worlds, then I would dabble in more road races,” he says.
Away from the track, Neil doesn’t get too far away from athletics. He is a coach for the NYRRC’s Team for Kids program, which helps adults train for races and raises money for kids in New York City and South Africa. And therein lies his marathon story. As a coach, Neil wanted to run the first 10 miles of the race with some of his athletes, to get them through the early phase of the race. As fully committed as a half-miler has to be, Neil just kept going and going, finishing the thing and completing his 2009 running cycle. How does a half-miler run a good marathon without training for it? “That’s the cumulative benefit of twenty-five years of running,” Neil explains, also citing his hill work and fast intervals with Tony and Devon for his overall strength and speed, respectively.
Clearly, one of Neil’s strengths is that he has an open mind and is always looking to learn. One aspect of that part of his personality is the broad sweep of his racing in 2009, another is his work with children at PS 9, and a third is his work as a Team for Kids coach. While we are all looking for clues on how to treat our changing bodies, Neil uses his as a laboratory, trying training techniques on himself, and if they work, transferring the ideas to his athletes. I’ve come across that same searching attitude in several successful masters athletes on the team and I think maintaining curiosity and a willingness to try new training strategies and new races is a key to longevity.
Like many fast masters athletes, Neil is on a charge after missing competition for a period in his life. ” I still feel fresh,” Neil told me. ” If I had had a full collegiate career, I might have felt that I had done what I had to do.” We should look forward to watching Neil complete his unfinished business – maybe a third world championships will be another step toward that success.
CPTC business was done on the roads and trails in November, with races from the NYC Marathon to cross country to four mile road races. The non-marathon highlight was Sylvie Kimche’s flyin’ 88.8%/29:06 at the four mile on November 22. That is the best age graded score by a CPTCer in 2009 for a race longer than a mile (in the NYRRC database), and the second best in the last two years (to Rae Baymiller’s 93.7% in 2008). You may remember that Sylvie credits some of her speed to trekking and hiking – that surely worked this time, as she is fresh from a trip to Bhutan and is right back to setting PRs.
At the same race and in the same manner as Sylvie, Mary Diver scored both an age-group win and a 52-week age-graded PR. The good news for Mary is that it was her first age group win for a couple years – here’s hoping for more. CPTC men did show up for the race, and Kevin McGuire’s 52-week PR highlighted their efforts.
Dan Seidel already described the heavily attended cross country championships (460 runners, 44 in orange), but I want to add that Neil, the 100 400 800 1500 3000 track athlete, grabbed a 52-week PR. In a cross country race for crying out loud. As did Michael Ahern. A special spotlight is directed onto Jesus Mateo, who ran a speedy 80.3%/17:07 for second in the 40-44.
Should we encourage Harry Morales and Eric Cheung for completing the Knickerbocker 60k?
We certainly should applaud the team in a collective plural sense – my spreadsheet shows that a record 104 CPTC masters men have run a NYRRC race over the past 52 weeks. That is the highest I’ve seen, and here’s hoping more and more show up on the chalked line. From someone who might actually be Amby Burfoot on LetsRun:
The Why Race? question is interesting. It’s not required after all. I can be a runner without being a racer. My wife is always advising me to be “more moderate in all things.” And she’s smart, this is good advice.
But you know what? A person can get too much of this moderate stuff. Who wants to live a life that’s always safe, controlled, aiming for the middle path?
Every once in a while I still want to feel the burn. To push to the limit. To be near collapse when I cross the finish line. Sure, I already know the result: It will be shown that I’m older and slower than I was yesterday and the day before that. I don’t need a race to tell me these things.
But a race says I’m not ready to surrender. It says I’m going to keep struggling to squeeze all I can out of this life. It says I’m not checking out of here until I’ve given it my all. Yes, I know I’m gonna die some day.
But I have a good feeling about tomorrow’s race.
Team standings show the women 50+ and 60+ dropping one position each with one more race:
First Place: M50+
Second Place: W 50+
Third Place: W 40+ W 60+
Fourth Place: M40+
Ninth Place: M 60+