(Editor’s note: Second in a series on prepping for the Wisconsin Senior Olympics.)
 
As a 63-year-old, prepping to throw the shot put and run the 800 is way different than would be the case if you were 39 or 22. Over the years, as injuries accumulate and you recognize your limitations, you start to better understand what you can and can’t do, or more appropriately, what you should and shouldn’t do.

But that doesn’t stop the human heart. If you’re a shot putter or runner, you want to perform at your maximum ability. When you’re younger, that means pushing it.  When you’re 63, that means reining it in (to a certain extent).
 
After mentally and verbally committing (by telling other people) that I would compete this year in the Wisconsin Senior Olympics, training had to begin at some point. I lollygagged over the winter. “Too cold. I can’t get outside” were reasonable excuses that only lasted so long.
 
Inertia slowly went away in January and February to be replaced by motivation and action. I started jogging around the tiny basketball court where I work out at the Wisconsin Athletic Club, lifting weights to simulate the shot put throw and then actually taking a 15-pound medicine ball (to be replaced later by a 20-pounder) and shot putting it 10 times against the wall from increasing distances.
 
To balance my body, I threw the medicine ball both lefty and righty, and briefly considered entering the event twice – once as a lefty and once as a righty. Probably illegal, but flirting with the idea was amusing. I’m righthanded and it become clear quickly that was my dominant power and I focused on that.
 
Until your throw a weighted ball against the wall ten times in a row, you have no idea how aerobic and exhausting that is. Try it and see how you feel after three minutes. That was the first of many learning curve incidents and adjustments that have occurred.
 
Trying to run above a slow jog was another story. Over the past 5-6 years, I’ve occasionally entered 5K races, so I knew I could mosey along for a few miles. Picking up the pace is a different story. That implied finding your limits. I started slow, doing four down and backs on the small basketball court. Okay, nothing hurts. Go up to five down and backs. Then six, seven and eight over several weeks.
 
Then it was time to add some circles around the court, so I repeated the process with the back and forths, followed by four laps around the court, then a week later five laps and so on. Over 2-3 months, I hit the generic 800 distance needed to do two full laps around a high school track and I felt a mild degree of accomplishment: “Okay, I made it and didn’t have a heart attack or blow out a groin muscle. Now can I pick up the pace?”
 
Mixing in outdoor paces as the weather became less than frigid was the next step, and this was added to the routine Fridays and Saturdays on excursions with our dogs. Not spraining an ankle on the rougher terrain became another worthy short-term goal.
 
Progress continued. Speed picked up. I felt good. Then, as you probably expected, the body rebelled. More on that next week.
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(Part 3 in this series coming next week.)

About a month from now I’ll participate in the Old Codger Olympics, in reality the Wisconsin Senior Olympics. Barring injury, the plan is to throw the shotput and run the 800.
 
“You’re nuts,” you might say. Probably so. People have called me that more than once. But the desire to test myself at something new has gnawed at me over the past year. After exploring physical challenges, and rejecting several as too time-consuming and injury-producing to take on, I settled on these two events.

With all three of our kids running track over years, both at the high school and collegiately at the D-III level, their journeys motivated me. Through hard work, consistent training, they all achieved some major milestones, ones that generate tremendous pride in me. And in some ways, it brought be me back to younger days. “What if I decided to compete in a track and field event?”


It’s not like I haven’t done races before. I ran three marathons in my 30s, biked across North America in my 20s, and have run multiple 10k and 5k races over the years. Each held challenges. Typically I wanted to finish or set a time I wanted to accomplish. Now I want to arrive at Homestead High School north of Milwaukee uninjured. That’s my first goal.

That might make you chuckle or smile, but it’s a legitimate concern. Since beginning a very slow buildup of training, I’ve experienced a significant hamstring pull that kept me from running for three weeks. This is a big challenge for the older runner: How to avoid injury. You want to push yourself. You heart, mind and body want to sprint the 800. But you cannot do that. Your body rejects it.
 
Instead, you must figure out how to push yourself, run within limits, without over-extending. Run hard, run smart, know your body, don’t overdo it. That’s hard. Much harder than being 18 and taking off full blast and smokin’ it.
 
When I first broached the idea of entering the over-60 age bracket, our son Kirby told me not to run the 800. I had bone heel surgery in October 2017, and he said I would be coming back from that too soon and would hurt myself. I said to him, “By the time the Olympics roll around, it will be close to two years from the surgery. I can do it.” He suggested I throw the shotput. I agreed. But also added the 800.
 
It’s been an interesting psychological period prepping for the events. That first step is your mental commitment. You have to talk yourself into it. Sounds easy, but you have to get over that hump of thinking you can do it, and “it sounds like fun,” to tackling the task, which includes a full commitment to get your body in shape for the events.

You can just go out there and run.  You can’t just go out there and throw the metal ball. Well, I guess you could, but you’d suck and get injured. So, stay with me on this. Next week, we’ll take up the training regime, the mental and physical rigors. Hope you enjoy the ride with me.
 
(Editor’s note: This column is the first in a series that will continue to run up through the 2019 Wisconsin Senior Olympics August 18. Next week: Training starts.)
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