What am I reading?.
On the "masterstrack.com" website which I have linked to previously there is a whole lot of interesting reading. One article that grabbed my attention was about the history of women's involvement in Masters Track. We read a lot of rubbish about the history of our movement - I won't say where - so here is some balance. It makes fascinating reading. Continue reading at http://masterstrack.com/treats/thesis.html - here is the intro:
The birth of masters track & field is credited to David Pain, an attorney and former handball player who began running in his mid-forties. Pain developed a new competitive arena featuring athletes considered past their prime. In 1966, he persuaded meet promoters to include a "masters mile" (for men over age forty) in their track & field competition schedules. The concept of a masters mile proved to be very successful, spreading to track meets across the U.S. As a result, Pain decided to highlight masters competition by organizing full-scale track & field meets just for masters athletes.
The first masters national track & field championship was held in 1968, co-sponsored by the San Diego Track Club and City of San Diego Recreation Department with 130 male competitors. Pain, chairman of the event, arbitrarily chose the age of forty as the starting age for masters competitors. He later said, "Since I was forty-five years of age, I assumed and just arbitrarily decided that masters competition for men would start at age forty. It was just a convenient age, it seemed to me, to start masters competition, since I was basically in that group, and I was thinking in terms of creating a program for myself."
Three ten-year age-group divisions (40-49, 50-59, and 60-69) accommodated the limited number of entries at the first championship. The schedule of events included many running events (100 yards dash, 220 yards dash, 440 yards run, 880 yards run, one mile run, 2 miles run, 3 miles run, 6 miles run, 440 yards relay, and marathon) and a limited number of field events (long jump, triple jump, shot put, discus, and javelin). The program included no women's events.
Continue reading at http://masterstrack.com/treats/thesis.html.
Sherryl & Margaret
You will read that in the year women's events were first introduced to Masters competition, women entrants were restricted to relatives of men entrants! All such sexism has long disappeared, thank goodness.
On the "masterstrack.com" website which I have linked to previously there is a whole lot of interesting reading. One article that grabbed my attention was about the history of women's involvement in Masters Track. We read a lot of rubbish about the history of our movement - I won't say where - so here is some balance. It makes fascinating reading. Continue reading at http://masterstrack.com/treats/thesis.html - here is the intro:
The birth of masters track & field is credited to David Pain, an attorney and former handball player who began running in his mid-forties. Pain developed a new competitive arena featuring athletes considered past their prime. In 1966, he persuaded meet promoters to include a "masters mile" (for men over age forty) in their track & field competition schedules. The concept of a masters mile proved to be very successful, spreading to track meets across the U.S. As a result, Pain decided to highlight masters competition by organizing full-scale track & field meets just for masters athletes.
The first masters national track & field championship was held in 1968, co-sponsored by the San Diego Track Club and City of San Diego Recreation Department with 130 male competitors. Pain, chairman of the event, arbitrarily chose the age of forty as the starting age for masters competitors. He later said, "Since I was forty-five years of age, I assumed and just arbitrarily decided that masters competition for men would start at age forty. It was just a convenient age, it seemed to me, to start masters competition, since I was basically in that group, and I was thinking in terms of creating a program for myself."
Three ten-year age-group divisions (40-49, 50-59, and 60-69) accommodated the limited number of entries at the first championship. The schedule of events included many running events (100 yards dash, 220 yards dash, 440 yards run, 880 yards run, one mile run, 2 miles run, 3 miles run, 6 miles run, 440 yards relay, and marathon) and a limited number of field events (long jump, triple jump, shot put, discus, and javelin). The program included no women's events.
Continue reading at http://masterstrack.com/treats/thesis.html.
Sherryl & Margaret
