Conventional Competition VS Self-Competition

If you’re interested in conventional competition we suggest you check out the USA Masters Track and Field website. You’ll find plenty of it for folks ages 30, 40, 50 and up…way up. They offer local, regional, national, and international competition for anyone who’s interested.

But we aren’t particularly interested in conventionally competing. We are however staunch proponents of self-competition. In other words we try to improve just a little, on a regular basis, over time despite the fact that we’re in our 70’s and supposedly on the physiological decline.

So how do we monitor improvements in our sprinting? In the big picture, when sprinting, we’re both doing something that we were unable to do a decade ago. As a friend once advised, “Work gets in the way of life.” So we redeveloped our interest and our ability to sprint.

More recently, we occasionally go to the track and count how many strides it takes each of us to cover 100 yards. Last summer it was 20 counts (80 strides). This summer it’s 18 counts (72 strides). That means our stride lengths are longer (we’re covering more ground per stride). And presuming the same frequency, we’re probably a little faster than we were last summer. 

All that said, at this stage of the game, in our seventies, we both still need mountains to climb, challenges to meet, and reasons to get out of bed in the morning. And as crazy as it sounds, sprinting has become one of our favorite mountains to climb.