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Written by Bwana Bwana

April 2, 2015

Thursday Track has been going on close to a quarter century and most of the original Thursday Track Crew is still running, though in various states of disability. Bwana got word today from Jim Myers that Mike Dooris, one of the “Original Originals”, is retiring from Penn State. Mike was one of the first people Bwana ran with when he moved to town 27 years ago. And Mike was the first of the original Thursday Trackers to finally have to hang up his running shoes due to an old, non-running knee energy. But every time Bwana runs into Mike on campus or downtown, he looks to be in marvelous shape, keeping himself so with a pretty good gym regimen. Mike will be keeping himself busy, as all retirees should, playing bass with the Second Winds, a jazz group that was the subject of a recent CDT article on the cover of their Active Life feature. Mike looks to be the kid in that group. You can catch them around town, particularly at Otto’s.

It was partly cloudy and mild as Jim Myers, John Domico, Judd Michael, Lance Bland, Mike Casper, Ron Cunfer, Meira Minard, Esther Prins, Andy Maguire, Mike Renz, Mike Zimmerman, Mike Martin, Rob Peterson, newcomer Kyle, Alex Wouden, Adam Ilgen, David Lloyd, and Marty Mazur headed for the track. Of this group, Myers is the senior in age and one of the “Original Originals”. Jim’s been having knee trouble, but still found it in him to run 12+ miles as part of a Ragnar Relay in Florida last month. Domico, another long timer, is now known as The Bionic Man and spends much of his track workout doing PT for his titanium hips. Judd and Lance have no replacement parts that Bwana is aware of, but both have had their share of time off due to injury. Ditto Casper and Bwana himself. Only Ron Cunfer of those present over 50 has so far escaped a major lay-over. A couple of notable Originals not present today were Tom Cali (lately laid up with upper spine problems, but probably running Boston in a couple of weeks) and Bob Cornwall, who seems to have taken over Cali’s spot at the Fountain of Youth spigot.

But enough of this “Last Man Standing” talk. What about the women? Our regular Crew does not contain any over-50 gals, but a few have been with us a long time. Meira made it today. Meirkat is an iron lady who regularly takes nasty tumbles on rocky trails. A regular trail race champ, she’s edging to also take Most Battered Runner honors. And Esther has already had to fight back from disability.

So that is what you youngsters have to look forward to, especially if you’re as crazy and relentless as Renz, Zimmerman, Martin, Machnicki, Murray, Ilgen,….

Bwana gave a workout today that was a gift from one of our regulars from the 90s (Bwana wonders if she’s still running…) 200s on the minute. Well, that’s how we used to do it, anyway. 12 (or 16) 200s, each started at the start of a minute. However long it takes you to run the 200, you have to the start of the next minute to rest for your next. The workout is over fast, but it’s one of the toughest ones we do. Seems easy at the beginning, but fatigue builds quickly. The main problem for us now is that most of us can barely do 200m in much inside a minute anymore, so Bwana has stretched the workout to 200s on the 70 (seconds).