2021 USATF Masters National Championships - Day four

 Yea baby ...  another National Championship!

200m - 25.36 (+0.8m/s) 

Fastest wind legal 200m time in the world M60.  2nd fastest overall behind Allan's 25.22 (+2.2m/s) yesterday in the prelims.  

This was a bit unexpected.  Tired and a bit sore after 6 hard races, I didn't expect to win, but I thought I could get a Silver, and I never expected to run faster than yesterday.   My fitness and season long conditioning pulled me through.  Despite some soreness, once I got warmed up, I knew I could 'bring it' one more time.   At the end of a meet, most of us old guys are a little beat up.  I noticed Don in particular was warming up very little.  Allan said he was ok.  

I had lane 5 with my 2 chief competitors in lanes 3 and 4 to my inside.  Two World Champions: Allan and Don.  I got a decent start and once I passed McDuffrie in lane 6 in about 20m, I never saw anyone for the rest of the race.   I was waiting on Allan to come up on my left shoulder, but found out, disappointingly, that he had pulled up after 50m.  As incredibly talented as he is, he's not used to racing as much as I am and with the power that he has, things often break.  However, his wind aided 25.22 yesterday would have been very close to my time today, and he would have had to bring his A game to beat me.  This is the first time I've ever beaten Don in a 200m.  He was the 100m and 200m World Champion in '16, but he didn't produce today and I beat him by 10m+.   Neither of my Championship races were close.... winning the 400m by 2+ sec, and the 200m by 1+ sec.  

I'll post more later but here's a summary of my meet and present world rankings in the M60 age group:

200m National Champion - 25.36, world rank #2 

400m National Champion - 56.78, world rank #1 

800m Silver Medal - 2:18.74, world rank #8 

100m Bronze Medal - 12.43 (+2.4m/s) world rank #2

This was definitely one to remember.  Possibly my best meet since WMACi Daegu '17.