Vanderbilt Commodore meet report

This took a lot of audacity.  The place was packed.  I was very intimidated by the scene.  The meet had elites and in this league, almost every athlete is on track scholarship.  The meet was being streamed nationally on ESPN's SEC+ network.  What the hell is a nearly 64 yr old doing here with track spikes?

Not too bad for this early in the season, another M60 World Lead for now:  

58.84

When I arrived to pick up my competition credentials, the guy at the admittance desk was totally confused when I told him I was racing.  He looked at me incredulously and then someone else spoke up and directed me to the athlete's area.  

I walked around intimidated for a while, then finally saw some familiar faces.  Randall, Mike, and Ernie, track officials that have been seeing me race for more than a decade.  Then I felt better.  I found a great place to warmup where no one else generally was, along the home stretch across from the main grandstand.  I was able to get my usual warmup in.  

I watched as the heats went by.  Every single heat had at least a few guys running under 50.  My heat would be no exception.  There was one scratch and I had lane 3.  There was a short sprinter in 4 and fast guys in 2 and 6 - full scholarship dudes, high school state champions.  

Predictably, I was smoked in the first 100m.  They went out in probably 11.5, maybe faster.  I was easily 20m+ behind after just 100m.   The guy in lane 4 tried to stay with the two real 400m guys and he did for about 200m, then he pretty much folded and was running about my speed.  The winners finished in 49 flat and 49 low, the guy in front of me finished in 56+ and me 2+ seconds behind.  When I was running down the stretch, the crowd broke into cheers.  It was nice.  I did rig up a bit toward the end and was worried I might not break 59, but I did, just.  Happy about that.  Could have been worse.  It was slightly faster than I ran in Poland last yr and a full second faster than my winning time at Nationals in '23.  Of course, this was much faster track.  

The stadium announcer mentioned my name, said "not bad for age 62" (I'm 63).  He must have Googled me because he also said, "that was William Yelverton, a USA Masters athlete who has won several masters titles."  

I had a number of kids come up to me for selfies, and say to me "you're an inspiration!"  Geez, famous for being old. Worlds oldest college sprinter...definitely an anomaly.   Frankly, even at my peak in college, I'd not been able to hang with the best at this level.  Maybe mid-pack if I worked as hard as I do now.   

It was probably the lightest I've ever been for a race.  138 lbs.  Not sure if that is my best race weight or not.

Anyway, this was my 60th college track meet after the age of 50.  With all the Masters titles and World Masters Medals, still more proud to race in a Div I college meet and finish last.   

The week ahead... 

I thought about racing next weekend but there is no sneaking into the next Vandy meet again.  Plus, the weather looks bad this week, tough training weather.  I'll probably wait 2 weeks before I race again in Birmingham.  

It's going to be below freezing all day, but I'm going to try and get a workout in and cut some firewood.  Or maybe I'll just work on firewood.  Snow and brutal cold starts Sun night and now they're saying we could get 5-6" of snow by Tues, which means there is a near certainty the University will be closed, and the track will be under snow probably til Thurs.  If it's sunny, even with it being below freezing, maybe it will melt by Wed.  I guess I could do something at the indoor track.  I think there's an even chance I won't be working at all this coming week due to weather.