V 12 N. 40 Tuesday Morning Musings, The Pre, Uvalde, Life in General

May 31, 2022 

I didn't go to the Pre this past weekend even though the option was on the table.  The mind is willing, the aging body is weakening.  A month ago I had high hopes of seeing the new stadium and watching what looked on paper to be a bang up kick-off to an incredible track Spring and Summer only 500 miles south of Vancouver Island where I live.  But Covid has taken a toll on this aging human specimen and blood clots in my right leg have made driving that distance a challenge for me and possibly a danger for others on the road if I can't find the brake when I need it because of a very numb right foot.  My potential co-driver, Jon Little, was caught up in a law suit in North Carolina, trying to prove that his client had been sexually abused by her swimming coach when she was a minor.  The jury didn't quite believe it and Jon only arrived home a day before we could have left for Eugene.  

The upside was a very nice and unexpected visit from one of my former athletes, Tara Storage,  U. of Dayton (2002) and Olympic Trials qualifier in the marathon with her 2 hr 39 min. performance.  She has also represented the US in the world half marathon championships in Italy back in the day.  Tara and her fiance, Faustino came to the island for a quick visit and we spent the day together getting reacquainted and seeing a few sites on the east and west coasts.  

So I was relegated on Saturday to watching the races from Eugene on the tube from the comfort of my living room.  I had already notified the organizers that my press credentials would not be used.  That hopefully would assure them that a second attempt to go there for the NCAA's, the US trials, and/or the Worlds would be legit.  Problem though is there are different organizations to apply to for each of these events.  

We had promises of world record attempts to be made on the men's 10,000,  women's 2 miles, a show down in the women's and men's 100 meters, the two best men's milers in the world would go head to head, the best women's miler would be there, a women's record attempt at 800, and a pole vault event featuring the two best vaulters in the world and the same in the men's shot and women's discus.  How could you go wrong going to see this?  You couldn't.  But unfortunately some of the hopes got dashed by the weather.  It was cool and blustery.  On Friday events got shuffled and some Saturday throwing got changed to Friday night.  Ultimately there was a lot of hope, and it was still a great meet, just not any of the promised records.  Is that what track needs to get the world's attention?  I don't think so. Maybe the organizers were hoping that would turn the unknowledgeable heads toward the event, but is that necessary to keep a sport on the map?  It shouldn't.  

People still come to watch a baseball game where there are incredible numbers of records in the books, but I never heard of anyone going to a game or watching on TV it to see a record set since Roger Maris was going for 61 home runs more than fifty years ago.  Truth is, you don't know what you're going to get when you go to a ball game, you just go there to watch the game, to be in the moment with your heroes, or your children and maybe that's all we need to do to enjoy our sport.  

What I did miss about not getting to the Pre was the interaction with the athletes at the press conference, the meetings with old friends at the meet, the post race views of athletes after the oxygen returned to their brains, sitting with my blog colleague Roy Mason and remembering some of the old days and events of the past, eating at Track Town Pizza and seeing who shows up there or at the bar across the street with the same attractions in the evening.  I missed seeing friends on the way to the meet in Seattle, Portland, Beaverton, Albany.   I didn't miss crossing the US Canada border and proving to my host country Canada that I was Covid free and didn't have to go into a quarantine status.  

The most controversial thing in this meet or any big meet now is the use of pacing lights.  Do they matter?  Here are a few comments on the subject.

"The Pre kind of fizzled after a lot of build up about possible world records. Wind was in the runners' faces on the backstretch.   I don't think runners should be expected to perform with that kind of promotion.  WR's come when they come.  Pace lights are a distraction to a good race between people with different mindsets.  If everyone is watching the pace lights they forget about the human interaction and competition.  Might as well just have one runner at a time run. Pace lights might be better used for training although what would a coach have to do during practice if he or she didn't have to shout out times and splits.  Do we learn pace better by thinking about it while we are running or following the bouncing ball?  Today runners carry a lot of electronic feedback that may in fact guide them to better performances, but does that take away from the sport?   We used to hypothesize a race from five different locations at the same time. Everyone on a treadmill and they got instant feedback about how fast the other runners were going and they could up the speed of their treadmill to play catch up or go ahead."

George

 " I agree with you about the pacing lights.  It puts such a priority on pacing rather than head-to-head competition.  I have never run with such lights but when I watch I spend way too much time looking at the lights, a real distraction.  Just because you can do such a thing does not mean you should."  Bill

To continue:

The events of Uvalde, Texas makes my disappointment inconsequential.    It was in my mind constantly and still is.  All those children who will never get a chance to do the things we all have done in our lives. To run a race, hit a ball, swim, read a great book.  To fall in love.  To see their children grow.  Never a chance to experience the joys as well as the sorrows of life.  Their poor parents who will carry this trauma for the rest of their lives, if only there were a way to help them.  The trauma of the people who had to go in and identify and remove  those children, to clean them up and prepare them for burial, even the cops who will be asking themselves the rest of their lives why they failed to react better.  The children who survived who will carry those nightmares in everything they do.  And we as Americans who will keep hearing these stories and forgetting them.  I couldn't remember many of the past shootings when the news people started listing them and saying how many were killed in those other massacres.  I think this puts me in the group who wishes to see the ban of assault guns in the US as a beginning to an eventual disarming of the American public.   We could still fight, steal, or kill, which is a part of Darwinian evolution but without the horrendous side effects and consequences that these weapons provide.  

Some thoughts about your terrific posting:

1.  The cool and blustery weather in Eugene and 100+ temps at the last Olympic Trials makes me wonder about the reliability of the marine climate formerly typical of Eugene.

2.  Predicting world records is a joke, a scam event P.T. Barnum would not consider.  Let the event stand on its own merit and watch the fans return next year.  It is enough.

3.  Ban all assault rifles and all military weapons.  The following are not available to the general public:  bombers, fighter planes, bazookas, and flame throwers.  The legislators all have a line which they will draw in the sand, but drawing that line beneath assault rifles has not worked.  Let's draw the line above assault rifles.  The other restrictions such as mental illness, registration, etc. are small potatoes.  The only reason for civilian assault rifles is to kill people.  Everyone wants to eliminate mass shootings in schools, churches, and malls.  Banning such rifles is by far the best solution.  But wait!   What Is the real reason the GOP and right wingers balk at that?  Is there someone else in our country they wish to see killed en masse? Bill