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| Jim Schoffman in "flight" in the 200 at the National Senior Games. Photo by David E. Ortman, who, in addition to taking this photo also won the M60 400. |
For Flanagan the fun comment was in response to a question about her plans for the summer after another successful season in cross country and track at Blake HS. She said she wasn't going to do any more races. She was satisfied with her accomplishments, and it was time to take a break and do other things. Running wasn't a job or a chore for her, it was fun. When it stopped being fun, Flanagan said, then it would be time to seek another form of achievement, of having fun.
Schoffman reference to fun was in response to the question why he still does the sport he began in high school nearly five decades ago. Because, he said, it's still fun. He's still learning. He's still getting results. And the sport has other benefits than the physical and emotional rewards of an active life. Travel, meeting new people, maintaining friendships with people he's met over the years.
At the US Masters Championships in Kansas this year, for example, Schoffman visited a garden and arboretum that was a replica of Monet's garden. Warming up for his event at the Drake Relays, Schoffman looked over and there was Lolo Jones doing strides near him. At the World Masters Championships he was on the US four by 400 team that won a gold medal, standing on the podium as the National Anthem played.
Next year he's planning on being a part of the Mass Velocity relay team at the Penn Relay carnival before 50,000+ track fans in Philadelphia. And, he says, he hopes that by doing the sport he is an example to others to bring "people back into sport for health and fitness."
Schoffman's introduction to his healthy lifestyle was as a member of the Albany(MN) High School track team when they were still running races measured in yards not meters, and the Minnesota sprinting legend, Rochester's Mark Lutz, was setting records that will probably never be broken. Schoffman ran 10.1 for 100 yards, 22.3 for 220, and 50.3 for a 440 yard relay split in high school and made the State Finals. He also ran cross country in the Fall, but, he added: "I wasn't fond of the distance."
He went to college at St. Johns where his roommate was Tim Miles, who is now the Johnnies coach. Improved to 10 flat for the 100, 22 for the 220, and 49.5 for the 440, only a couple tenths shy of qualifying for DIII Nationals, which coincidentally, in his senior year, was at the same Baldwin Wallace track where the National Senior Games were held this year. Where he heard other competitors call out to him: "Hey Superman." He laughs when he tells that story, and when asked why he does so many events, he says: "Because I want to get my money's worth." He's only half joking.
He's discovered, like many sprinters, that competing in more than one event has its benefits. If he competes in the 50 meter dash, like he did prior to his 800 meter race at the National Seniors Games, he felt it improved his performance rather than detracted from it. "You can recover from a 50 in ten minutes," said Schoffman.
An operations manager at Lakeland Engineering by day, Schoffman often works out late, running at 9:30 at night. In the winter, he calculated on the treadmill at his health club what the device was capable of and what speeds he had to go at to do his speed work inside. Over the years he's discovered what works for him and picked up other lessons/techniques. After college he stopped running for 23 years before his wife and a friend, Greg Schwab, got him going again. In 2003 he just competed locally, by 2004, he took his show on the road to National competition.
He had a coach for awhile, but the mileage the coach had him doing wasn't working. It wasn't making him better, and, perhaps, most important, it wasn't fun. So, he went back to training himself, picking up lessons from others, such a Stillwater coach Scott Christensen whose interval, and speed based training suited him. If he experienced soreness in his knees, as he occasionally does, he uses a cut off wool sock and pulls the fabric over his knee, like he did when he was younger, and that seems to both keep the joint warm and get rid of the stiffness or discomfort.
"I'm not a cool down runner," he adds, noting that he doesn't do warm downs. One "modern" technique he does use for recovery, however, is cold baths. Not the ones where you fill the bathtub with ice cubes, but water around 50-55 degrees F, which, he was told by trainers, is about the right temperature to get results but not turn you into an icicle. He's a meticulous record keeper, logging all his workouts, analyzing the data and making adjustments as needed. He picked up another tip on race strategy from a talk by St. Olaf coach Phil Lundin, who was talking about the body's energy systems and the best way to get the most out of your speed.
Sprinters should come out of the blocks in a 200 at "full bore" for the first six seconds, Lundin said, because that is the only time you can utilize that energy stored in your muscles to maximum benefit. After that burst, you "glide" then bring it home. Do that in practice. Get your body used to utilizing that energy, Lundin said, because you can't tap into it later in the race, just at the start. Schoffman also learned when to back off. Don't try and force your body to do something it may be unable to do at that point in your training or if you're tired.
Wait for another day. That sort of approach has kept him relatively injury free, said Schoffman. He's also an advocate of weight work as needed to improve strength and speed. He's felt his speed seemingly declining in the 100 and 200 of late, and says he'll go back to a strength program to see if that helps limit or reverse the decline. He uses the usual tricks of setting reachable goals, for example, wanting to run 56 for the 400 when he was 56--"run my age." Uses those sorts of targets for improvement or a standard to achieve as one ages and you have to adjust to what is possible for you to achieve.
He uses WAVA age-graded tables to figure out equivalents for what he'd done when he was younger as a yardstick for what he might want to aim to achieve. But, perhaps, most importantly, he keeps his expectations within the framework of the feedback he's getting from his body as he works out and plans the next series of races. "Run your race," he says. "Plan it. Execute it." Don't get sucked into what someone else is doing, especially in a longer race, such as the 800. There, he says, he's still learning race strategy, how best to get the most out of himself over the distance. Each practice, each race is an experiment in attempting to gauge what is possible.
When asked how long he intends to keep competing, he replies: "Ralph Maxwell, he's an idol of mine. He's 92 and still going. I'd like to keep it up for as long as I can. As long as I'm still having fun."
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