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| Jim Schoffman |
By Tom Langenfeld
Jim
Schoffman showed much of the same versatility that has made Sherwood Sagedahl
one of the wonders of Masters track. Jim
ran ten races in three days at the National Senior Games, sometimes with minimal
recovery time between events—and the quality of his performances matched the
quantity.
On
Saturday: preliminary trials in the
100m, 200m and 800m. He won his heat in
all three.
On
Sunday: preliminary trials in the 400m
and 50m (second in both), finals in the 800m (first) and 100 (fourth). His 800m time of 2:20.67 broke the
13-year-old Minnesota M60 age group record of 2:20.77. His 100m time was well under the 17-year-old
Minnesota record of 13.48.
On Monday:
finals in the 50m, 200m and 400m. He was fourth in the 50 with 7.17, third in
the 200 with 26.80 and second in the 400 in 57.35. His 200 time of 26.80 bettered the listed
Minnesota record by more than a second.
His 400 time of 57.35 cut more than 4 seconds off the listed record and
more than than a second off his own pending record of 58.78 set earlier this
year. It was also superior to the
winning 400m time at this year’s USATF nationals. (Jim’s 50m time might have broken a state
record, too, if there had been a record
to break. The Minnesota masters record
compilation doesn’t include the 50.)
I don’t
believe any other athlete has ever done so well in so many running events at the
National Senior Games – except another Minnesotan, Sherwood Sagedahl, whose
unprecedented series of performances at Stanford four years ago was one of the
major stories of that competition.
Sherwood also ran ten races in three days, competing in every track race
on the program, 100m through 1500m, and medaling in them all – two gold, two
silver and a bronze.
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