Yesterday evening I dragged my skelly teammate Lanette out to the Percy Perry Stadium, about an hour and half from my house so that we could lace up our spikes and race in an All-Comers track meet. All-Comers meets are held all over North America, and are recreational competitions where anyone can run, jump, walk or throw in any event that they please, regardless of experience, qualifiication, ability, skill, lack of skill, mental or physical impairment, sobriety level, spike ownership, spandex ownership or the ill-advised donning of spandex.

So ... they let us in.

We signed up for the 100 metre sprint and long jump - two events I haven't done since way back in my college track and field days, up in Alaska where we had to train out side in snow, wearing bunny boots and snowsuits, running uphill both ways around the track ...

Since I have actually been training to be fast, I was marginally prepared to run a 100 metre, regardless of it being a distance event as far as skeleton athletes are concerned (if I have to run more than 30 metres at the top of any iced skeleton track before getting on my sled, I need a water break and I have to pace myself ... ).

After almost eating track as I tripped my way out of the blocks, I managed to cross the line in 13.88. Okay, so I am no Ussain Bolt ... or Shelly-Ann Frazer or a high school provincial 100-metre finals qualifier ... but my goal was to keep it under 14 seconds, and considering my advanced age and decrepit physical state, I was, well, not totally embarrassed.

Also, I beat Lanette, which is all that really mattered.

Afterward, we headed over to long jump for kicks and giggles. The only goal over there was to not get too much sand in my mouth. And maybe to jump farther than the four-foot tall nine-year-old girl. And to get a good picture from one of the SIX jumps we had to execute, so I'd have a cool photo for this blog entry.

Something like this:

See, I took this one of Lanette on my first try. Okay fine, so she's a little blurry. But at least SHE IS IN THE AIR. We could pass it off as artsy ...

And sure, maybe you have to get the feel of a camera that isn't yours ...

Or maybe you change your angle a little and it messes up the timing again.

Or maybe you panic and push the button too early ...

Okay, well at least I am in the air ...

So, it's Lanette's fault that there isn't a cool picture of me jumping almost as far as the four-foot tall nine-year-old girl.

...