Mass Velocity TC is January Team of the Month

Mass Velocity Track Club is the USATF-NE Team of the Month for January 2022 for their record setting relay performance at the Millrose Games in New York on January 29,  Competing in the Masters 4x400 relay, the quartet of Tim Hoff, Dave Neumann, Meriwyn Walters, and Bill Kinahan carried the baton the distance in 4:03.02 for a new 55-59 age group World Record.

The team provided the backstory on the race and their involvement as masters athletes in the sport.

USATF-NE: How long have you all been a part of the club and the sport of track and field?

Tim Hoff:  I’ve been a part of MVTC since 2015. I’ve been involved in track and field since I was 14 and joined my high school team.  I competed collegiately at UAlbany and ran on and off through lots of injuries during my 20s and 30s. Masters track has been a rebirth of competitive running for me over the past 15 years.

Dave Neumann: I ran track in high school - 400/800/4x1/4x4/4x8. I was good, occasionally very good, though never great. I didn't compete in college but never stopped running or being fit. I've run Masters track for 21 years and have been with Mass Velocity TC since it was founded. It's a tremendous group of men and women. 

Meirwyn Walters: I began my masters track career and joined the club in 2009.  An MIT all-comers was the first track meet I entered since my senior year in high school. I ran the 880 in high school - that’s much too far now!

Bill Kinahan: I started Masters track about 10 years ago. I was searching for a competition for my daughter and discovered that they had masters races as well.  Having run Division 3 track at SUNY Plattsburgh, I was anxious to get
back on the track to see if I could be competitive. I joind MVTC shortly after my first meet and have been giving it may all ever since.

USATF-NE: Being part of a relay team requires lots of trust and teamwork. How do you all feel you did a good job of holding each other accountable to keep up with training and preparation for the big race?

Tim Hoff: This club boasts a serious, high performing group of talented runners, which is why I like it so much. Self-motivated and diligent to a person, you always know people are going to be ready to run when they show up. There was no need for any of us to say anything to each other.  We knew once we signed onto the relay, that we would get ourselves ready to compete.

Dave Neumann: Relays at major competitions like Millrose and Penn Relays are exhilarating experiences. I've run so many yet it never gets old. Your relay teammates count on you to give it your all. Nobody on this relay team needed persuasion to train hard. Staying injury free is always the most challenging part, and we managed to do it.  

Meirwyn Walters:. It doesn’t take a lot to convince someone to go for a world record! Dave Neumann gets to a nearby track at 5:00 a.m. for his workouts. I measure off 100m lengths on a nearby street and practice in the dark after work. Bill Kinahan and Tim Hoff both ramped up their training to be ready.  January was 30 days of obsessive, neurotic Omicron-avoidance strategies, plus stretching every night, watching the calories, and workouts that pushed toward the boundaries of injury but backed off before something broke. 

Bill Kinahan: My training had fallen off some over the last couple of years due to the pandemic and other aspects of life taking on higher priority. The call from Meirwyn help reignite the fire, especially because I didn’t want to let my teammates down! 

USATF-NE: Give us a rundown of the trip to Millrose that got you all the new Masters World Record. Travel, meet day, getting into the race, and anything else you guys did.

Tim Hoff: Crazy stressful, it was the weekend of the big snowstorm. I drove down with some teammates the night before the meet. We got out ahead of the blizzard but had to wait an extra day to get back home. All of us had a plan for getting there, what was amazing is that all the plans worked. Millrose is an amazing meet to run in, and after our race we had the chance to watch at trackside the rest of the meet, up close to the pros.

Meirwyn Walters: Nothing like a blizzard to focus the mind. I was looking into renting some huskies and a sled. 

Bill Kinahan: As others have pointed out, the weather was not friendly to us that day, but we all planned ahead and managed to make it to the track with plenty of time to spare. I personally was feeling a mixture of excitement and stress. I didn’t have a lot of confidence in my training and I didn’t want to let my teammates down, but the idea of setting the record was certainly appealing.

USATF-NE: How did you all feel the race went for you? From first leg all the way to anchor leg, tell us how you each felt during the legs of the race (in order).

Bill Kinahan: (Leadoff) I ran lead-off and had the usual butterflies at the line. There were a number of very fast people leading off for other teams and I knew if I stayed relatively close to them, things would work out well. I had run a 400 a few weeks earlier and had gone out too slow and so was determined to not let that happen again. As it turned out, I was a little TOO determined and went out in something like 200m race pace, and with 100m to go I was just praying to make it home without collapsing. Tim did a great job of waiting for me to come in without making me chase him. 

Tim Hoff: (second leg) I knew Bill would run a strong lead off leg. I saw my job as maintaining and staying on pace for the record. Giving it to Dave to do his thing and then Meirwyn for a dominant anchor leg. I’m an 800 specialist so I don’t run many 400s or train for it. But I respect the 400 distance a lot. I tried to go out hard the first 50 meters and then hold my speed through the middle segments. The good news is for a longer distance guy like me this race is over quick!

Dave Neumann: (third leg) Bill and Tim ran very well and as I took the baton for the third leg, I believed we had a good shot at the WR. I felt relaxed and ran strong and gave the baton to Meirwyn who crushed his leg. At 62 yo I was thrilled to have helped set a WR in the M55-59 age group.

Meirwyn Walters: I was standing down in that pit alongside the Armory track, all the way at the end of the line, with a “9” stuck to my chest. I could see the clock and the two marks for the 100’s. In a relay it’s a weird few minutes as you wait for the gun.

You look around. You chat with the guy next to you if he’s not too terrified. You stretch. You wonder if you’ll pull a muscle when you turn with the stick in hand because it’s been 78 minutes since you warmed up. You jump up and down and then wonder why you’re jumping up and down. You preach to yourself that the last 100 is less than 15 seconds of pain.
As the anchor, when the gun goes off, it doesn’t seem to do anything to you. You’re half spectating and almost have to remind yourself that in 3 . .  2 . . 1 minutes you’re going to be running like a maniac. 
 
I watched as our leadoff, Bill, came flying down the backstretch. Indoors, the first 100 comes quick and Bill hit it on the number. Same with the second 100 and then the third. His handoff to Tim was exactly where we needed to be. Tim took off and ran two really strong loops, the first 100 right on the money and then even better, slashing two seconds off his time from a meet a couple of weeks earlier, and he showed no rigor mortis. He handed off to Dave Neumann. Watching Neumann accelerate, I got the sense that we had the record in our sights. When a guy runs under his age in the 400 like Dave did, you know that something special is happening. He ran the baton right to me, and I turned to look at the clock. I saw the beautiful number: 3:05 and change! All I needed to do was remain upright for a minute and we’d be in the books. 

USATF-NE:  And how amazing does it feel to be a world record holder? Where does it rank amongst all your accomplishments?

Tim Hoff:  It is a very cool feeling being a part of any world record; of course, I never had an opportunity prior to this. It ranks up there for me athletically with several collegiate school records I held, and being inducted into my university’s hall of fame for cross-country and track. So I would say probably top three in that regard. It’s a unique achievement. If you had told me in my twenties that I’d do something like this at the age of 56, I would have said you’re crazy.

Meirwyn Walters: Athletically speaking, nothing else comes close. As one teammate, Roger Pierce, (who’s held about 13 World Records) put it, you’ve just done something nobody else has ever done!

Bill Kinahan: It’s certainly one of the top accomplishments of my masters career. 
 
USATF-NE: How has being involved with the Mass Velocity TC kept you all so invested in your sport for so long? Who else has helped you all reach these heights?

Tim Hoff: As I said, MVTC is a serious masters’ track club with a lot of role models for how to train and compete right. The club is filled with good people, serious about everything they do, helpful and supportive, and tough as nails.  My wife has been with me since I ran in college; her support and guidance over time with respect to running and competing has been a big reason why I’m still performing well at age 56. Now my 14 year old is running well and so
there’s a new incentive pushing me–not wanting to get beat by him too soon!

Meirwyn Walters: Mass Velocity is a remarkable group of men and women across the United States with a spectrum of abilities who provide to one another a wealth of experience and encouragement. Our name is derived from E=MC2 where the speed of light is not just a good idea - it’s the law.
 
The level of camaraderie is so high. And the depth of knowledge is profound. If one of us gets injured, the chances are pretty good that someone else has had to rehab that particular injury! And at the meets, we trade strategy tips, cheer each other on, and sit back and appreciate the wonder of sprinting at our ages. 
Plus, we’ve had a few members battle cancer and other major life challenges, and that helps us all appreciate the tremendous blessing it is to be able to run around in circles. These athletes have been on chemo one month and the next they are running in a national championship. It’s not hard to be completely inspired by that.
Belonging to MassVelocity is the most highly-leveraged, $20/year investment I’ve made. It’s a club that has no clubhouse, no address, and no excluding qualifications, and I’ve had experiences I never could have dreamed of since joining.

Bill Kinahan: The camaraderie in the club definitely provides motivation. We pull each other along, provide workout partners on occasion, share training tips, and identify facilities to train in (especially during winter in the northeast). The relay events (Millrose, Penn, nationals) give us wonderful opportunities to connect and actually compete as a team. I’ll add that MVTC is more than people who happen to run together; it’s a diverse group of friends who all bring interesting backgrounds and experiences off the track making every group outing something special.

USATF-NE: Off the track, what are some things in all of your lives that you enjoy doing?

Tim Hoff: I like to fish with my teenage son, go to the beach all summer with the family, and play other sports like basketball. Traveling to new places is also great. At this age, hard workouts don’t always feel good on the body so just relaxing with a good book or movie makes a lot of sense too. I like to joke that I spend an hour a day training and the other 23 trying to recover so I can train the next day.

Bill Kinahan: I have a number of activities off the track; I am the lead mentor of our town high school’s FIRST Robotics team, and I enjoy fly fishing and boating. My wife and I are really looking forward to being able to start traveling again as the pandemic winds down (fingers crossed!).