UMaine host for Masters nationals

Holding the title of meet director for a major road race or track and field meet is certainly not easy.

Rolland Ranson will have the best officials in the country helping him run the show when the USA Track and Field’s National Masters championships return to the University of Maine next month for the first time since 2002.

“You have to have a solid organization committee, and with us it’s a statewide group of people,” said meet director Ranson, who is an assistant track and field coach at the University of Maine.

Some key officials for the event scheduled for August 2-5 event include Maine USATF committee members Valerie Foss (president), Paul Morency (treasurer), Eastern Maine Indoor Track League director Mary Cady, former state legislation representative Don Berry, who is the director of officials, and FinishLynx timing gurus Glendon Rand and Dave Jeffrey.

“For this kind of event we have to have the best officials,” Ranson said. “The last two times we held these championships [here] we had 28 Olympic officials.”

Ranson also noted the outstanding job Rand, the cross country coach at Brewer High School, and Jeffrey, who coached indoor track and Brewer for more than two decades, do at the finish line.

“They’re about as good as any in the country, Brewer Timing Services,” Ranson said.

With just a couple days remaining to register for the event, Ranson has “somewhere over 900” athletes signed up.

With the Masters championships running at the same time as the Bangor State Fair, the athletes and their families should have plenty of down time.

“[The athletes] love coming to Maine, they stay four to eight days on average,” Ranson said. “They come and compete and then they and their families go out and spend time visiting the area.”

The level of participants varies, from former Olympians and collegiate national champions to the casual runner.

Some notable entrants include former Baylor University standout John Simpson of Texas in the 40-to-44-year-old age group, who has posted a 10.50 in the 100-meter dash this summer. Pole vaulter Gary Hunter of Indiana, competing in the 50-54 age group, is still vaulting over 15 feet, Ranson said.

“He’s still vaulting and he loves it,” Ranson said. “He was here the last time.”

The schedule of events on Thursday, Aug. 2 kicks off with the men’s and women’s 5,000-meter finals, with preliminary events ongoing for the remainder of the day.

Finals continue all through the weekend, and a Fabulous Championship Downeast Cookout Feast will be held Saturday, Aug. 4 at 7 p.m.

Admission is free to all the track events, but tickets for the Cookout Feast must be purchased prior to the event.

New England XC meet returning

The USATF masters meet isn’t the only big-time running event that will descend on Maine this year.

The New England Cross Country championships will be returning to Maine this fall.

The meet, which was last held in Maine in 2002, will be held at the Twin Brook Recreation Center in Cumberland on Saturday, November 3.

The Twin Brook course is the same that is used for the Western Maine regional championships.

The high school championships rotate between the New England states each year, and the 2002 event was held at Portland’s Riverside Golf Course. Current Dartmouth and former Greely High runner Ben True finished second in the race that year.