Javelin man

Like all the athletes bound for Spokane and the track meet for the ages – or is that aged? – this week, Gene Lorenzen inquired about the weather. No surprise. When you’ll have 70- and 80-year-olds circling the track at Spokane Falls Community College upward of 25 times, the thermometer is likely to be of as

much importance as the stopwatch. And yet Lorenzen was not displeased that the forecast calls for hot.

“Hot is great,” he laughed. “I only have to run 60 feet.”

And then rock back and fire as he did 30-odd years ago, when his javelin throwing at East Valley High School put him atop the national high school list and put him through college at Washington State.

Welcome to the 2008 USA Masters Track and Field Championships, which is sort of a “Jeopardy” answer in search of a question – Then-and-Now for 1,000, Alex.

That’s how many competitors are expected for the 40th national masters beginning today, open to athletes age 35 to 100-plus in five-year increments. That means you’ll see an Olympian from 56 years ago like one-time javelin world record holder Bud Held, as well as someone like Spokane’s Ryan Weidman – who competed in this year’s Olympic Trials.

Hammer thrower Ed Burke was in three Olympics – and carried the United States flag in 1984. Richard Cochran won a bronze medal in the discus in 1960. Sprinter Lorna Forde represented Barbados in two Games. And there are scads of remarkable athletes who never had the Olympic experience but are setting world records in their AARP years.

And then there are those like Gene Lorenzen who are serious, too – but not too serious.

He has been out of the masters mix for several years, but discovered upon taking it up again that being in a new age group – 50-54 – made him eligible to throw a smaller, lighter javelin.

“It’s 700 grams instead of 800,” he said. “But I’ve been wrestling with the technique. The other day, I threw 188 feet – and I also threw the regular javelin 188 feet. This one should go farther. Plus, I’ve got a slice.

“I have a slice in my golf swing and a slice in my javelin.”

He’s hoping the adrenaline boost of competing again in Spokane will push him beyond 200 feet again – the 4-minute mile for javelin throwers, and the grail that kept him going during his first fling with masters track.

“It was 1993 – I hadn’t picked up a javelin in 10 years,” recalled Lorenzen. “But I have a friend, Tyrone Nelson, who told me that the national meet that year was going to be in Spokane. I didn’t do much training, but I’d been working construction so I was pretty strong. … My first throw, they called it flat, but it would have been a world record for the age group. My second throw went 227 feet, which was a U.S. record at the time.”

He competed in a couple of more nationals before putting the javelin aside again, interrupted by real life.

After setting a school record (259-7) and twice becoming an All-American at WSU, Lorenzen moved to Dixon, Calif., just outside Sacramento, where his sister lived, with the intention of training to take a shot at the 1980 Olympic team – though, of course, there turned out not to be such a thing. Soon married and with a daughter, Ronika, Lorenzen worked at various jobs – truck driving, sales – before forming his own construction company, remodeling homes during the housing boom.

And then he became a restaurateur – in Mexico.

“You’d have to know me, I guess,” he said. “I got married again about five years ago to this gal – we’re not together anymore, but we’re still friends. I’m an adventurous guy and she’s just like me and we were both kind of burned out and this is what we hit on. So we pulled a Beverly Hillbillies – loaded up the truck and moved to Mexico.”

Puerto Vallarta, that is, where they purchased Miguelito’s about three blocks from the beach. Lorenzen enjoyed the slower pace of life and touring on his Harley, but after several years the economy lagged and tourism suffered. Lorenzen recently returned to Dixon and hooked on as a salesman with Insulfoam, a Styrofoam manufacturer.

And picked up the javelin again.

He remembers doing that for the first time in the 10th grade, when his English teacher at West Valley, Jim McLachlan, put one in Lorenzen’s hand and watched him throw it 175 feet – when the school record was 172. Later, after transferring to EV, Lorenzen strung together five straight meets his senior year when he threw beyond 230 feet, topped by a nation-leading 236-5.

Now he may never put it down again.

“I think the world record for 100-year-olds is like 7 feet,” he joked. “Now, the javelin itself is 8 feet. So that’s going to be me, baby. I’m going to try to get out there 9 feet. I want to clear the end line.”