Marian Carlson, Nancy Nash, and Connie Ward will represent Haines this month at the National Senior Games in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Seniors ages 50 and up compete in the games, and this year, a record 13,712 athletes will compete including 30 Alaskans. Five of the athletes competing in the games are over 100-years-old, according to games officials.
This year, Haines senior athletes have found creative ways to train. Shot put thrower and sprinter Nancy Nash found a Youtube video of exercises from 55-year-old master sprinter Daphne Sluys. “The internet is very helpful, because there’s no one I could go to in town,” said Nash.
Nash started training with Sluys’ tips in the winter. Several times a week, Nash stood in front of a mirror with two-pound weights in each hand. “You run in place for a minute, and you have two minutes in between. You do these 10 times to complete a workout,” said Nash. “By doing this repetitively, the quote from her is that your arms will carry you across the finish line.”
Nash and Ward work out together on the high school track field, because they are both competing in throwing events. Their training was described in a KHNS article last month. But Carlson, is training for her short-distance swimming events while the Haines swimming pool is closed for renovations. “Good timing, right?” said Carlson.
Carlson said she is staying in shape with dry-land exercises, doing push-ups and using resistance bands that mimic swimming motions. “I live on a little hillside, and I also practice going up and down the hill.”
At 70-years-old, Carlson, a former physical education teacher at Haines school, called staying in shape a lifestyle. She has been swimming since she was 10-years-old, taking lessons at the Chicago park district, and later she received a college scholarship for swimming. “Swimming probably is one of the better activities to do as a young person, only because you can carry it on for a lifetime, and it’s pretty much injury free,” she said.
At the Alaska International Senior Games in Fairbanks in 2018, she won four gold medals in swimming, one for the 100 yards individual medley, and one each for the 50 yards freestyle, breaststroke and backstroke in her age group. She won gold medals in bocce ball and golf as well, but, “Bocce was just a fluke! That was just for fun,” she said.
Carlson said that her times would be significantly faster in Albuquerque, because they will start by diving in the water, as opposed to pushing off the wall, as they did in Fairbanks.
“Marian is a very, very good swimmer,” said Tomi Scovill. Scovill coached Carlson, Nash and Ward in softball, and helped convince them to compete in their first senior games in Fairbanks during winter 2018. “I really feel that they can be competitive,” she said.
“I’m probably fast in my age group in Haines. Haines is one place, but when you go down south it’s like another world,” said Carlson. “Fortunately, I only have to sprint. It’s a couple of fast sprinting events.”
She exercises to live a quality life, she said. “You can vegetate and still live, but it isn’t really a quality life,” said Carlson. “(Exercise) gives you longevity, friendships, things like that.”
She, Nash, and Ward aren’t competing to win, said Carlson. “We’re going down there to eat some good food and to get some summer time hotness,” said Carlson. Carlson leaves for Juneau on June 10 to cram in some pool time before a wedding on the 15. She will meet Nash and Ward in Albuquerque on the 16.