JK8K
Dedicated to Jim Kurtz
Jim was a very dear and great friend. He was always thinking of others. Gave his free time constantly. He was a fellow runner who was quite competitive and always humble with his successes.
To honor his life we established the JK8K cross country race to celebrate his kindness and generosity and his undying devotion to his family.
Striders in Action
JK8K | 5th Edition
October 11, 2026
Following the arrival of Tropical Storm Rachel overnight, dawn at the Ramona Community Park revealed mud, rain, and water hazards everywhere. For those adventurous enough to brave the elements, plenty of challenges awaited them once they got to the park. A good-humored, can-do spirit prevailed, fortunately – and it appeared that everyone left with rewarding memories to take with them.
Congratulations to all the participants, runners and volunteers alike, for persevering and sharing – helping to create a wonderful event that we all will long remember.
Andy’s BLOG 9/17/2026
The 2026 San Diego Senior Games Track Meet was held on Sunday September 13. It was the first time in my years of masters/senior running and a member of the Striders for several years (I first wore a Striders singlet in a meet on October 15, 2023) that I was able to run in a track meet as a member of a team: the San Diego Striders, rather than as an unattached individual. It was thanks to the efforts of Kent Richardson who was there keeping track of how all the teams, including ours, was doing. I was glad that I could contribute two 1st places to the team total. It was really great to meet several Striders that I had not met before. I was able to run my best 400 of the year, and was fairly close to my year’s best in the 800. As an 89 year old, I rank second in the world in both the 400 and the 800 according to mastersrankings.com. (I held this blog until the new mastersrankings came in.)
Besides being a beautiful and fun day, a humorous incident occurred as I was waiting to get my second gold medal at the Awards table. There was a short line of 800 runners waiting for the paper containing the results of the just run 800 meters. I was first in line. As we were waiting there a very large (probably 250 to my 125 pounds) man, likely in the low 50s in age, came up to get his medals. I signaled for him to come up directly to the Awards table in front of me. As I stepped back to make room, I mentioned to the young lady clerk why I let him in. I said: “I don’t think he ran the 800.” I am pretty certain that the athlete I let in did not hear me. But the female clerk certainly did and I noticed that her eyes popped open wide when looking at the huge man with gigantic arms in front of her. I think she pictured him running the 800 and it must have tickled her funny bone because she started to giggle, and then she couldn’t stop giggling. But she did her job. Between giggles she asked his events (shot put, discus, javelin), told him his winning distances, and gave him each of his 3 gold medals. All between giggles. I do not think the man thought her giggles had anything to do with him because as he walked away with his gold medals he was smiling broadly. So no harm done there. But it was an amusing ending to this wonderful day where I felt honored to be competing as a San Diego Strider!
Fall ’26 Odds & Ends
The results from the San Diego Senior Games road races have finally been posted, and Mark Gookin (67) followed up his track successes by winning the 50+ 5K race outright in 20:41. We’d also like to give a shout-out to Jim Metts (85), who won his division in 35:22 – a time fast enough to have gotten him first pace in the 70-4s.
BTW – Mark has his own website; it has plenty of interesting blogs for everyone’s reading pleasure:
https://www.markgookinruns.com/
We’ve also heard from Aleks Avakova (45), now living in Hawaii. She ran the Uloha Half Marathon in Kailua on October 4th, and came away with 1st place (45-9) in a time of 1:49:52. She finished roughly10 minutes ahead of the 2nd pace runner, in an AG field of 16.
On to the Dirt Dog season: The Striders 60’s team ran their 3rd race at the Ursula Rains Balboa Boogie 5K on October 3rd. Robert Fanjas (63) finished 6th in his division with a time of 22:41, John Tennant (67) ran 29:00, good for 7th (65-9), and Peter Gregory (64) finished 11th in 40:43.
At the Association Championships at Mission Bay Park on11/8, Robert was the only Strider to run, but ran a good 40:59 to finish 5th. For the season, the Striders 60s finished in 4th place, with Robert 7th (60-9), John 22nd and Rich Magargal 23rd.
On the T&F front, Andy Anderson has already weighed in on the 2027 season:
An interesting situation. The Nationals next summer is in Tulsa Oklahoma on the Skelly Stadium track. That is the very track where I ran my very first competitive race 73 years ago! I made the Tulsa CHS track team and the first meet was on that track. So I am definitely going to Nationals next summer. After that, we will see. I will be 90.
Let’s all be thinking about sending a good contingent of Striders to join him in Tulsa!
Last but not least, we’ve heard from Keith Wetterer (85), who gave us this update:
I’m glad to see the Striders did so well at the Sr. Games, taking home lots of hardware. To update you: After surgery, I started by walking 15 minutes per day. After a couple of weeks, I mixed it with running, starting with 30 seconds and working up to 10-12 minutes of running mixed with walking. Today, I ran 1-1/4 miles and felt good. I will now work on increasing distance and reducing times. I am optimistic that I will be back. Keith W.
Keith is an inspiration, and we’re all looking forward to seeing him back in action in 2027.
Aleks Avakova | Uloha Half Marathon 2026