For all of you who are perhaps new to racing in Florida or are unfamiliar with the U.S. Senior Games Association, it is a large group of cities in the state who participate with the National Senior Games Association (NSGA.org) to provide venues for masters athletes (50+) to participate in age group competitions.

There are a limited number of cycling events—most being just 5K and 10K time trials.  On February 5 & 6, Collier County will hold its time trials and 20K and 40K road races which I will be participating in. 

Manatee County will be holding its 5K and 10K cycling events on Sunday, 2/21, at the Central County Solid Waste Disposal Complex in Nakomis.   

These events are qualifiers for the State of Florida championships which will be held December 3-11, 2011 in Polk County.  There are 13 more events—not all have cycling and even fewer have road races—between now and December 3.  Please check out http://www.flasports.com/ or http://www.nsga.com/ to find out more about the events. 

Club members I know who are qualified to go to the Senior Nationals in Houston in June and club members are: Dave Viney, Cliff Jackson, Cindy and Ken LaRoe, Dan O’Hara, Sandy Scott and myself.  The NSGA national events are held every two years.  I have attended Louisville, KY in 2007, San Francisco in 2009, and can assure you that they are done very well and they are a lot of fun for thousands of 50+ athletes from Archery to Volleyball and everything in between.

The deadline for qualifying is past, but, if you want to go for cycling, you can qualify through a “Limited Event” entry of verified completion of (2) 20K road races and/or (2) 40K road races during 2010 (actually, you can probably just do one or the other).   Check out the site if you are interested.  The deadline for filing is mid-February, but you can get in later by paying an additional fee.

Regards,

Rose Marie Ray