GILLCRIST MASTERS ODD TRAINING TACTICS
STEVEN BILLER, Special to the Sun-SentinelSUN-SENTINEL
BOCA RATON -- Jim Gillcrist's training routine is so outrageous that breaking the world high jump record for his age group seemed improbable.
But he did it.
Gillcrist, 61, of Boca Raton made a 5-foot, 3 3/4-inch jump at the Broward/Palm Beach Sports Festival hosted by Dillard High School, breaking the 5-3 record for those 60-64 set in 1984 by Hans Overland of Norway. And last weekend, Gillcrist went 5-4.
Judging by his workout schedule, Gillcrist's record-breaking jump was anything but inevitable.
"I get up at 5 a.m. and go out and do discus spins in front of my house," Gillcrist said. "I can't throw the disc that early, though. It's dark and I'd probably break some windows. Then I run down the street skipping off my jumping leg. It looks like I have some sort of disease, which my neighbors think I do, anyway. Then I take one of my Austrian napsacks that I fill with sand, about 50-70 pounds -- I can barely stand up with it. With the sack, I stand up onto a chair as fast as I can about 45 times. It's kind of Abe Lincoln-type activities."
His discus workouts can not be found in home fitness manuals, either. Gillcrist lays on his back over a coffee table, making sure his wife, Marion, doesn't see him, and lifts a 16-pound bowling ball over his head 45 times.
"Then the thing that really embarasses my children," Gillcrist said. "I need some place to land so I took a couple of bicycle boxes and filled them with newspaper and a mattress covered in plastic, and I jump into that."
Gillcrist didn't stop at one record.
When visiting his daughter the next week, Gillcrist entered the Rhode Island Senior Olympics and jumped just over 5-4.
Gillcrist will bypass the Sunshine State Games in Gainesville July 7-9, in favor of the U.S. Nationals in San Diego that runs the same weekend. He will compete in the National Games July 26-30 in Spokane, Wash., and the World Games in Oregon the first week of August.
A computer programmer and analyst for Mutual of America in Boca Raton, Gillcrist used to work for the United Nations, running the computer systems in Austria, where he lived for 20 years.
In Austria he noticed 60- to 70-year-olds walking by the thousands, keeping in shape while hiking through the Wienerwald, the Vienna woods.
Gillcrist started working out and eventually took up mountain climbing. He attributes staying in shape to climbing the Alps, which led to his success in masters track and field.
"I feel good about it," said Gillcrist, who has been jumping for a year since moving back to the United States. "This is good exercise. It keeps you from sitting around and getting old. I run, and then every once in a while I jump in the air. All the neighbors think I'm a lunatic jumping through the streets at that hour."
Gillcrist, who last competed in track and field in 1952 at Manhattan College in New York City, noticed many people participating in master's swimming, golf and tennis so he got involved. But with the lack of master's track programs, Gillcrist trained without a coach.
"I managed to practice for three weeks at Boca Raton High School," he said. "They had the big foam mats to jump on, so I'd climb over the fence -- 61, and I'm climbing fences -- and I got to the record height. But they took the mats away when the kids finished school. Now I'm back in my yard again."
Gillcrist's nine boys and one daughter, none of which live with him, all root for him and sometimes travel to where he is competing.
"They get a big bang over it," Gillcrist said. "My wife thinks I'm crazy, too, and my neighbors know I am. But I'd like to do this as long as I can.
"Why stop now?"