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photo by Quinn Pack https://www.cuethephotographer.com/
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By Ray Glier
One morning last February, the world record holder in the 200 meters was trying to go fast. He wasn't trying to go fast on a track, but go fast crawling across his bedroom floor toward his bathroom.
Michael Kish, 75, injured his back the previous evening—a pinched nerve he believes—and in the morning he had to roll himself out of bed onto the floor, unable to stand up because of fierce pain in his lower back.
Michael, who lives in Nutley, N.J., actually needed to do that crawl several times that week before he could stand up.
That’s no way to begin a rush on the record books AND make a run at gold medals at The World Masters Athletics championships, which start August 22 in Daegu, South Korea.
Kish’s injury and muscle spasms were the week before the 2026 USATF Masters Indoor Championships in Albuquerque, and he had to scratch from the meet, which was frustrating to miss. He was moving up into the 75 to 79 age group, and the first year in a new cohort is when Masters track athletes typically have their strongest year.
“The body was just going to have to adjust by itself; it was going to take time to resolve,” Michael said of his back injury. “It was frustrating, but with age….you know how it goes.”
Here is the imperative, or why you need to keep reading.
Kish did not freak out. He stayed patient. He went to a massage therapist. Then, being the athlete he is who spends hours looking over You Tube for coaching tips, as well as listening to advice from other Masters runners, Michael remembered some work he did with martial arts in his 20s. Kish changed his workout regimen to incorporate some of that routine. More on that in a moment from a guy whose habits I first wrote about in 2022.
Slowly, Michael got closer back to form.
Then, Kish came into full form.
On April 23, after running a relay for Houston Elite, which helped get him loose, Michael ran the 100 meters in 13.27 seconds at The Penn Relays in Philadelphia. That mark still stands as the best in the world this outdoor season (M75-79).
“I looked up and saw 13.27 (on the scoreboard) and said ‘that can’t be right’,” Kish said. “But it was right, and so I just said, ‘Well, whatever I'm doing, I'm doing right’.”
In case you are wondering, the 75-79 year olds are very competitive worldwide; 259 men show up in Masters rankings.com for that age group.
The next big moment came at the USATF Masters Outdoor Championships in Geneva, Ohio. It didn’t seem like a setting for Kish to claim No. 1 in the world, much less erase a world record. Smoke from Canadian and U.S. Midwest wildfires postponed the first two days of the meet. Michael and other athletes had to stew in their hotel room for two days with no chance to train.
On Sunday, Kish finally lined up for the 200. The curve is his thing. He wins the 200 on the bend. Long and lean, Michael was in Lane 5 and blew past other runners on the curve. The chop-chop-chop of his hands continued down the straight away and he won easily.
The announcer waited for the wind rating (+1.6) and the 27.60 seconds was a new world record.
There wasn’t an arms raised gladiator-like dance from Kish. “I don’t do that stuff,” he said, which echoes many Geezer Jocks who also wad their egos into a small ball.
“That was a surprise to me,” Michael said of the record. “I mean, we laid around for three days waiting for the smoke to clear and then it just happened. I don't go out ever thinking about breaking any records. I just go out and run.”
The next weekend in Weston, Mass., Michael ran a 200 in 27.47 seconds, though a +2.4 wind made it ineligible for a new world record.
Kish is primed for the WMA in Korea in two weeks. When he was 71, he won gold medals in Finland at the 2022 worlds in the 100 and 200. In Sweden in 2024—the worlds outdoors are every other year—Michael took bronze in the 100 and 200 as a 73-year old.
**
The 2026 back story, no pun intended?
“The injury and muscle spasms made me look at my training,” Kish said of the February incident. “What was I missing?”
While he was searching for remedies on-line, Michael came across a martial arts mobility exercise. He had bumped into something familiar.
“I wasn't doing enough mobility drills before I was doing actual running,” Kish said. “It kind of reminded me of when I was doing martial arts back in my 20s and 30s, and I said, ‘There's a lot of mobility in their exercises, a lot of punches and kicks that they do, these are simple. I can put these into my my pre-workout’.
“I've been doing them ever since because they really specify mobility of the back.”
Kish also incorporates work from Dr. Stuart McGill, a world-renowned spine biomechanics expert in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. “I adjusted my core muscle training based on his philosophy of doing what we call muscle stomach crunches, side planks, and the bird dog, “ Michael said.
Kish is on the track three days a week and on Fridays he has replaced longer distance training with “ins and outs”, or fly-float-fly drills. Michael also borrowed from world champion Bill Collins on not putting his left foot all the way in the starting block, but having part of the foot on the track itself.
Kish did all that and became inevitable again in the 100 and 200. His wife, Jeanie, is his most prized coach and reminds him, among other things, when he doesn't "run through the finish line."
The lesson, of course, is to adjust for age, understand age, and replace pessimism with optimism, just like Michael Kish who made a comeback starting on his hands and knees.
Geezer Jock™ is FREE and a reader supported newsletter. If you like this story, please share and maybe buy a tee-shirt, or make a $5 gift.
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