Larry Penkava
Staff Writer
ASHEBORO —
Medals are great but family is special.
When Asheboro physician Bob Scott considered competing in the U.S. Track and Field Masters Championships this summer, the deal was closed when his twin brother, Basil, agreed to join him in the 800- and 1,500-meter runs. Basil has been living in Hawaii since 2001 and opportunities for the two to get together have been pretty slim.
“The trip wasn’t about medals,” Scott said last week from his office at White Oak Family Physicians. “It was the time with him. There’s been so little of that the last five years.”
Joining them at Cal State-Sacramento was Scott’s daughter Mary, who is working on her Ph.D in physics at UCLA. That made it a full-blown family reunion.
Both brothers, now 55 years old, ran track in high school with some success. But when Bob Scott tried out for the Virginia Tech team, he described the effort succinctly: “I walked on (the team) and limped off.”
Running for him became recreational through his college and medical school days. After moving to Asheboro in 1982 to practice medicine, he began suffering sciatica pains in one leg and switched for a time to playing in a soccer league.
Then a knee injury took him away from soccer and back to running.
Scott normally runs long distances in the winter months, focusing on marathons and half marathons. After running a marathon at Los Angeles earlier this year, he chose to work on shorter races in the summer.
He ran the 3,000, 800 and 1,500 for his age division at the State Games in Charlotte before competing in the Ultimate Runner competition in Winston-Salem. The Ultimate Runner involves doing the mile, quarter mile, half mile, 100 meters and 5,000 meters.
“All my times were All-American standards (for his age level),” Scott said. That’s when the idea of going to nationals entered his mind.
“My wife Susie said to go to nationals,” he said. So he called Basil, who has “been a shade quicker” but was nursing an injury, and they agreed to enter the 800 and 1,500 together in the 55 to 59 age division.
Meanwhile, Scott started wondering if he would be competitive at the national level or “would I make a fool of myself.” But he trained hard for 12 weeks, doing workouts on the track until he felt he was ready.
He met Basil – and later Mary – at Sacramento and the two learned that they were penciled into the same qualifying race, which Scott called a “bummer” since twins can be very competitive. But Basil just told him they had “to go out hard” in order to make the finals.
At the Thursday qualifier, the twins were lined up in adjacent lanes. Both got out really fast, Scott said, with a first lap of 66 or 67 seconds. Basil called out something that Scott thought was about going out fast. Later, he found out that Basil had said they had gone out too fast.
It worked out, however, as Scott won the heat in 2:17 and Basil was the last qualifier.
In the final two days later, Scott again had a quick start and was leading at the break, but soon was passed by the top two contenders and another runner, putting him in fourth place.
“I followed (the third-place runner) to the finish,” said Scott. “I didn’t even see him (when Scott passed him) and beat him by .12 of a second.
“I felt ecstatic about getting the bronze,” Scott said. “My legs were like molasses so I knew it was the best I could have done. I was really pleased.” His time was 2:14.65, a couple of seconds faster than he had estimated he could do.
The next day was the 1,500 and Scott came in fifth, just ahead of sixth-place Basil. Scott’s time of 4:47.99 beat his best time in North Carolina by 20 seconds.
“We had a great time,” said Scott of the reunion with Basil and Mary. “We had fun watching other races and hanging out together.
“I didn’t envision coming back with a medal. I just wanted to make the finals. But I dropped the bottom out of my times and exceeded my expectations.”
Next year the U.S. Track and Field Masters Championships will be held at Cleveland. They’re already making plans to go.
“The last thing we said (in California) was, ‘We’re doing this next year,’” said Scott. “Basil may have a chance to beat me.”
Larry Penkava can be reached at (336) 625-5576 or by e-mail at lpenkava@randolphguide.com
