By Jim Lockwood
Staff Writer

Competing in the 55- to 59-year-old age bracket of the track event at the 18th annual Granite State Senior Games on Sunday, Aug. 14, New Boston resident Lee Hess won gold medals in three track events – the 50-, 100- and 200- meter dashes. (Jim Lockwood Photo)

Lee Hess never ran just to keep in shape. In fact, personal fitness has only been an added benefit from the thousands of meters the New Boston resident sprints each week.

For Hess, sprinting was purely for the sake of competition against his personal bests and individual goals.

“When you’re out here it is always nice to get a medal, but you’re out there to get a personal record,” Hess said. “That’s why track and field is such a pure sport.”

Hess’s outlook isn’t the result of poor performances against his peers in recent competitions.

In his most recent competitive events — the 50-, 100- and 200-meter dashes in the Granite State Senior Games at Livingston Park on Sunday, Aug. 14 – Hess proved he was among the best in his field.

He ran the 50 in 6.89 seconds, followed by a time of 12.89 in the 100, and a time of 27.25 in the 200.

Those times earned Hess a trio of gold medals in the men’s 55- to 59-year-old age bracket. But winning medals wasn’t the most thrilling aspect of the GSSG for Hess.

Instead, he focused on another track statistic – the age-graded percentage – to evaluate his performance.

The age-graded percentage doesn’t rely purely on a person’s time to measure performance. It takes into account that as a person ages, he or she inevitably loses time. The statistic uses an established top standard for an age group and compares an athlete’s time to that standard.

In the 50, Hess’s best race of the day, his age-graded standard was 94.05 percent, which showed he was better than 94 percent of sprinters in his age bracket.

Theoretically, the computation also said that if Hess were 30 years younger, he’d be running stride for stride with some of the best runners in the world.

In the 100, he had a percentage of 87.98; in the 200, his percentage was 85.17.

In June, Hess took third in the 100 at the National Senior Olympics and in July, he finished first in the 100 and the 200 at the USA Track & Field Championships.

While the wins and medals showed he’s a leader on the track, they didn’t show that he’s also a true ambassador for the sport.

The local athlete ran track during his days in the Air Force, but returned to the sport as a coach in 1995 because he observed his daughter’s high school track coaches giving her bad advice.

Now, he teaches West High School’s track athletes proper running techniques as an assistant coach. As a chairman for the USATF’s New England association, Hess ensures track meets are run smoothly and properly, and voices concerns he hears from the athletes.

One of Hess’s other goals is to show track doesn’t end in high school or college.

Through his involvement with the Merrimack Valley Striders, a running club for all ages based out of North Andover, Mass., Hess provides proper running instruction to athletes young and old.

Hess has run competitively since 1997 when he saw the results of the Dartmouth relays college/open class. He noticed the winning times were similar to his best times.

The experience was eye-opening, Hess said, because he saw track wasn’t only available to older athletes, but he could beat those posted times.

Since then, he’s run between 3,000 and 5,000 meters per week.

“What’s great is when you’ve finished the workout and you don’t cut yourself short,” Hess said, “you’re on cloud nine.”