Shocker Track Club veterans Grant and Claire Overstake, 63, were honored with the Couple’s Spirit Award from World Masters Athletics for their inspiring decathlon performances in the Worldwide Virtual Masters Challenge.

WICHITA, Kan. – Senior athletes around the globe pushed back against the pandemic that scuttled their world track and field championships. Performing in remote venues in 61 countries, 1,500 masters athletes competed in 6,500 events during the 2020 Worldwide Virtual Masters Challenge championships sponsored by World Masters Athletics (WMA), the world governing body for masters track and field.

Twenty of those many events were logged by one couple, Grant and Claire Overstake of Wichita, Shocker Track Club veterans who ran, jumped, hurdled, pole-vaulted, and threw against a world of unseen challengers in the two-day decathlon event.

The Overstakes’ dual decathlon captured the hearts of the international WMA officials, who honored them with the Couple’s Spirit Award. The trophy was provided by John and Linda Seto of MastersRankings.com.

With their performance dedicated to a masters teammate who was hospitalized with COVID-19 at the time, the Overstakes captured the hearts of the international WMA officials, who honored them with the Couple’s Spirit Award. The beautiful crystal trophy was commissioned by meet co-sponsors John and Linda Seto of MastersRankings.com.

“Just to be healthy and able do what we love to do was rewarding enough,” Claire said. “We were inspired by the opportunity to compete together. We had great support from our masters teammates and coaches who officiated for us wearing masks. In the end, we were happy to have done our best in all the events with such short notice and little time to practice beforehand. But to be selected for the Couple’s Spirit Award was totally unexpected, icing on the cake.”

The Worldwide Virtual Masters Challenge was held from July 18 to August 2, 2020. The results of the meet were certified by the WMA and published in the most recent issue of National Masters News. The event was intended to replace the World Masters Athletics Championship that had been slated for Toronto, Canada. Normal rules were loosened to accommodate athletes who didn’t have access to track and field facilities or registered officials. Grant and Claire enjoyed fantastic facilities and great weather, and were aided by coaches and fellow masters athletes who timed their races and measured distances in their jumping and throwing events.

Claire is a 6th Grade Science Teacher at Stucky Middle School. Grant is an author who runs his own publishing company. They’ve been together since they were high school sophomores, eating lunch on the lawn at Heights High School. They got married at age 20 and have been married for 42 years. They have three adult children and five grandchildren and published two award-winning novels together.

In their golden years, they follow the “Growing Bolder” philosophy of successful aging through rigorous exercise. They’d been working out three times a week at CrossFit Wichita, but were forced to find at-home fitness solutions because of the pandemic. They spent the spring and summer months doing high intensity workouts on their back patio, taking long bike rides, and running repeat sprints up the 100-meter hill at Sedgwick County Park. Their time on the track had been limited to a few isolated runs at a local school. So, the challenges of competing in a decathlon without specific event preparation was daunting. They spent the week before their decathlons tuning-up for the events they hadn’t visited in a while.

“We hadn’t planned on competing in any track meets let alone a multi-event competition this year, but this was an opportunity to do something really special,” Grant said. “And even though we literally hadn’t done some of the events in years, everything clicked for us. Thanks to the Shocker Track Club coaches, we had no fouls, no false starts and got cleanly over bars in the high jump and pole-vault which was required to score points.”

Regarded as the best test of overall athletic ability in sports, the decathlon event is contested over two days, with the 100 meter dash, long jump, shot put, high jump and 400 meter run on Day 1; and, the 100 meter hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin and 1500 meter run on Day 2. Times and distances are compared to age-graded scoring tables to determine points for each event. In masters track, hurdles are lowered and throwing implements weigh less based on age group specifications. While some athletes are faster or jump higher than others, in the decathlon the athlete who scores the most points overall wins the prize.

‘Courage’ was the key word for the couple during the event and they threw caution to the wind.

“Claire summoned up her courage and pole-vaulted for the first time in many years. And, when the time came for me to face my biggest fear, I mustered up enough courage to sprint through a full flight of hurdles for the first time in at least ten years. These were just a few of the bucket list moments we experienced over the two days. It was magical in many ways.”

Official results of the 2020 Worldwide Virtual Masters Challenge Age 60-64 decathlon.

Track and field has been a big part of the journey for this couple. Grant joined the Shocker Track Club when he was eight years old, learned all the events by the time he was 10, and competed in his first decathlon in the 8th grade. He was a regional long jump champion and pole-vaulter at Wichita Heights and went on to win the Jayhawk Conference decathlon for Butler Community College. He earned All-American honors with a fifth place finish at the USATF Nationals held in Wichita in 1977. He went on to compete in the decathlon for the University of Kansas under legendary coach Bob Timmons. His decathlon teammates at KU included Steve Rainbolt, head track coach at Wichita State University.

As a masters athlete, Grant, who stands 6-2 and weighs 225 pounds, has focused mostly on the throwing events. But he also competed in several decathlons through the years, including representing the United States in team competitions against athletes from Great Britain. Before the Worldwide Virtual Masters Challenge, his crowning achievement as a senior athlete had been third place finish in the USA National Masters Decathlon Championships in 2009.

In the Worldwide Challenge, four men competed in the 60-64 decathlon, two from the United States and one each from Australia and Great Britain. Grant finished in second place overall with a score 4,434 points, which surpassed the USATF Masters All-American standard for the event.

Claire was a champion sprinter and hurdler at Wichita Heights High School and a member of the school’s state record setting relay teams. She also set several school records at Wichita State before the high school sweethearts were married and transferred to KU. The newlyweds became the first married couple to compete for the Jayhawks track and field teams.

The Overstakes moved their CrossFit-style workouts to their patio during isolation.

As a masters athlete, Claire, who is 5-2 and weighs 120 pounds, has been a standout competitor in the heptathlon, but is often uncontested in her age group. The decathlon is a relatively new event for women, which adds the pole-vault and discus throw. Claire was one of only two women in the world to complete the decathlon at the Virtual Masters Challenge, earning first place in her age group with 3,123 points.

Claire Overstake’s Day 2 events were captured on her Whoop monitor, showing 1098 calories burned in a competition that lasted in 4 hours and 40 minutes. Her maximum heart rate was clocked at 177 beats per minute.

“We didn’t keep track of our event scores during the two days because we didn’t have access to the scoring tables. There was no way to know who else was competing out there, anyway, so it was better for us to stay focused on what we were doing. As it turned out, our combined total score of 7,557 points is probably a married couple’s world record, at least for our age group. It’s unofficial of course, but cool because of what it represents to us.”

With the pandemic raging out of control and them being older and somewhat at-risk, the Overstakes didn’t know when they would be able to go back to track practice, let alone compete in a world championship. The virtual meet came as a pleasant surprise. This was the first opportunity they’d had to compete in a world championship event, and they were determined to make the most of it.

“It’s really pretty expensive to travel to the world championships, so we’d never made it a priority,” Claire said. “Even though we were competing by ourselves here in Wichita, just knowing we were competing with the best athletes around the world made it feel truly special.”

With every healthy breath they took, the couple was mindful of their teammate’s ongoing battle with COVID-19.

“I’m happy to report that he has since been released from the hospital and is recovering, but the virus laid him low,” Grant said. “So he was on our minds all the while. Also, we felt the sad absence of our friend Bob Lida, a world-class masters sprinter and fellow Jayhawk who died this spring. Bob was an icon in our sport. We had trained with him on that very same track many times. So we had plenty of motivation.

“But it never could have happened without the enthusiastic support from Shocker Track Club President Darren Muci and the coaches and our teammates, Joe Hoover and Steve Wilson, who helped officiate many of the events.”

The Whoop monitoring device shows that Grant burned 1,235 calories on Day 2 of the decathlon, an ordeal which lasted more than four hours and included the 100 meter hurdles, discus, pole-vault, javelin and 1500 meter run.

Going in, the object was to complete all the events without injury. Because they weren’t in shape for full-bore sprinting and jumping they would have to adjust their efforts accordingly. Grant wore running flats instead of wearing spikes in the sprints, jumps, and hurdles, sacrificing speed to protect his feet from injury. The rules of the decathlon require ten events to be completed in order over two days. Grant and Claire went from one event to the next with little time between, preferring to stay warm rather than having to warm up again and again. The strategy paid off.

It took about three hours for the couple to complete five events on Day 1, and four and a half hours to complete Day 2. Their longest break between events was the 45 minutes it took to drive from Cessna Stadium to Bishop Carroll High School and prepare for the pole-vault with Shocker Track Club coaches Denis Frazier and Paul Wagoner at the only open pit in town. After the pole-vault, Grant and Claire stayed at the high school to complete the final two events. Teammate Steve Wilson bravely marked their javelin throws as it was almost too dark to see the flying spears as darkness fell. In the shadowy stadium, Wilson used a flashlight app to illuminate the finish line of the 1500 meter run and took a photo after they’d crossed the finish line happy, healthy, and hand-in-hand.

In the age of virtual competitions and homebound workouts, the Overstakes have been wearing WOOP fitness monitoring straps on their wrists, collecting physiological data 24/7 to provide the most accurate and understanding of their overall health, fitness, and readiness to perform.

“The WHOOP bands have been awesome,” Grant said. “It keeps track of heart rate and strain during our workouts, and measures how well we sleep and recover. Each morning we get new data reports on our smartphone apps, so we know how we’re doing. It has been comforting during the pandemic to have a constant monitor watching out for any signs of illness. It certainly has kept us mindful of getting enough sleep.

“It was cool to go back and see what the monitor had to say about our decathlon performances. It’s shows we burned a lot of calories! And not surprisingly, our highest heart rates came at the end of each day with the 400 meter and 1500 meter runs, which due to lack of specific training, we were not prepared for!”

‘Couple's Spirit Award’ Goes to Team Overstake in Worldwide Virtual Masters T&F Challenge