A BOLT FROM THE PAST: Don Pellmann, at 100, is still breaking records

SAN DIEGO — Don Pellmann had been at the San Diego Mesa College track for less than an hour Sunday morning and already he had moved his lawn chair twice to remain in the shade, which was receding fast. By the time Pellmann set his fifth age-group world record, in the early afternoon, the temperature on the track was creeping toward 100, which also happens to be the birthday Pellmann celebrated last month.

Pellmann, the most senior athlete in the San Diego Senior Games, became the first centenarian to break 27 seconds in the 100meter dash and the first to clear an official height in the high jump. He also set records for men ages 100 and up in the long jump, shot put and discus.

Wearing baggy shorts and a faded red T-shirt with “Donald Pellmann, Established 1915 Milwaukee, WI” written across the front, he opened his program by trying to become the oldest man, by roughly nine years, to record a height in the pole vault. He dislodged the bar three times at 3 feet 1 inch, which gnawed at him the rest of the day.

“I thought shape,” he said.

The meet volunteers, composed of students from San Diego State’s nursing program and Mesa College’s track team, were awed by Pellmann’s fitness level. They sought him out between his events to express their admiration.

I was in better

“He’s very, very steady on his feet and his posture’s very erect,” said Sarah Provencher, one of the nursing students. “He doesn’t have as much bone and muscle degeneration as others in his age group. You can see he has really maintained his muscles.”

Pellmann said he was a gymnast and a high jumper in his youth. The Depression cut short his athletic career at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, then known as La Crosse State Teachers College. Pellmann said he quit the track team to get a job.

After raising three children with his wife, Marge, who is in her early 90s, Pellmann retired from his job with a General Electric

subsidiary in 1970. At the urging of one of his children, he entered a masters track meet. He did so well that he kept going.

“I’ve been in 127 meets since,” Pellmann said.

Two years had passed since Pellmann’s last competition in the pole vault. He said he used to practice by taking a bamboo stick and jumping into the sand box at a children’s park, but those days are long gone.

“The only time I can practice is at the meets,” lamented Pellmann, who lives with his wife, who is ailing, in an assisted living facility in Santa Clara.

He approached the vaulting pit with trepidation, running cautiously with a pole that he borrowed from Nadine O’Connor, 73, who is also a record-setting masters athlete. O’Connor and her partner, Bud Held, a 1952 Olympian in the javelin, live outside San Diego and hosted Pellmann, whom they got to know on the seniors track circuit.

Held acted as Pellmann’s coach. In the pole vault, he urged him to run faster on his approach, and consoled him each time he knocked down the bar.

“All you’ve got to do is get a little more speed,” Held said.

To conserve his energy, Pellmann limited himself to one mark in the long jump, at 2 feet 6 inches, and then retreated to a closet-size training room off the track. Pellmann had an hour to rest before the 100 meters, his main event.

He did not bother to take off his shoes, which were falling apart. His left sock poked through a hole caused by a bunion.

Pellmann acknowledged he has had the shoes a long time, “but they’re not quite as old as me.”

He was stretched out on a massage table with his eyes closed when Ardy Riego, an athletic trainer at Mesa College, walked in, introduced himself and offered to give Pellmann what turned out to be his first-ever massage.

“I just hope the massage will help me for my 100,” he said. “The 100 meters is why I came here.”

Pellmann had his sights set on the world record for men in the 100-and-over age group, a 29.83 set in 2003, he said, by Japan’s Hidekichi Miyazaki. At home, he said, he has marked off 100 meters on Pacific Drive, the road outside his home at the assisted living facility. At least once a week he sprints the distance and times himself, he said. The other days, he takes long walks.

“I’ve done it in 26 seconds, so I should be able to break the world record,” Pellmann said.

His heat, which included runners in their 70s, was delayed because a woman in the heat before fell midway through the race and had to be helped off the track. All of the other runners crouched into the blocks for the start, but Pellmann stood with his hands on slightly bent knees. At the sound of the starter’s gun, Pellmann took off running. The winner of the heat broke 15 seconds. Pellmann was timed in 26.99.

“That’s what I wanted,” he said.

O’Connor swooped in and guided Pellmann to a spot in the shade. Less than 15 minutes later, she led him to the shot put area.

Pellmann took two throws. His first, which measured 21 feet 6 inches, counted. He scratched on the second when he exited the front of the throwing area instead of the back.

Pellmann’s fifth event, the high jump, was delayed because the official setting up the event had to be treated for heatstroke. The temperature was more than 90 degrees when Pellmann was driven in a cart used to transport hurdles to the other end of the track, where the high jump was set up. One of the other competitors, a man in his 70s, was asked how he practices for the event.

“By jumping onto my bed,” he said.

Pellmann made his first attempt at about 2 feet 5 inches. Held coaxed him to start at that height after Pellmann stated his intention to open at about 3 feet because, as he explained, “If I can’t go 3 feet, I don’t deserve to be considered for a record.”

He cleared the lower height on his first try, and made the second height on his second. It was his fourth world record in about 3 hours. One of the other high jumpers patted him on the shoulder and said, “That ties Jesse Owens’ record for world records in a single day.”

At the 1935 Big Ten track and field Championships, Owens tied the world record in the 100-yard dash and broke the world records in the long jump, the 220-yard dash and the 220 low hurdles in the span of less than an hour.

Pellmann, who was born two years after Owens, set his fifth world record of the day in the discus. He made three throws, and improved his distance each time, ending with a throw of 48.75 meters.

He clung to the netting around the throwing area after his last attempt while catching his breath, then returned to his lawn chair and allowed Riego to apply a bag of ice to the back of his neck. Pellmann asked O’Connor if she would collect his gold medals.

“I’ve had said.

enough,” he