A GOLDEN ERA

LHATI, FINLAND – As a runner in the 110m hurdles stands in the starting line of a world championship race, there is a lot going through their mind.

They must stay stretched and warm. They must explode out of the starting blocks as quickly as possible to get a great start. They envision staying low to the hurdles while keeping their timing as the land and prepare for the next.

Mike Godbout, a Red Oak native, had that focus Aug. 6, when he ran for the United States track team, and won the gold.

In 1987, Mike Godbout was the first Red Oak Tiger to win the state championship in any hurdling event winning the 110m with a time of 15.07 seconds.

He continued his education and track career at Simpson College where he was a six-time All-American between 1989-1991.

Godbout currently holds the college’s record in the 55m hurdles (7.56 seconds) and in the 110 hurdles (14.33 seconds).

After Simpson, Godbout continued training to better his times and hopefully qualify for the Olympic Games in Atlanta, Ga.

He hit a provisional qualifying mark to try to make the national team when he had an accident while training and fractured his elbow.

“After my injury, there wasn’t much left to do,” Godbout explains his exit from track and field. “By the next Olympics I would have been 31 years-old and knew I wouldn’t be able to train and compete at the elite level that I would need to.”

Godbout quietly departed from competitive track-and-field and went on to marry, have a couple children and find work as a firefighter with the Council Bluffs Fire Department.

“I had to pay the bills. Find a job with benefits,” Godbout said. “I turned the page and started a family.”

In 2007, Western Iowa Community College started their track-and-field team, and asked Godbout if he would help with the team.

Being on the track everyday was an easy transition for Godbout to start training again.

“I had some friends of mine tell me about the Masters Athletics,” Godbout said. “I was already starting to run in a few races here and there, and I saw that my times were still pretty competitive.”

The Masters Athletics program hosts national and international competitions for athletes over the age of 35.

Every two years, the Masters Athletics holds their world championships, this year in Lhati, Finland.

“I had heard that they were competing in 2009, so that was a pretty good goal to set,” Godbout said of the world championships. “I immediately went back to my training mentality that I had in 1996. I quickly found out my body couldn’t do that. I had to learn to allow myself to recover.”

Godbout adapted his training from 1996 to what he could do today. He worked on his strength in weight training, and did speed training both sprinting and hurdling. The biggest difference in his training now was to include cross-training (low-impact workouts) that incorporated swimming and running on the elliptical to help his body recover.

After a year of training and running races throughout the U.S., Godbout competed in the U.S. Masters Outdoor Track and Field Championship meet in Oshkosh, Wis.

Godbout beat the former world champion with a 14.57-second time in the men’s 40-45 year-old 110m hurdles.

Finally, Godbout would dawn the colors of his country and compete at the world championship.

“For me, I always wanted that U.S.A. uniform,” Godbout said. “The morning of my race was the first time I actually put everything on. I put my warm-ups on, the red, white, and blue warm-ups. I put on my credentials and looked up in the mirror. To be wearing the colors of your country is quite the experience. It was pretty humbling.”

Godbout ran a 14.32-second race wearing the U.S.A. across his chest and won the gold medal.

As he stood on the top of the podium, Godbout listened to the “Star Spangled Banner” and just grinned.

“I was awed,” Godbout said about standing on the podium. “I was just glad that it all came together after all the training and travel. I couldn’t stop grinning.”

Godbout’s time was the eighth fastest time for anyone over the age of 40 in track-and-field history.

He also won the silver medal in the men’s 4x100m relay, being edged by the Italians for gold.

The next Masters World Championship will be in 2011 in Sacramento, Calif.

“There’s a target on my back now,” Godbout said of returning to defend his title. “This season, I’d like to run some hurdle races in the spring. I have my U.S.A. uniform now. I’d like to ride that wave for a little while. Then in 2011, we’ll see.”