John Beale, Post-Gazette Dorothy haskins gets a hug from Aaron Comerchero after winning a preliminary heat in the 100-meter dash. Click photo for larger image.

As soon as Dorothy Haskins crossed the 100-meter finish line Wednesday, eyes stayed stuck on her as she grimaced and walked off the burn.

She didn't just win her heat. The 66-year-old former math teacher from Colorado Springs, Colo., was worth staring at: ironing board stomach, ramrod posture, rippling upper arm muscles and beautifully tapered legs.

If you've never ogled a senior citizen before, the sprints at the Summer National Senior Games provide a great opportunity. Track and field continues this weekend and next week at Gesling Stadium at Carnegie Mellon University.

The holder of three world records and 20 national titles in Master's track, Bob Lida of Wichita, Kans., strolls like a teenager, his arms swinging, his baggy Jayhawks warm-up shorts flapping at his knees. Faster than any man in his age group at the Summer National Senior Games so far, he competes this morning in the 400-meter final.

He has a boyish face, a boyish grin and his final kick is so fierce that his face at the finish looks like it has cling-wrap pulled over it.

Once you decide to believe Lida is almost 69 -- and having seen Haskins -- sprinting suddenly looks like a great idea.

These Games have sent many remarkable physical specimens flying down the track in flimsy shorts and skin-tight body suits, and the reasons aren't secret. Connie Bayles, an exercise physiologist who directs the University of Pittsburgh Center for Healthy Aging, said a sprinter holds his breath, and this oxygen deprivation makes for a wild burn of energy later on.

Sprinting kicks the metabolic rate through the roof and keeps it going. Former Olympic champions Donovan Bailey and Mark McKoy claim the metabolism churns for days, not just hours; the distance runner gets the metabolic benefit only during his run.

In addition, high-intensity exercise gets athletes in better shape, literally, sculpting the body.

"It's exciting," said Bayles. "They are truly inspirational, because most of these people have had a medical or health issue. Once you reach 50-plus, you have had an issue: high blood pressure, cholesterol, cancer, something, and the misconception among the general public is that these people are different than they are. It's like an excuse."

Haskins had a medical setback in her 30s, when, after an injury, an orthopedist put her in a back brace and told her she would never do anything strenuous again. She had two young children at the time.

"Doing nothing was not in my life plan," she said disdainfully. "Two weeks out of the brace, I bought a bicycle." She also started distance running but says now distance wasn't a good fit. While also body-building using free weights, she began sprinting.

Haskins ran in the 100-meter final yesterday and came in fifth. She described herself as "pretty disappointed," but many people were happy to see her run again.

Lida, who sprinted as a student at the University of Kansas, returned to the track at 40, training with marathoners and running three himself. During the fourth, he seized up, his arch torqued and he couldn't recover. For the next 20 years, he ran his own advertising firm and raised a family with his second wife.

At 60, he said, "I decided to see if I could make an old body run again." He returned to his old love, the sprint, notably the 400-meter run.

"I love to compete. I feel good and have lots of energy. My goal every year is to see if I can run as fast as the year before."

He won his 100-meter heat in 13.23 seconds Wednesday. He won the 100 meter final in 13.06 seconds. He will compete today in the 400-meter final.

In spite of all their beauty, most senior sprinters pull up at the finish puffing like trains. Some wear support hose to the knees and some are a little bent at the shoulders, with age spots and pigment changes and little notches from a dermatologist's scalpel. But, if you look in their faces, even those who look very old have that glimmer that says something miraculous just happened.

One wonders: Could I possibly look like that at 66, 69, 75?

"Sprinting is such good exercise," said Lida, "I wonder why everyone doesn't do it." He paused. "Well, I do know why ... there's the pain."