May I Introduce My Book?

Been blogging for over a month, and realize all you really know about my T&F Record Book is its name....with a few paltry clues as to what's IN the book!
So...may I introduce the book?

I began running, and reading Track and Field News magazine, in January 1962.
Being a numbers geek, I soon decided I needed (?) to create my own record book of T&F.
You had various books then that provided coverage of one or another part of the sport--HS, Collegiate, international--but no book (I knew of) that had it ALL.

Long story short, I scanned the pages of T&FN (and the NCAA Guide, and HS Track Annual) and scribbled (w/ cheap pens on cheap lined notebook paper) all the records and marks I could find, creating various categories to keep track (sic!) of them.

There was no women's track then--or at least no coverage of it!---so it was all about the men then.
In addition to what I have now, I had....

state by state HS records (for all 50 states!)
college by college records (best by a UCLA, or Villanova, or Oregon, etc athlete)
road records (for the 5K, 10K, 15K, 10 mile, 20K, etc)

Then I entered hippie life.
Six years ('67-'73) of no running and no deep involvement in T&F.
I somehow lost the book!

So when I re-emerged into LIFE....I re-created my book....from scratch.
And this time, I streamlined it to make it more manageable.
And for the past 40+ years, I've kept up and revised this now-550+ page book!

It's NOT a book....not really.
It's not bound.
It's not typed, and there's no writing, no dust jacket, no photos.
I still do it using BIC pens (Don't like pencils!) and college-rule-lined notebook paper.

I keep it in manila folders.
There are 28 folders.
Seven each for indoor men, indoor women, outdoor men, and outdoor women.
For each grouping, I have 7 categories.
They are:
Miscellaneous
Age Records
Meet Records
National Records
DDD-High School
DDD-Collegiate
DDD-United States and World (both in one folder)

First, let me explain the acronym "DDD".
In the beginning, I wanted a Top 30 list of the top performers for each event.
I chose 30 because college rule lined paper has 32 lines.
So it fit on the page, and was similar to the Top 40 pop radio concept!
But 30 was too large a number.
So I cut it to 25.
Then, for no particular reason, I again cut it....to 24.
Well, DDD stands for "Double Dandy Dozen", as these were now Top 24 (two dozen!) lists!

Category by category (or folder by folder), here's my book:

Miscellaneous:
I keep the folders in order....Men Outdoor, then Women Outdoor, then Men & Women Indoor.
Thus the top folder has more material than the other Miscellaneous folders do.
The contents are:
A long list (3 columns per page, 6 pages) of yard to metric conversions.  (I'm too cheap to buy T&FN's The Big Gold Book!!)
Totals of all the numbers in the entire book (for my own knowledge)
Best Combined Runners (such as fastest combined 100-200 guys, or fastest combined 3000-5000-10000 women)...I have 12 different combinations!
Best Place Marks (Normally goes through 7th place, but more for long distances!)
WR's, CR's, HSR's (Just your normal stuff!)
Class Records (9th through 12th grades in HS, then Frosh to Senior in college)
I do NOT have Best Combined Runners or Best Place Marks in the Indoor sections!

Age Records
Simply, I have individual year age records from 17 through 40, though the two "bookends" are "17 and under" and "40 and over".
These are based on actual birthdates, not just year of birth.
There are no "junior" or "youth" or "masters" records, just the record for Age 28 or Age 33, etc.

Meet Records
Up until just recently, I had VERY strict standards for inclusion of marks here.
Too much work otherwise!!  (I don't get paid for this!)
But I've loosened the restrictions recently, so more records will be included.
However, not every meet is covered.
Many of the "lesser" (non-DL) meets aren't in here, especially those in Europe,  even if a WR was set there!
But I have LOTS of meets, and LOTS of records!

National Records
Same as with Meet Records!
Had tough restrictions, but have now loosened them.
But this book deals with the "elites", so you won't find any 32:00 Men's 10K's from the Tongan Islands in here, or whatever!

The DDD's
Explained (somewhat) above.
My Top 24 Performers lists....for most events.
Again, I'm expanding (somewhat) my lists.
I'm adding the indoor 600 and 2000 (the latter because of some important races coming up!), and the HS Girls Pentathlon.
Right now, still in the process of expanding these, I've limited the 600 and 2000 lists to just ONE dozen, mainly because there's not many races at these distances.
NOT included are the Indoor 55's--See my earlier post on this subject!-- 300, 500, or Men's Heptathlon.
And NO Walks or Relays lists!
The HS and Collegiate lists are in separate folders.
I put the World and USA in the same folder (World 1st, USA under it) in order to better visually see where the USA stands in the World!
So those folders are the "fattest"!!

Now you've been introduced to my Track and Field Record Book.

The next post WILL be all about the records (or marks that made it into my book!!) set this weekend, and a few others I've missed.
This post will be up by Monday morning, less than 36 hours from now.

One more thing.
My sources for finding these marks include:
Track and Field News magazine and website.
Track Newsletter and eTN, both published by T&FN.
Athletics Annual, a book edited by Peter Matthews.
USATF Media Guide and FAST Annual.
High School Track, an annual put out by Jack Shepard.
Twitter!!
Lists provided by MileSplit and a Collegiate site (Can't recall its name right now!).
Anywhere or Anybody that provides the needed information!!

I thank you all!!

See you soon!