Tech. Sgt. Khalid Mulazim masters life in the fast lanes Published Oct. 23, 2007 By Senior Airman Ann Wilkins Jefferson 910th Airlift Wing Public Affairs YOUNGSTOWN AIR RESERVE STATION, Ohio -- Editor's Note: This is the first in a series of three feature articles focusing on one of the 910th's own, Tech. Sgt. Khalid Mulazim - a military pay technician as well as a teacher, coach, father and triathlete, winning a national championship in track and field. Reservists completing their annual fitness test here might feel a bit intimidated running at the same time as Tech. Sgt. Khalid Mulazim. He's fit - very fit. And he's fast - very, very fast. Then again, running with him could be quite motivating. This summer, Sergeant Mulazim, a 41-year-old military pay technician with the 910th's financial management office, won the men's 400-meter dash for the 40-44 age group at the 2007 U.S.A. Masters Outdoor Track & Field Championships held at the University of Maine this August. He clocked in at 49.9 seconds. Masters competitions take place in 5-year age divisions for individuals and 10-year age divisions for teams. Age divisions begin at age 30 for track and field, and race walking, and at age 40 for long distance running. Adding "national champion" to his many accomplishments is quite a feat when considering everything else Sergeant Mulazim does. Like any success story, he took an interesting path to arrive at his championship race. The fact that Sergeant Mulazim is a masters runner might make his win seem less notable than those in younger age groups. Yet it's probably the contrary. Ironically, he's tried twice unsuccessfully to gain a spot on the All Air Force Track Team, which takes anyone from Active Duty or Reserve. He's just a mere second - one second - off the times of guys on the team just out of high school and college, men half his age. The team can only take two people in an open event like the 400 and uses faster runners in the 200-meter dash to make up relay legs, he said. "The 19- and 20-year-olds were a little faster than me," Sergeant Mulazim said, "but the guys down at Robins said they'd at least keep me in mind." A little faster? One can only imagine what kinds of track times Sergeant Mulazim could have clocked back when he was 19 or 20. Surprisingly, he didn't run track back then. In fact, he didn't train for sprint races until just five years ago. Born and raised in Cleveland, he graduated from John Hay High School and then Ohio University in Athens, earning his bachelor's degree in special education in 1990. He came out of college and began teaching right away. Sergeant Mulazim, 6'2" tall, said that during his high school years, "I always stayed fit, played basketball and football, competed in local bike races." As an adult, he also was into weight lifting at one point, entering body building competitions in Northeast Ohio. But what he never did was run competitively. The extent of it was running a mile every day for a warm-up before lifting weights, he said. Back in college, he was on the verge of being discovered as a sprinter. Once, while dunking basketballs in a gym at OU (he played basketball one year as a walk-on), the school's track coach happened to spot him. Sergeant Mulazim said the coach came over to him and asked if he'd be interested in coming out to the track team as a highjumper, inviting him to the track team's practice the next day. "So I came out, but I was a wimp. They were running 200-meter practices that day, and I thought it was too difficult, so I didn't come back," the sergeant recalled. It wasn't until 1991, a year after college graduation, that Sergeant Mulazim finally began to run for time ... Next issue: The runner emerges from within