You need to learn the difference between fact and opinion. But to answer your question, I often go on vacations. I'd rather not go camping, skiing or fishing. But when I have camped I've always run as I do on vacations. What's so hard about that?
You need to learn the difference between fact and opinion. But to answer your question, I often go on vacations. I'd rather not go camping, skiing or fishing. But when I have camped I've always run as I do on vacations. What's so hard about that?
IMO, you are all looking at this thing the wrong way. My whole intent on asking the question of Pete was to find out what he did to be able to run so fast at such an age when the science says otherwise. It looks to me like it's all about putting in the hard work, rest, recovery and using your brain. Pete is just a man who believes he can do it. The genetic theory is way overblown. We all need to make the sacrifices to get where we want to be. I'm not saying throw your family under the bus because you have to make time for running.... what I am saying is that what we all know down deep after years of experience. Nothing in life is free... you have to work hard to get it. Pete, Tony, Dennis, and all the other phenom masters are all guys who have made the choice to want to kick ass and see what's possible.
what the hell--it's friday, so i'll jump in on this thread:
1) pete magill and tony young are freaks of nature. their children are/will be too.
2) i have 4 kids, but, by coaching at my oldest son's high school, i kill two birds with one stone: i get in a workout by running with the team and i can hang out with my son (a 4:32 miler as a freshman) when appropriate. i'm lucky i can still beat him, but my days are numbered.
3) i feel, in all honesty, that i could be the first american master to break 4 in the mile. i just don't care. yeah, maybe that's a copout, but i'm really still happy i can keep up with my son, even though he's 26 years younger than me, and, on occasion, keep up with pete, even though he's 6 years older than me.
4) my oldest daughter also runs--she's 12, and she runs about a 5:20 mile. my years of selfishly staying fit apparently have paid some dividends by having kids who value fitness and hardwork. a sound body = a sound mind.
5) my younger son (11) plays soccer and i make over 80% of his games (as a coach at my older son's hs, i miss some of the saturday games). he's not very good--he must've got the slow mailman genes--but he's the coolest kid i know.
6) my youngest daughter (7) will try softball this year. god grant me the patience to sit through her games, where i will occasionally scorekeep.
7) my wife is a hot 43 year old who can still run a sub-19 5k. life is good.
that's my story and i'm sticking to it.
Good grief, is this thing still going on?!
And I see that it's mostly being kept alive by trolls like Longtimegone who somehow - miraculously, moronically, with the self-awareness of stones at the bottom of a very deep, very dark, very still pond - fail to note the hypocrisy of calling out the pathetic lives of masters runners by (get this ... snicker, snicker) spending their own time posting on running message boards.
Trolls, a word of advice: look up the word "pathetic," face mirror, repeat said word aloud as a means of introduction.
Life is great. Life is good. And life can be lived a hundred ways. A thousand. And yet still end up good.
Anyone out there who carries a checklist and thinks that said checklist is the one and only way to achieve an honorable, fulfilling, enriching, and adrenaline-fueled life, another word of advice: throw away the list. You haven't lived much of a life if you think there is one rule, one path, one answer to the call this world sends out to the living.
I hitchhiked the country in my teens. Traveled the world in my early 20s. Owned a rock 'n' roll bar in the Caribbean in my mid-20s. Started up an "online" business before most people knew what an "internet" was. Went broke a half-dozen times before most of the posters on this board were born. Wrote scripts for Hollywood in my 30s. Sold mortgages when my scripts stopped selling in my 40s. Smoked 4 packs of cigarettes at one time of my life. Drank so hard that my hands never stopped shaking from the time I woke up until happy hour. Put so much cola up my nose that I lost my sense of smell for most of a decade. I've made love with more women than most of our young trolls have had kisses - have made love in more countries than our trolls have had birthdays. I've read thousands of books, seen hundreds of movies, attended dozens of plays. And argued politics with socialists in New Zealand, communists in Soho, and Capitalists in France. I've been strip-searched on an airplane runway in India. Nearly raped by crazy Mormons outside of Provo. Shot at with guns. Stabbed. And involved in more fistfights than there are days of the year. I've hung and partied with and been friends with Hollywood stars, renowned poets, famous musicians, mortgage brokers, carpenters, cooks, dishwashers, and bums in the back alleys of Bourbon Street. I've trained 100 miles a week and set masters records. And I've spent days and nights in jails and ERs and the grubbiest places imaginable.
And the happiest I've ever been - far happier than at any other time of my life - has been these past few years: running my miles, raising my son, getting a steady paycheck, and waking every day to the promise of a beautiful new day.
Those of you who wonder what kind of a life a 40+ year-old can lead when running 100 miles a week ... Well, that made me laugh, because I always wondered what kind of life a young person could lead running that kind of mileage.
I wondered how you could trade tasting the juice of life's fruit for the fatigue and monotony of pounding the pavement.
But if that's the life a young person wants, so be it.
And if this is the life I want, well then excuse me - excuse all of us - if we don't give your counter-advice much credence.
Because this is the one thing I know: people who truly live their lives experience a world so large, so filled with variety and possibility and divergent life paths, that they could no more judge the validity of anyone else's life than they could pick a single star in the sky and marvel at only it.
I love, admire, and respect all my fellow masters runners - not for their race times or their mileage or their success as parents or employees - but simply because for now, for this one moment, we are all traveling a path together. And if I don't feel that way about the people I'm traveling with, then what does that say about my own journey? No, I choose this path, and I choose to honor the men and women who walk along, ahead, beside, and behind me.
It's hard to build a beautiful sand castle on the shore. Any fool can knock one down.
OK, OK, now that you've had your say, you can go back to your buttoned-down conservative powder-blue Oxford-sweater-wearing respectable-house-in-the-suburbs respectable-car-in-the-driveway 2.5-kids elementary-teacher-wife God-fearing crucifix-shaking finger-pointing narrow-minded paranoid insecure inferiority-complex existence, and leave the real men to do what real men do and chase their dreams.
For many people, running that much as a Master is too singularly focused but there's nothing wrong with it if that's what makes you happy. I certainly agree with that.
Radical Ron: I have to disagree with you on genetics. You need superior genetics to run 14:30 as a Master. Hard work alone won't do it. I'm a guy who can run about 17 flat for 5K on 60mpw. Do you think I could drop 2 whole minutes if I could manage 40mpw more? Let's be real. I might get to 16:30 or 16:15, but that's the limit. I simply don't have that talent.
Pete: Your story is amazing. I had heard a little of it before. But just one piece of advice, if I may: Don't be so harsh on people just because they post on a messageboard. You clearly keep reading this thread and read letsrun on a regular basis, yet people who post things you don't agree with are pathetic? So what if this thread is still going. It interests people. This is just a virtual conversation. If we were all in the same room we could have a similar conversation, although we'd surely be more civil and less sarcastic with one another.
wow. pete i have been impressed by your running for quite a few years but your story amazes me. thank you for your post. thank you for your authenticity. thank you for honoring runners slow and fast. and honoring people who are with you on your journey and those who will never understand your journey. if i ever have a chance to say hello and thank you it will be my humble honor.
Quite simply, this is the greatest post I have ever seen at letsrun:
Nearly raped by crazy Mormons?
SB, I love you Man! :)
It's not the disagreement that seems pathetic. If someone thinks a half hour a day is all they can or want to do that's their business.
It's the smug certainty that they and only they are doing it all right and that anyone who is more ambitious towards their running than they are must be doing at the expense of some other more important part of life.
SoCal Pete,
your life story would be worth making into a movie!!!
have any of your scripts been made in movies?
"nearly raped by crazy mormons outside of Provo", scares the hell out of him about going to Utah
[quote]AK-50 wrote:
Put it this way, no doubt the extra work pays off, but there really aren't that many 45+ yr olds out there doing more than 60 mpw, and other things do get in the way, but doing 60, 80, 100 mpw at 45, 55, or 65 is not the same thing as when you are in you 20s.
In terms of the time it takes to run it,60mpw is more or less the same at any age. I'd agree that not many 45 year olds are doing more than 60mpw; but, for the most part, they're not because they have ALLOWED "other things to get in the way", which is exactly the same reason not many 25 year olds are running more than 60mpw. (I say for the most part because I grant that there are a minority of cases, like mine, where it's become physically impossible to handle much more running). To refer to "other things getting in the way" is just another way of repeating the claim about lack of time, which I don't buy. In North America, most people of any age are probably doing a dozen or more unessential activities for which 20-30 more minutes of running a day could easily be substituted. I wouldn't judge them for doing whatever they choose to do instead of running, but I would challenge them when they claim "there is no time to run more" in some absolute sense. And, I would tell them off (as many have already done here) if they were to imply that those who run more instead of doing whatever it is THEY choose to do with their discretionary time are somehow suspect as human beings. If a person doesn't want to be the best they can be at running at any age, fine, but they shouldn't make excuses for themselves or cast aspersions on those who DO want to be as good as they can, particularly on a website that was established in part to celebrate this lifestyle.
Also, to address the subject of the post again, I'd suggest that what makes a guy like Pete remarkable is not his 14:34 in itself. That he can run this fast at 47 is largely a matter or genetics. What IS remarkable, and should be celebrated by other masters, and runners in general, is that he can still run within probably 30-45 secs of what would have been his lifetime best. THIS, I would argue, CAN be explained in terms of his passion and hard work. There are those of you who may say "no matter how hard I worked I couldn't run 14:34 at age 47". This may be true, but how many of you think you're running as close as Pete is to your all time best, or potential best, at this age? And how many of you regardless of age think you're getting as much out of your own ability as a guy like Pete is getting out of his? We can't all be Pete Magill in terms of actual performance, but we can all learn from his example when it comes to getting the most out of our ability, which is really what this sport is all about for the vast majority of us, regardless of age.
Excellent post. Very inspirational.
Your post challenges all runners to look deep within and to be honest and reflective and to stop making excuses.
Steve, hope to see you next Friday at RMC.
Also, to address the subject of the post again, I'd suggest that what makes a guy like Pete remarkable is not his 14:34 in itself. That he can run this fast at 47 is largely a matter or genetics. What IS remarkable, and should be celebrated by other masters, and runners in general, is that he can still run within probably 30-45 secs of what would have been his lifetime best. THIS, I would argue, CAN be explained in terms of his passion and hard work. There are those of you who may say "no matter how hard I worked I couldn't run 14:34 at age 47". This may be true, but how many of you think you're running as close as Pete is to your all time best, or potential best, at this age? And how many of you regardless of age think you're getting as much out of your own ability as a guy like Pete is getting out of his? We can't all be Pete Magill in terms of actual performance, but we can all learn from his example when it comes to getting the most out of our ability, which is really what this sport is all about for the vast majority of us, regardless of age.
I agree with most of you comments ,and i certainly admire SOCALPETE et all .However the issue regarding fulfiling ones potential i feel must have a few provisos.
As one ages and acquire certain obligations and responsibilities i believe your potential is based around this as a whole and not just the physical.
What i mean by this is if you carry out your Must dos in your life (Work Kids etc) and then train as hard as you can around this (In my case this would top out at around 50 mpw)
then the results you achieve are your what i would call you REAL life potential.
Socalpete etc have the one thing that the rest of us do not have and that is their best is the best in the world.
Now to me that is worth some extra sacrifice.
However,to run as i do 18 min for 5k of 1hour every other day ,i do not have the motivation to hit 100mpw for at best 17 mins.
I and i feel a lot of other runners are running to our potential within our environment,we should be proud of ourselves.
I do not and cannot aspire to the likes of Socalpete ,they have been lucky in the genetic lottery but what i do respect is that they are using their luck to the maximum.
i think i just shed a tear. as a 26 year old, sitting in a cubicle on a saturday, that was inspiring!
Skuj wrote:
Quite simply, this is the greatest post I have ever seen at letsrun:
One thing we surely have learned from this thread:
if you run fast, people WILL kiss your ass!
i have a theory wrote:
However,to run as i do 18 min for 5k of 1hour every other day ,i do not have the motivation to hit 100mpw for at best 17 mins.
I and i feel a lot of other runners are running to our potential within our environment,we should be proud of ourselves.
I do not and cannot aspire to the likes of Socalpete ,they have been lucky in the genetic lottery but what i do respect is that they are using their luck to the maximum.
how do you know 17 is as fast as you can go? have you ever tried? sounds like you live an uninspiring life.
and you justify your mediocre existence by denouncing SoCal Pete's acomplishments as blind luck of the genetic lottery.
pathetic.
Oh, come on now. Don't you want to extricate yourself from the scum at the bottom of your pond?
Best in Show wrote:
[quote]
One thing we surely have learned from this thread:
if you run fast, people WILL kiss your ass!