Frank Shorter Joins us LIVE Tuesday 6:30 eastern to Celebrate 50 Year Anniversary of 1972 Olympic Gold - Submit Your Qs

Thanks for having him on Weldon, it'll be awesome! I've met him a few times, always super nice and approachable.

You continued seriously racing on the track during much of the same time period you were a world class marathoner, even at the Olympics. What are your thoughts regarding athletes abandoning the 5k and especially the 10k on the track to concentrate on the marathon? Is this really a smart approach? Are they doing it too early in their careers? Is it beneficial strategically, or is it simply money driven?

How good of a marathoner do you think Pre would of been?

1. Thank you, part 1. My friend and I ran next to you in the 1995 Chicago Distance Classic 20K and annoyed the heck out of you. You were very nice to us, even when I told you that you were wrong about a detail in your life (based on my reading of your bio). When we asked you whether we were annoying you with our incessant talking at 6:00 pace, you responded "At least you are aerobic."

2. Thank you, part 2. My Marathon is a life-changing book. You were a hero of mine when all I knew was your story as a runner. Your story as a person made you another level hero and inspiration for many.

3. Why were you such a good heat runner? Just natural? Was it from running in Florida all those years? Did your heat tolerance decline when you started running Colorado and no longer faced the humidity?

4. How can we be certain that any running champion ever is clean? Besides yourself, who else can you be certain is clean? Maybe Bikila and earlier because EPO, etc. not available? Was the last clean Olympic marathon winner (to a certainty) in 1972?

Of your training partners, who do you prefer better as a writer, John L. Parker, Jr., or Kenny Moore?

Yikes! I failed to include Erich Segal (although perhaps not a training partner).

Your bro brought up a story on here earlier this year about Shorter's pre-race ritual from Yale. Please get him to confirm.

How fast could you have gone, on a 2022 flat course back in day?

Fast in the 70s was 2:09; things progressed rapidly ten years later. Could you see 2:08 or 2:07 from you (or anyone else) from 71-76?

When is the next reworking of your autobiography coming out? Of the various versions already published, which do you consider the best?

Did you ever read the "Did Shorter kill Pre?" thread while it was up on Letsrun?

It's great that this is happening.

I don't have question, just a memory to share.

Back in 1972, at age 14, I sat in front of the TV set for pretty much the whole length of Shorter's marathon, fascinated. I wasn't a runner at that point, just a JHS soccer halfback who loved to run. I'd never been to a track meet, although I'd surely seen a race or two on ABC's "Wide World of Sports." But watching that race, riveted to the couch by the slowly unspooling two-hours-plus drama, changed my life.

Later that day, I collared my dad. "Dad!" I shouted. "We're going for a run down at Rockland Lake!"

It wasn't anything we'd ever done, but he was game. Rockland Lake State Park was a mile from our house in Congers, NY. I laced up my Keds, he put on whatever sneaks he wore. (We called 'em sneaks back then.) And he drove us down to the parking lot by the lake. I have a memory of us stretching briefly, saying "You ready?," then taking off together and slap-slap-slapping on the macadam.

Of course we started off too fast. Of course we slowed, puffed, and then grunted something about getting our "second wind." Nobody in my world had the faintest idea how to do a proper distance run. It was always about hurting early, slowing, then somehow stabilizing enough to "hold on."

The running revolution hadn't yet taken place. But Frank's epic victory was the jet fuel that pushed me out of the house, down to the lake, and out and back that blacktop, dragging my dad along with me. That's what heroes do. They inspire us like that. We probably ran half a mile out and half a mile back. But it was a start, and I've never stopped.

When I get back to Rockland County, as I did earlier this summer, I always take a run or two down at Rockland Lake. At 64, I'm in infinitely better shape than the 14 year old I was. I'll often run three laps, nine miles total, and I've got fifty years of knowledge about how to pace sustaining me when I do.

Frank changed my life, and the lives of countless others, by winning that race. I can never repay him for that. Thanks, Frank.

I was just starting out as a runner in '72 when you won the Olympics, and was many years from my first marathon, but your victory was one of my great inspirations and led to a lifetime of running and racing. Thank you for being such a deserving champion!
I recall in the mid- to late 70's you ran an indoor 2-mile somewhere on the West Coast and beat a bunch of milers and 5k specialists. As you beat all these competitors Rod Dixon called you something like a "track rat", which to this day seems like one of the highest compliments i've ever heard.

Did you follow Burrito Gate at all? Thoughts on it and status of greater antidoping movement now and going forward?

What made you turn that doorknob every day?

Frank's recent battles with "father time" and what he does to stay fit these days.

Great story.
I was a few years younger. Frank Shorter was the first Marathon runner I knew. I always felt sorry for him that a German student stole his show running into the area first. When Shorter came in, people where still booing for the imposer.

Hi Frank. Did you cut weight for the Olympic race? In photos you looked skinnier in Munich than you did in college.

1. Which event(s) (track or non-track) did you most enjoy spectating at the '72 Games?

2. Which memory outside your own race was the most enjoyable?

3. In your opinion, what could the Olympics do to increase viewership and interest, particularly in the U.S.?

Like KudzuRunner, I don't have a question, just comments and thank you's. Back in college in the 1970s, as a poor student, I wrote to Frank and enclosed a check for ONE WHOLE DOLLAR! In the accompanying letter, I think I mentioned that it was all I could spare (the honest truth!), and that I hoped the money would go toward his training. (Maybe not so secretly, I also hoped he'd cash the check -- and endorse it with his signature, so that I’d acquire the signature when my bank returned the cancelled check to me, as they did in those days).

Months later what did I receive in the mail? A signed photo of Frank running, plus the same check, signed, but with "VOID" written across it.

Well, Frank, thanks for that thoughtful gesture on your part back around 1976 or 1977. I could send you a little more than $1 now for training, though my guess is that you'd still not cash the check but also still send me a photo.

Apology for coming off as selfish and obnoxious back then; it sure must have seemed like that!

Thanks, also, to the BroJos for bringing us tomorrow's interview.

Lastly, I collected the Life magazine with Frank on the cover – running the marathon in the ’72 Olympics. A few years back I gave that magazine, plus a poster bought via Track & Field News, to an up-and-coming Illinois high school runner. Yes, he was naturally talented, but so are lots of high school runners, who, for one reason or another (including injuries), don’t take it to the next level. I can say with assurance that this young runner was supercharged by the Shorter items, and he has blossomed as a runner and set some lofty distance PRs in more recent times. Now a professional runner, he met Frank over a year ago.

These are examples of how Frank has positively influenced others -- not just the high and mighty in the sport, but also plodders like me.