BREAKING! Steve Spence runs 4:55 and continues his sub5 steak to 42 years.

Dang that is a solid double! I was in 5.13+/4:40mile shape in my 40s but never tried the same day. I did run 2:11 and RP'd 13d age 50, months apart. I climb out west, and hopefully I am about a week from my first 14a, age 60.

southeasternClimber wrote:

Far Gone wrote:

This is great. I was a minute per mile slower in the marathon than Steve and am now a minute slower in the mile. I doubt it comes too easy for him nowadays. The dude has a sweet stride for an older gent.

My personal streak is 26 years of climbing the 5.13 grade. Not near as long but then again 5.13 didn't even exist 40 years ago when I took the sport up. Also I didn't climb my first 5.13 until I was 34.

As a climber/runner i like that 5.13 streak! Where do you climb mostly? I had a dream of breaking 15 and sending 5.14 in the same day. The closest i got was 16.04/13c.

Just awesome.

My streak is 24 years (1993-2017), and can't imagine 42 years!!!

If he wants to claim being the 55 year old miler in the US he needs to race those guys, not time trial with 5 20 year olds pacing him for the entire distance.

Race or stfu wrote:

If he wants to claim being the 55 year old miler in the US he needs to race those guys, not time trial with 5 20 year olds pacing him for the entire distance.

when did he ever make that claim?

I had 41 years; my streak ended at the age that Steve Spence is now. It was nice to feel like I was in a competition with someone of his caliber. Maybe he can join Nolan Shaheed, the only person who's broken 5:00 over age 60.

Week Turnbull broke 5 at 65 for the age group world record. I am guessing dozens have broken 5 at 60+.

UCI XC wrote:

I had 41 years; my streak ended at the age that Steve Spence is now. It was nice to feel like I was in a competition with someone of his caliber. Maybe he can join Nolan Shaheed, the only person who's broken 5:00 over age 60.

Race or stfu wrote:

If he wants to claim being the 55 year old miler in the US he needs to race those guys, not time trial with 5 20 year olds pacing him for the entire distance.

I assume you meant to have "best" in there? It's funny how people add their own ideas to someone else. All Spence does is run a mile on the track each year in under five minutes and pass news of the result along. I've never seen any claims from him about the significance of his streak. Why would you assume he's claiming to be the best (if you really did just miss the word) 55 year old miler in the US?

Super impressive

Spence's record is remarkable because of his consistency. It's not about how he compares with the best runners his age; it's about his ability to hit a mark that's meaningful to most runners (who doesn't remember their first sub-5?!) year after year after year. Anyone Steve's age (I'm 56) knows how frustrating it is to discover how easily we injure and how long the recovery process becomes once we enter the masters-age arena. Personally, after struggling six years with one injury--and not being able to run a single lap at sub-75 seconds at age 53--I had to take a year off to rebuild my body just so that I could run at all. Every masters runner I know has similar stories. Whether it's the Achilles, the knees, the hips, the fill-in-the-blank, we all have long periods of downtime when we wonder whether we'll ever run again--let alone run well. And then there's this Energizer Bunny, Steve Spence, cranking out his sub-5 year after year. He was a great runner back in the day. He's a great runner still.

Time trials don't count, sorry wrote:

He can't claim the streak because most of his sub 5 miles were not achieved in actual races. They were unofficial time trials, timed and paced by athletes he coaches,

He did achieve this years sub 5 in a race though. It was still paced by his athletes though.

It's like someone claiming a streak of sub 3 hour marathon from on a training runs.

Now, who really has the streak of the most sub 5s?

When he does time trials though, he makes it public event and invites anyone to watch. Athletes from the Ship track team are usually there to pace and it's usually filmed. Nonetheless, no one said it had the be in a race for it to count though, Spence just wants to see how many years he can run sub-5.

I think it's a safe guess that the oldest living person ever has that already...

Begs the question, who has the longest streak of sub 5 minute miles in actual official competition and properly timed.

This is like receiving a participation medal for someone of his background.

The struggle is when you train hard to run fast and trying to stay healthy. He can basically jog a few miles a day like he does and break 5 minutes. This is a joke

Congratulations! Pretty impressive.

You're right about Turnbull--I was looking at indoor, which Shaheed holds at 4:50.95. (65-9 is 5:11.43 by Frank Condon.) I don't think you're going to find too many more under 5:00 at age 60+, though; those guys were both outliers.

No, it's not a joke. Please read SoCal Pete's comment, the sentiment of which I'll bet you'll find corroborated by any serious runner over 50:

Spence's record is remarkable because of his consistency. It's not about how he compares with the best runners his age; it's about his ability to hit a mark that's meaningful to most runners (who doesn't remember their first sub-5?!) year after year after year. Anyone Steve's age (I'm 56) knows how frustrating it is to discover how easily we injure and how long the recovery process becomes once we enter the masters-age arena. Personally, after struggling six years with one injury--and not being able to run a single lap at sub-75 seconds at age 53--I had to take a year off to rebuild my body just so that I could run at all. Every masters runner I know has similar stories. Whether it's the Achilles, the knees, the hips, the fill-in-the-blank, we all have long periods of downtime when we wonder whether we'll ever run again--let alone run well. And then there's this Energizer Bunny, Steve Spence, cranking out his sub-5 year after year. He was a great runner back in the day. He's a great runner still.

allrightythen wrote:

This is like receiving a participation medal for someone of his background.

Have to agree, it's his former marathon pace.

I don't know what my top marathon pace would have been if I'd been a serious marathoner, but I can't imagine I'd have much trouble retaining the ability to go the same pace over 4% of the distance for many years afterward.

He's able to run it whenever he's ready, conditions are perfect with pacemakers the entire way and hand timed by his buddies. Totally lame!

Let's see him aim for a decent race and run man on man against competition. No rabbits, getting clipped, running wide, in the heat and wind, etc.

If you look at the more internationally relevant 1500 equivalent of 4:38, about 30 x M60 men have done so, or about one a year at current standards.http://www.mastersathletics.net/fileadmin/html/Rankings/All_Time/1500metresmen.htm

UCI XC wrote:

You're right about Turnbull--I was looking at indoor, which Shaheed holds at 4:50.95. (65-9 is 5:11.43 by Frank Condon.) I don't think you're going to find too many more under 5:00 at age 60+, though; those guys were both outliers.