Do retired elites keep running and stay in shape?

I heard that the "retired" Steve Moneghetti on Saturdays would get up early and run 🏃from his house across town (Melbourne, Ballarat etc) to the children's athletics where he would help out. When that was finished if there was a senior meet on there he would stay and race in the seniors 🏃 say a 3k or if he had athletes he was helping to coach he would run across town to another track 🏃and even take part in the rep sessions🏃. He would then run home 🏃. He was doing 3-4 of my normal days in one day and he was supposed to be retired.

You realise that Ballarat to Melbourne is something like 120km? Not sure what "Melbourne, Ballarat etc" is meant to mean but it seems extremely unlikely that he gets up and runs 120km to get to Little Athletics on a Saturday morning.

I put something to similar to this on the 70's thread about elites and some one them maybe destroying their immune systems, as some have mentioned. I was never elite, maybe not even sub at 2:32. I guess maybe just an LSD type runner, who preferred to just run everyday and not worry about hammering every mile.Maybe I didn't have that killer instinct to hammer. I was into 100+ mile stuff from 78 to 84 but stopped that and just ran everyday but no more marathons, a lot of 5K and 10K races. I am now into my 5th decade, actually 6th if you count 69 when I was a soph in HS and started running XC. I guess it was moderation but a lot of miles. I just keep it going.

My coach broke 14 in the 5k and ran sub 2:20 for the marathon. He's in his 50's-60s and can still run fairly easily at sub 7 minute pace.

Martin Fiz has run 2:26 at age 53, and won his age group in a few big city marathons.

Lynn Jennings runs most days a week on mostly trails and is also big into road cycling (doing centuries and week-long trips) as well as single sculling. Still very fit. Last year she hiked a month in the Swiss and French alps.

thisguy wrote:

Former D1, sub 13:50 guy. I enjoyed competing, not running for the sake of it. Don't miss it at all. I do trail runs sporadically with a friend, but have zero motivation to run on my own. I can finally play soccer, tennis, and other sports without worrying about injury.

This kind of sums up where I'm starting to get to. I enjoy running, but I find it hard to motivate myself to get out the door without meeting someone else. Or if I do get myself out the door, my runs are at 8+ minute pace. 4 years ago, I had no issues running 90+ mile weeks with a lot of runs at 6:45 pace.

At the same time though, those days I don't want to run, I have no issues getting on my bike and going for a 75-90 minute ride

I feel like there's a hard balance. I love competing and want to remain competitive, but I also love doing other things. But I've come to accept I'll never run a 2:33 or 1:11 again and that running in the 2:40's and mid to upper 70's for a half is perfectly fine off of 50-70 miles a week.

Kid running after kipchoge wrote:

In general, do elites that have retired keep running (obviously less) and stay in a reasonable shape for their caliber (like 15 minutes for 5k or 30 for 10k)?

Or they retire completely and don't run at all, being sick of it?

I would say its about 50/50. The more elite you are, the more likely you are to stop running completely for a couple of years. They will usually start back after a couple doing some recreational running. I know Olympic medalists who are after their last race, who for 10 years would jog mailbox. A lot of times what brings them back doing some running is the get into coaching or their kids start running. Another factor is health. The average person putting on 50 pounds in adulthood is perhaps not to big of a deal, but going from 150 to 200 in your mid-30s within a couple years will quickly bring on T2 diabetes. A lot of sub-elites will often continue running mostly in local road races and/or transition to triathlons, etc.

Goucher looks like he could break 27 for a 5k Turkey Trot....

https://twitter.com/adam_goucher/status/911379870164422657

The Blacks wrote:

Bullshit.

Hill Run wrote:

I agree with your sentiments scorpion runner. I'm a 50 year old New Zealander and love to run. I am unusual in the fact that despite running all my life, I always run alone and have never entered an official event. The weird thing is that I am highly competitive within myself and often time trial on the track alone. Recently I ran 25 laps (10km) in 35.07 which I am very happy with given that I've never been a club/event runner.

I average 90km per week and run everyday. I love it and will also try to run until I'm dead!

Actually sounds pretty realistic to me.

Daddy Centrowitz doesn't look like a former world class runner, but then neither do I since bacon entered my life.