Thanks for your comments, and thanks also to the others on this thread, like "Just Another Run of the Mill ex-D1 er," who have rightly called out Sage for his deplorable remarks and insinuations over the years regarding Matt Carpenter (especially, but not exclusively, his remarks about Matt's Ascent record).
And you're right: Matt is "not exactly hard to track down." In fact, yesterday afternoon, I stopped by Matt's custard shop to say hello and see how he was doing these days. Matt saw me, called out my name, and gave me a friendly fist bump. I've known Matt for at least 35 years, and although we've rarely seen each other in recent decades, we raced against each other a few times in the late '80s and early '90s. Matt is now 59 years old and looks as though he may be even skinnier than he was back then. (I'm 65 years old, and probably look the same way.) Matt said that he has continued his multi-year streak of at least one hour of running; I remember when he had a multi-year streak of at least two hours a day, but he noted that that was his profession back then, and he has a very different profession now. (Someone also told me that his daughter, whose birth I remember, is now starting college.) From what little I know, he works long and hard at his job, and I've never seen another employee there. When I first heard that he had opened a custard shop some years ago, it sounded a bit crazy and desperate, but I understand that he's doing very well with it.
We didn't talk about the breaking of his record earlier in the day; someone had told me that he wasn't upset and figured that it would eventually be broken, and that's how I figured he'd react. When Matt was a youngster, he could be pretty cocky, very competitive, and sometimes perhaps a bit unrealistic about his prospects in running (though even Frank Shorter was touting him as a dark horse in upcoming major races). And that attitude, along with his almost worshipful fan base, created some ill will from some other really good runners back then. (I'm talking about Olympic-caliber runners, not the kind of mid-tier running influencers who make so much noise promoting themselves now.) But looking back, what really stands out to me is how disciplined, uncompromising, and deeply principled Matt has been for as long as I've known him. Aside from myself (whom I happen to know very well), I can't think of any other decent runner less likely to be a doper, course-cutter, or other cheat. Moreover, I don't know of anyone who has done more to bring up the standards of the Pikes Peak races to provide Matt with some quality competition; he fought for the introduction of prize money to attract a stronger and more international field, since prize money in other races had siphoned off some of the top U.S. runners (who used to run the Ascent for one reason or another), and there was a long period when no high-quality runners other than Matt would show up. (I think Matt started doing the "double" largely to find some way of competing against himself when there was no one else to compete against.)
I did mention to Matt that I would get angry when one runner in particular would show up like clockwork on the message boards each year to insinuate (a very mild word) that there was something highly suspect about Matt's 2:01:++. I said that I posted something a week ago (post #33, I believe, on this thread) to preempt a few of the that runner's comments and provide context from someone who actually knew and raced against Matt. He said that he didn't read message boards and didn't care what people said on them. But it still bothers me to see this guy once again showing up to disparage Matt, who probably had about twenty years or more of running at a level that was leagues above what this runner-youtuber-influencer had ever done at his peak or would ever come close to in his lifetime.