[00:00:00]Imagine this - you're at the starting line of a race. It's early morning and you have the pre-race jitters. Maybe you joke and talk nervously with the people next to you. And although it's August, it's chilly. You're in beautiful Mount St. Helens in the state of Washington at an elevation of 8,366 feet.

With only minutes to go. You visualize the race course. You'll be running through the breathtaking cascade mountains. Over such varied terrain such as the other worldly lava fields of volcanic Mount St. Helens (which erupted in 1980), long mountain top ridge lines with stunning forest mountain and lake views, deep old growth forest as green and it's thick as any rainforest, misty mountaintops. You'll wait through streams. Oh, [00:01:00] and you'll climb a total of 42,506 feet. And you'll descend 43,906 feet. The starting gun goes off and you're finally on your way. This is it. This is why you put in all those training hours. You feel strong and confident, it feels good to be finally moving.

You keep a moderate pace. Going out too fast would have dire consequences. And you mentally review your race strategy over the next few days. Yep. Days. You see, you're running the Bigfoot 200 mile race. And you'll need to beat the cutoff time of 105 hours. That's four days and nine hours. Which works out to about 51 miles a day, over very rugged terrain. That's the equivalent of two marathons every day for four days. You'll sleep only when you have to, and for as little time as possible, this is a race after all.

And as you settle into your [00:02:00] pace, your nerves start to settle down and you find your running groove. This is it - all the anticipation and the moment is finally here. You're actually doing this. Oh, and one last thing. You're 73 years old.

Kevin: Hello and welcome the over 50 health and wellness show. I'm your host, Kevin English. I'm a certified personal trainer and nutrition coach. And my mission is to help you get into the best shape of your life. No matter your age, we have a great show for you today. I had a chance to talk with Gene Dykes, AKA the ultra geezer, right before he tackles the big foot 200 mile race.

But before we get to that, I want to let you know that today's show is brought to you by the silver edge. The silver edge is my online personal training and nutrition coaching business, [00:03:00]  where I help you get off the exercise and diet hamster wheel and start making permanent healthy invite style changes so that you can enjoy the second half of your life with strength and confidence, and show up as the healthiest, strongest, most vital version of yourself. No matter your age. If you're interested in learning more, send me an email at coach@silveredgefitness.com and we'll start a conversation. My promise to you is no hard sales pitch, no annoying incessant follow-up emails, just an introductory conversation about your personal fitness.

Okay. Enough of that let's get on with today's show.

My guest today is Gene Dykes. Gene is a 73 year old world record endurance runner. Gene took up ultra running, which is basically anything longer than a [00:04:00] 26.2 mile marathon - late in life. And he holds multiple world records at multiple distances. Before we get to today’s episode, check out the website, www.bigfoot200.com.

Gene will be running this race starting August 13th 2021. And depending on when you're listening to this, you can track Gene's progress over this 200 mile race. I'll put a link to both the Bigfoot 200 website and the race tracker in the show notes for this episode which you can find at www.silveredgefitness.com/episode68. Okay let's get to the interview.  I started our discussion by asking Jean when he first found a love for running

Gene: Oh, we have to go way, way back for that.  Would have been when I was about 13 years old, this would be in the early [00:05:00] sixties.  I just got it in my head that I wanted to go running one day. I mean, you have to realize that this was before, you know, fixes book. Nobody ran.

I never saw anybody run. I have no idea what gave me the idea to run, but I just put on my sneakers, Keds probably, and jeans and maybe a sweatshirt. Went out and ran. And I made it about a mile before I had to walk and, and I was really disgusted with myself for having to walk and I promised I would never walk again.

And I held to that promise when I went running, I always ran. Wwell, that is until I discovered trail running where there are lots of good reasons to walk now and then.

Kevin: So you found this passionate at about 13 years old for running just on a lark one day, went out and ran. Obviously you were hooked.

Now, did you run any at that time in track and field for your school? Or was this just purely a recreational thing for you?

Gene: Well, once I got into high school, I ran a couple of years, just [00:06:00] still on my own whenever I felt like it.  Then it seemed like  it was obvious I should run on the track team if I like running.

So I did that my junior and senior years and ran the mile in my junior year. And the two mile was a new event in Ohio, in my senior year. So I did that. And that was helped by the fact that all the good runners stuck with a mile. And so I had the two mile all to myself, which however, made me think I was pretty hot stuff.

Cause you know, I was winning all my dual meets and did well in the county championship. But then I got to college and discovered how good I really was, which was not very.  Teammates lapped me, opponents lapped, me coach hated me. It was a real comeuppance for me. So that was sort of an issue.

The turning point in my life, because knowing that I was a terrible runner, I concentrated on sports. I was good at, like golf and bowling, which means I spent my entire adult life just [00:07:00] running for fun when I felt like it. In shape sometimes, and not others, but I wasn't wearing myself out. Which is pretty much a danger in running.

You only have so many good years and I wasn't using up those good years early on. So that was an important moment for me being thrashed in college and running.

Kevin: So Gene was a decent runner in high school, but found out pretty quickly that he wasn't a collegiate caliber running athlete. Perhaps he just hadn't found his distance yet because as we're going to hear, Jean is in fact, a world-class runner - just at distances not typically offered in college track.

As a kid, he found a love for running and he continued on and off recreational running well into his adult life. I wanted to know when Gene got serious about running, like when did running become an obsession?

Gene: Oh, okay. I was in my mid fifties, I was [00:08:00] just a jogger, but I said, you know, I've had this bucket list, I'll do the marathon.

And so I got just enough miles in to think it would be a good idea. And I ran the Philadelphia marathon. And of course I wanted the full experience. So I went out real fast and the last six miles was just such a total struggle. And it turned out that I had a slight injury going in, which was a major injury coming out.

And I had kind of torn my hamstring at the insertion point. Literally I could not run for the next six years. So that was the end of my jogging career. Yeah. That marathon every year I would try and run, but it would hurt. And so I'd have to have to not run. So it fell out my view. And then I was playing golf with somebody says, oh, we have a running group.

Why don't you join us on the weekend? I said, well, I used to run I'll give it a try. And sure enough, my injury had healed. And so I ran with [00:09:00] them on weekends and kind of build up my stamina but I often say I got into running because I fell in with a bad crowd and you know, these guys, they just talked about running all the racing all the time.

And so eventually I did a couple of races and just had a total blast. And so that's kind of where it all starts.

Kevin: Okay, you train for and do this marathon and your mid fifties and unbeknownst to you, you come out to it very injured. And basically that means a six year hiatus, which fortunately for you gave you your body time to heal.

It sounds like that bad crowd that you fell in with, talked to you into going out on some runs with them and doing some races. Did you pick right back up in marathons or did you start more with the kind of the local five Ks and work your way up? How did that look as you got back into running now?

Probably in what? Around 60?

Gene: Well, let's see, actually, I guess that Philadelphia marathon was when I was about 50, because I ran my first marathon [00:10:00] at age, in my rejuvenated running career when I was 56. And so my first race, I ran a seven mile trail race with my daughter and that was just totally open.

I had never run on trails and hadn't run or raced in ages, and it was such a hoot, you know, jumping over stumps and running on rocks and through the forest. And my first road race was a few weeks later and that was a half marathon. So yeah, I don't start with five Ks, you know, probably just jumped right into the half marathon.

And so that was my first road race and I ran a good enough time that I didn't have to go to into the New York marathon lottery. And my friends were all running that. So they said, oh, you don't have to enter the lottery. You can just enter and you can go with us. So I said okay.

I had been planning ondoing the Disney marathon as my first marathon in [00:11:00] December. So I did New York in November, the Disney marathon around January 1st. But at New York, I qualified for Boston. I had to do that, so I was kind of thrown into it three marathons in those five months, I kind of got the idea - I think it was subconscious for awhile, but became conscious that every year after this I'm going to run a little farther on trails, a little faster on roads. And I’ve been doing that ever since and well, you've read my webpage. That's where it can lead. All you have to do is just do a little more, you know,

Kevin: do a little more, okay.

There might be a little more to it than that. Cause I can imagine how to outdo what you've already done now you've set the bar pretty high, but [00:12:00] before we get there, so I think it's fair to say you have an aptitude for running.

If you're going to take up running here, let's say your mid sixties or sorry, mid fifties. You're getting back into running.  And you're automatically going to qualify right out of the gate for New York and then for Boston -and those times are no joke, right? you're not just taking a leisurely jog to qualify.

So is it fair to say that you've got a natural aptitude for running? What do you attribute that kind of early success to?

Gene: No, of course. Some of it is natural and some of it is that, you know, my whole life I've kept in shape.

But if I have a natural aptitude for being a good runner, it's, it's the kind of genes that didn't express themselves way back when. And I don't know if the genes for running can kick in late in life, but that's really what seemed to happen because I'm a much better runner as an old guy than I ever was as a young guy, Some of the times that I can compare are aren't all that different. I think [00:13:00] the fastest I could do a mile in high school and college was, oh, something, something terrible, like four minutes and 50 seconds, I think just a little under five minutes. But as a 70 year old, I ran a one in five minutes and 30 seconds.

Just 40 seconds slower.   So I don't, I don't know what accounts for it, but yeah, I'm much better as an older guy than as a young guy.

Kevin: Well, let's start with marathon distance. You do a lot of different distances, but let's start with the marathon. That's 26.2 miles for folks that are not familiar

what that run is. And for a lot of people, that's a bucket list, right? It's a one and done, and it might be a jog walk type thing, and like a social thing.  For you, obviously you're competitive in this and you're good at this. Talk about some of your, I believe you have some recent PRS where there are three PRs last year.

Is that, do I have that right?

Gene: Well, last year nobody was racing anywhere. That's right. Nobody was racing last year. [00:14:00] 2018 was my big year.  When I had just turned 70, you know, I raced almost every single weekend. And  people say you can't race every weekend and be any good are dead wrong.

I got better.  Every weekend as the year went by I  kind of had set a couple of years earlier, the goal of running a marathon under three hours. Actually, the goal was to beat three hours and 28 seconds because that was the single age world record for age 70. And, but as long as you're going to try and run three hours and 28 seconds, obviously you're going to try and run under three hours.

And I did that three times that year, each time getting a little faster. So that was my glory year.

Kevin: Okay, hold up. So I just want to make sure that everybody appreciates what you're saying here as a 70 year old you didn't run one or two, but three sub three hour marathons. Just to give us an idea.

Roughly what paces [00:15:00] is a three hour marathon.

Gene: To do three hours that’s a six minute and 53 second pace I believe. And my, the third time, my fastest one, that pace was six minutes and 39 seconds per mile. And for 26.2 miles, that's scary when you get to the start line and say, I have to run six forties for 26 miles, 6:40 is always a fast mile in training, you know?

Kevin: I'm guessing 6 40 is not jogging. Six 40 for me, I don't know if everybody can appreciate what that means to run a mile in six minutes, 40 seconds. And then to do that consecutively over and over again for 26 miles is, is quite a feat.

So obviously you're an accomplished marathoner. Now your website is ultra geezer.com and you're I guess, affectionately referred to as the ultra geezer.[00:16:00] For folks that aren't familiar with ultras, what is an ultra? What is ultra running?

Gene: Well, the strict definition is anything longer than a marathon is an ultra. Practically speaking, 50 K is the first step up, which is 31 miles.

And they’re odd races, that pick different distances, but it basically goes 50 K and 50 miles than 100 K than 100 miles. And really a recent invention in the last decade has been a series of 200 mile races and oh, who knows? next year, I'm going to do a 300 mile race. So they keep trying to set the bar a higher and higher in the trail running world.

Kevin:  So you had alluded to earlier, earlier, you said something along the lines. I had made the decision that I was going to run a little further on trails, a little faster on roads every year. And it sounds like that's going well for you. Talk to us a little [00:17:00] bit about some of these races, some of these ultra distances that you've done.

Gene: Well after each one, I think I swore never again.  You know, that's something that's very common for runners to feel like the first time they've done something that  it was just something way beyond what they should be doing.  My first 50 K yup. Nope. I'm done. I'm done with ultras.

I got one. Yeah. And I held to that for a couple of years and it wasn't until one of my running buddies from that bad crowd said he wanted to run comrades, which is a big ultra marathon in South Africa. It's not that long 58 miles.  But for some reason, it, it just instantly clicked with me. I had heard about it as a kid and I pictured running through jungles over mountain tops.

And, you know, it turns out it's a pretty tame road race, but so  I instantly raised my hand and said, oh, I'm, I'm definitely in. And it was training for that. I ran a 50 K [00:18:00] race, three weekends in a row. And unlike the first time really enjoyed it, felt like I had a lot of strength at the end. And so after comrades, that was pretty much the gateway.

And the next year I said, oh, I got to try a hundred miles. and did that and swore never again.  The reason that time was because I was nauseated almost the entire race. After about 35 miles I got sick to my stomach and it is no fun, no fun whatsoever to run 65 miles with your stomach in a knot.

It was terrible. But as long as I thought there was hope of curing nausea, I kept at it and my daughter helped me out by prescribing a drug that helped. And that enabled me to run enough ultras that my body got used to it. Basically, if you get nauseated, the most likely reason is because it's your [00:19:00] body's way of telling you you're exceeding what you're prepared to do.

And if you don't stop voluntarily with all those other aches and pains, you know, your body will shut you down with your stomach and once you get nauseated, that's it, you're shut down.  And I've tried all the miracle cures, but it just turned out, getting in shape is in better shape works better than the miracle cure.

Kevin: Darn it. If only I could take that secret supplement. Yeah. That silver bullet, that magic supplement, that new fad diet. Well, okay. So, I'm sorry I interrupted you. So you got that 58 miler, I believe you called it comrades in South Africa, you've done a hundred miler and that means now you've experienced some serious discomfort and you've learned to overcome that.

We heard you say you're going to do a 300 miler next year. What happens after a hundred miles?

Gene: well, let's see, the 120 miles was my [00:20:00] next milestone.  That race took me 48 hours, non stop, no sleep or anything. And so I knew I could get by without a lot of sleep.

And I ran a race called a race for the ages. But this was a race that was designed to give older guys a chance to win.  It gave everybody one hour for every year of their age to run as many miles as they could on a one mile loop in a park, you know, all paved.

And I thought I can do that. And so I got 68 hours and I started running one mile loop. So over and over and over and over again. And I won the race with 205 miles. And so that was my first 200 miler. So the next year, well, I know I can run 200 miles, so I have to outdo the previous year.

So instead of doing one, 200 next year I have to do, I have to do three of [00:21:00] them in three months. So I entered the triple count of 200. So the first is the Bigfoot 200 in Washington state. That's in August. Next was the Tahoe 200 in lake Tahoe, California and Nevada. And the third one was the Moab 240, which was 238 miles in Utah.

And I did all of them. And so 238 miles became my longest run ever. And sometimes I wouldn't outdo the previous year by doing longer, sometimes I'd do it by doing more or, closer. I think the next year I ran, oh, I don't know, a 50 K a hundred miler and, some other race all within a short time span to try and outdo the previous.

So that Bigfoot big foot, big foot was so amazing. So I’ve been telling everybody that that's easily the most amazing race I've done. So [00:22:00] this year I'm going to do it again.

And something fun to do. I mean, even if you don't know me -  I do it. I follow strangers.  At these two hundreds, they have a map that shows a flag with each runner and you can follow the progress of the runners and it's kind of fun. You wake up in the morning and say, I wonder where my runner is today?

Yeah, and I hope I don't get a dead tracker because sometimes my tracker shows me wandering off into the wilderness, you know, dead off the trail, but yeah. Not likely. I'll be out there giving it my best. I'm five years older now. So at 73, can I do it? You know, that's a good question.

I'm making the list of all the advantages I'm going to have to have this year to overcome my disadvantage of being five years older. So but I'm pretty confident even though I failed earlier this year to run a 250 miles.    I quit after 152 miles. I was prepared for the [00:23:00] heat, I was prepared for the distance.

I was prepared for the huge climbs, but I wasn't prepared for the condition of the trails.  It was just long, long stretches of loose rubble. Try running. You're on a Jeep track, you think, oh, this'll be easy, but you know, it was all just covered with big boulders little boulders, just. Couldn't make up enough time to stay ahead of the cutoffs because you need to sleep  when you're doing a four day race and I'd get a one hour nap and then I have to get up and keep running.

And so then I didn't get enough sleep. So I slowed down some closer to the cut. You can see where that death spiral goes. Yeah.

Kevin: Wow. Oh man. So, and I think a lot of people might not understand when you say you're doing these ultra marathons, especially as trail, which typically these, a lot of these ultras are trail events.

There's a lot of elevation change. There's a lot of navigating that you have to do. It's not like a road race where [00:24:00] people think of a marathon. You see all those people running out on the road altogether. This is a much different experience than that.

Gene: Yes. Yes. Some people, when they choose marathons, they pick marathons in big cities because they need the crowd. Well, long trail races are not for that. I would imagine sometimes I run almost all night long without seeing anybody, just me and the mountain lions and the bears. Yeah. I like that

part the best, just being out there, the solitude of running in the wilderness, you know, you get an aid station every, every five or six hours. So, it's not like you're totally out of touch with reality, but yeah, it's really something.

Kevin: Okay. Many of us have done some type of endurance event. Maybe you've even done a marathon or a long triathlon. But regardless of your experience with these long distance events, you're undoubtedly familiar with the terms hitting the wall or bonking. This phenomenon is fairly [00:25:00] well known to endurance athletes. And typically comes on late in the race, say like mile 20 of a marathon.

And is characterized by lightheadedness and dizziness and just plain old fashion exhaustion. I asked Gene to talk a little bit about banking and how he deals with this with his ultra marathons.

Gene: okay. Well, you mentioned that last six miles of a marathon, which is sometimes called bonking or hitting the wall and physiologically that's when your glycogen tanks. And training is what builds up your glycogen stores.

That's your primary fuel for running the other two fuels are you fat and whatever you're eating and you don't want to rely on those other two things, when you're running a marathon, you want to try and have glycogen for the whole way, supplementing a little bit with food. And of course, if you're a good fat burner, you'll be getting extra energy that way too.

Now in a 200 mile race.  Your glycogen lasts a lot longer because you're running a lot, lot [00:26:00] slower and you're eating enough and burning enough fat that you can, but it runs out. And that usually happens for me about mile 80 or so. And so basically those of you have run into the wall in a marathon only have six miles to go. When I run into the wall and at 200, I still have a 120 miles to go. So how do you deal with it? Well, obviously you slow down and yeah. Time, distance pace that, you know, they all take on all new meanings. And as long as you run within the limits that your body has set for you, you can just keep on going.

It isn't. I think a lot of people quit at this point because they think, well, it's only gonna get worse. I quit, you know, but it does it, what could be worse than hitting the wall? Well, you know, It doesn't get worse. You just have to keep going at a pace that you could maintain. And for me, a running pace that turns out to be about three miles, [00:27:00] about 20 minutes per mile.

If I'm really feeling it, I'm up to 18 minutes per mile, and it's funny when you're doing that 18 minutes per mile, it feels like, oh, I'm doing eight minute miles now I'm really moving. But the reality is quite different. You'll find yourself thinking, ah, the next aid station is only four hours away. I'm almost there and you know, really, really?

Kevin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gene: A little ways to go.  Oh, you really dread the ones that are 18 miles away because well, it's three miles per hour and maybe, maybe slower. That's. That's at least six hours and  probably longer.

Cause it might  make half of it might be an uphill stretch.  And  yeah, so you can be on your own for quite a while, but no, really. I tell people, if you can run 35 miles, you know, you can run 50 and if you're going 50, you can [00:28:00] run a hundred and it's a really just a matter of staying within your limits and people bomb out when they try and they say, oh, I feel good.

I could keep this up for ages. No, you can't. You have to run at a pace that you can maintain for the long haul. And yeah. I mean, yeah, you slow it down a little bit, but the people who really crash and burn are the same people who crash and burn and marathons, they, they go out to fast. Yeah.

Kevin: So sticking on that theme of fueling specifically race fueling, I imagine you have drastically different strategies for your marathons versus for your ultras.

Let's start with the marathon. What does race fueling look like for you? Do you take in calories while you race? I know a lot of folks are sucking down goos every mile.

Gene: Yeah. Like I kind of have a philosophy. Most runners eat too much. They eat too much when their training, they eat too much before a race.

I'll eat dinner the night before, maybe sometime during the [00:29:00] night or three or four hours before the race I'll have an energy bar, but certainly won't eat breakfast before a marathon. But my glycogen will run out before 26 miles. So I supplement, I used to supplement with some other sports drink.

I was able to get 200 calories down without getting upset to my stomach, but I found a new wonder fuel, which is popular among the elites.  So many of you all have heard about it. It's called Maurten, M A U R T E N. I used their 320 calorie powder and I'll drink three or four bottles of that during a marathon.

So that's - I'll say three bottles. So that's 900 calories. And that really allows you to push hard at the end of a marathon without bonking. And yeah. So definitely fuel for a marathon. Anything shorter than that? No. And anything longer than that?  Well you can eat anything you want because you're running at a, at a pace that's slow enough.

Your body can afford to send blood to both your [00:30:00] muscles, and your stomach.  I see runners who train while eating, or eat too much before a marathon that forces your stomach to draw blood away from your muscles. You don't want that. You want as much blood as possible to go to your muscles.

So, eat as little as possible training and racing. That's a poor source of calories is eating.  Glycogen and fat are much, much better sources.

Kevin: Gotcha. And then, like you said, when you get into the ultra world, then really you can have a sandwich, you can have, you can have whatever you want.

Right. You're just need to put some calories in to keep going for these long, long distances. Okay. So. let's talk a little bit what about what a typical training week looks like for you. What does it just a typical week look like? You're doing a lot of racing on weekends. We got to factor that in, but what does a training weekend of a race week look like for you these days?

Gene: Okay.  Well, I have a coach and I still [00:31:00] would be nobody without a coach. He's the greatest and, well, there just is no typical week. like if you get on an internet marathon training schedule, you know, it'll say Monday is this Tuesday, is that not for me?  Every week is different.  Every tempo run is different to every, he just, he just mixes it up so much and partly is, because.

I have a different race every weekend. And he has to get me, you know, recovered from the weeks previous race trained for all subsequent races and rested up for the race coming up. So he really mixes it up. But in general, there'll be one long run, a couple tempo or interval runs, a couple recovery runs and a rest day.

You know, typical stuff, except that he mixes it up so much, but  yeah, if you want to be your best, got to hire a coach. I mean, he changed my whole life.  He just made so much better runner out of me [00:32:00] that, of course, running became not just a hobby, but kind of something that I think about all the time.

Kevin: I saw that you talk about getting a coach. I think it was maybe five years ago or so, and I wanted to pick that apart a little bit. I mean, some people listening might think, well, why would you need a coach for running? It's just, that's a very instinctual thing to do.

Everybody can run, can't they? But there's more to running than just putting that one foot in front of the other. Talk about what are some of the things that a coach for you personally brought to the table and to help you really elevate your game when it comes to running

Gene: Well, going into my final marathon I ran before I hired the coach. I was hoping to set a new PR and instead came up like 15 minutes short ran about three and a half hours, hoping to run three 15 and he had me running fewer miles than I had before, but much [00:33:00] higher quality miles. Every mile had a purpose when you're on your own, you just run whatever you feel like, which is usually long slow miles because, oh man, I ran 80 miles this week, man. I ran 90 miles this week. I'm really going to kill that marathon.

It just wasn't what I needed. I also, if I did do a hard workout, pre coach, I would have, really sore muscles and I'd think well, I'm old. And I really shouldn't run on sore muscles. I'm likely to get injured, but it turns out running on sore muscles, you better get used to it when you have a coach, cause you're always going to have sore muscles and you just don't get better if you wait until your muscles are all good to go. That's what you do for a race. Cause you're waiting until your muscles are all good to go. Training you're out there running  three, four hard sessions a week that keep you sore.  Training is harder than racing because I guess training you're, you're trying to exceed your capabilities.

You know, you're working [00:34:00] to push the envelope, whereas in a race you're hoping to arrive at the finish line, right at the max of what you're able to do.  People find it hard to believe that my PR marathons have been my easiest ones and it's the ones when I was much slower that were just really terrible experiences.

So remember that when you're, when you're training, it only gets better. The faster you get, the easier it gets. That should be motivation to train hard, makes the races so much easier. So that’s part, one of a coach coach knows what you should do.  He knows better than you do what you're capable of, but equally important is the fact that if you're like me, you don't want to let your coach down.

I mean, that's the only thing that gets me out of bed is well, he assigned it to me and you know, I'd rather die than tell him I couldn't do the workout. And when I start the workout there's just no way I want to have to say [00:35:00] I had to run slower than you told me to. And so it's basically a race to match what my coaches expectations were.

A very high motivation for me. And if you think it would motivate you, get a coach because I couldn't possibly do these, even knowing what my coach has told me, if I could even conceive of these workouts, I, I couldn't begin to accomplish them without knowing that I have to satisfy my coach

Kevin: Thanks for sharing that. I think a lot of people miss that in coaching a coach of course, would be responsible for programming and for your overall safety and the actual nuts and bolts of how much and how fast and what days are tempo days and what things are distanced days, et cetera. But a coach is also responsible for motivating you and for holding you accountable.

You said it very well. And you know, I don't want to let my coach down. Come hell or high water, I'm going to meet what he programmed for me. And to your point, he probably knows you well [00:36:00] enough to know what you're capable of. And maybe even in some cases, coaches may know better than their clients what they're capable of.

You talked about that being a great motivating factor, which was actually my next question. I was going to ask you, how do you stay motivated for all of this running, cause you're not mixing this up with other modalities. You're not like a triathlon. You're spending a lot of time on a bike and some significant amount of time, maybe in a pool you're just running. How do you stay motivated to keep running?

Gene: Well, I guess I always like to be good at something and if I get out on the golf course, I'm not satisfied with it, but you'll see out there. Everybody says, well, we see why you took up running. Yeah. So running gives me a chance to have something that I can constantly improve on.

At least I've been improving through age 70.  It's quite possible my best years are behind me, but I'm going to keep, I'm going to try until the writings on the wall. [00:37:00] There's so many different ways to use running. I mean, all you do is mix it up a little.  I just got back from the nationals the USA TF masters outdoor championships, which is basically track and field.

And so naturally I do the five and 10 K. I mean, those are the longest events that they have. But each year I throw in the events that I don't train for and, I really looked forward to doing something like that. This year I did the steeple chase and the triple jump. And you know, I was looking forward to those way more than a 5k in the 10 K. Actually I never look forward to a 5k.

I hate them, but being in shape and running allows you to pair up vacations and running together. I mean, there's nothing more fun than going someplace you've always wanted to do and doing a race there or, or having the race be the main thing and then do traveling on the side. Yeah, that really opens it up.

And of course there's the community, you know, my wife says you spend way too much time on Facebook, [00:38:00] but no, that's where the running community is. And I spend several hours a day trying to encourage other runners and sharing experiences and looking for enter buttons to hit too, you know, I hardly ever saw an enter button I didn't want to hit, so   Facebook is a great resource for runners

Kevin: yeah. And I suspect that the whole social media for all its pitfalls does allow us, especially you're in pretty niche community, right? The older athlete that's doing ultra marathons is probably a pretty small community I'm guessing. Maybe it feels a lot bigger, if you can have a Facebook community of like-minded people that you can share this passion with, again, that can relate to what you're going through or that whole keeping you accountable and maybe encouraging you, motivating you because they know what your plans are. So I think that's something that's obviously new and interesting, these virtual communities [00:39:00] that are popping up all over the place. These support groups. Okay. You do a lot of running, you’re doing a lot of racing and as a coach myself, I'm thinking, wow, that's a lot of volume. How do you recover from all of that? What does your coach tell you about recovery and what are maybe some recovery modalities that you incorporate?

Gene: Well, of course, you know, I do one or two rest days a week. I think maybe we're talking more about the recovery from one race to the other. And I guess another one of my key philosophy points is you can do whatever you train your body to do.  And one of them is to recover faster.  One of the most fun things you can do that teaches you to recover faster is to do a stage race or an adventure run.  This is where you'll go out and you may not do an ultra every day. You end up doing maybe more than a hundred miles a week. A lot of people say I could never [00:40:00] do a hundred miles a week, but if you do a stage race or an adventure run, which is basically a supported state race, it isn't a race.

You can find that you can run way, way more than you thought you could. I mean, most of the time you have all day to finish 20 to 30 miles, and you can do that. You get a night's sleep. You go out and you do it again and you're body learns by the end of that, it can recover on a days’ notice. I went from those to doing marathons on back-to-back days, much less month apart or week apart. I can, I did a whole bunch of them one day after the yeah.  And racing is the same. If you race every weekend, your body learns to recover and race the next weekend.  So I remember, I thought I didn't deal well with the heat.

So I entered a stage race in the desert. It was 115 degrees at the finish line. I've never had any trouble with heat since, I trained my body to run running in the heat. [00:41:00] I train my body to run on less water than most people need.  You know, you're here the calls to hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. Well, you don't want to get dehydrated, but at the same time, you don't have to be just swallowing water the whole time.

At this race earlier this year, it was a 250 mile race. And 20 or 30 people bit the dust the first day. Cause they ran out of water with 10, 15 miles to go. And I had waterleft. I was carrying less water than some of them. And I was loaning them, some of my water because, you know, I run dry. I don't need lots of water. So yeah, you can train yourself to do whatever it is, whatever it is you want.

Kevin: Yeah. So that's an interesting philosophy.

Cause you are defying some of the conventional wisdom out there that you don't race back to back weekends, long races. Right? And you can’t put all this effort in, you need to have this built-in recovery.  But it seems like to your point, your body will, it will adapt to training [00:42:00] stimulus.

Right? So it wants to find some sort of stasis. And as you keep pushing and pushing your body is resetting this new normal, I think this new baseline, and you've just pushed it a lot further than most of us ever have, or frankly ever will.

Gene: You're a coach. So tell me how you tell people to taper for a marathon in the last three weeks.

Kevin: Yeah. So actually I do more strength and conditioning type coaching and a CrossFit coaching. So from way back in my own personal days, it was the conventional wisdom. We're going to start tapering at about three weeks out and we’re going to do fewer and fewer miles.

And the idea being is we're going to build up those glycogen stores and you're going to hit that starting line feeling fresh and ready to take it on. Cause you spent these last few months building up this big base and then we've just tapered you down.  I suspect that's not your philosophy.

Gene: All right. So the marathon where I beat the world record. I ran three races in the preceding two weeks. [00:43:00]  Two weeks before I ran a 50 K on Saturday and a pretty fast marathon on Sunday, a 5k the next weekend. Yeah. Yeah. People taper too much too, but people pay for typically not unless you're trained to it like I do since I race every weekend, my body was totally fine with racing before the marathon.

Kevin: That is incredible. All right. Well, let's shift a little bit, Gene.  Obviously you've had quite the career here with ultra running. What tips would you have for somebody who's out there maybe listening to this right now and maybe in their past they've done, maybe they were the one and done bucket list marathon at some point in their life, but they hear this and they're like, you know, I've been thinking about in the back of my head, I've been thinking about taking up some running.

What would I need to do to get started and maybe trying to take that next step, either getting back into marathoning or maybe even what [00:44:00] if I want to do that first 50 K? I want to do something like that. So if somebody in their sixties approaching 70, what kind of tips would you have to get them started on something like that?

Gene: Well, I've had to restart running several times. So I have a lot of experience with, zero to something.  Typical thing when I was in my adult years was to get out of shape and then go out and run two miles then three, then four, then five and six. Usually I'd get up to about 20 before I just couldn't run any farther it always seemed. But the important lesson when you're trying to go from zero is, there is no pain worse than out of shape pain. And I think a lot of people give up after a day or two, because it's really awful. Your muscles are sore. You can barely run and, and you figure if it's that bad now, how bad is it going to be when I'm running even faster?

And as we've alluded to before, it's the exact opposite. And you just have to keep at it, [00:45:00] you know, it's sort of like your body gives in and says, okay, I know you've got me in. You're going to keep doing this. I'm going to start helping you by making the adjustments. And when that happens, when your body starts making the adjustments it needs you to run a little more often, a little farther or a little faster, then it becomes better and better and better.

The primary rule is every week, every month, every year, just do a little farther, a little faster or a little more often.  And everything will fall into place.  I kid you not. At the Rocky Raccoon 100, I ran into a woman who was doing her first ever run longer than a half marathon.

I was a hundred miler. Wow. She was going to crash and burn, but she didn't, she ran a decent time. So anything's possible. But the better way is, gradualism. I mean, it's easier way to avoid injuries and you have all these little [00:46:00] victories along the way. I mean Hey, I ran my farthest ever.

I ran my fastest ever, you know  I ran more miles this week than ever. And every week is a new, you know, you've got something, something that you have never done before. And if you make your competition that person in the mirror, you don't have to be suffering losses. You're winning, you're winning every week.

And you know, even at my level, that's the person I'm trying to beat is me. You know, I don't want to lose to the guy that ran last week or last month. I want to beat him.

Kevin: Yeah, go a little further and little faster every week, every month. Every year. Right. Okay. So Gene we know you've got a 300 miler coming up.

What's next for you. What else is on the horizon for you?

Gene: You know, it's 200 miler, Bigfoot and  it's sort of a litmus test, you know, if I can't do Bigfoot, which is not easy by any means, [00:47:00] but pretty much that's it for 200 milers for me if I bomb out at Bigfoot because I know the course, I know I can do it. Or at least

I knew I could do it.  And, but if I make it then, well, I got to do something harder next year. So. Two races I have in mind. One there's a 330 mile race across California from the coast to Mount Shasta. I'm a little iffy about whether it's going to take place.  But for sure, there's a 300 miles stage race in Australia that I’d like to do.

Even though it's not an endurance run, you know, you run a certain mileage every day.  I would count that as my new longest ever.  But at rest of this year,  right after Bigfoot, I have to start training for the London marathon.

I have very outside chance. The magic will be there. And then just six weeks of training, I'll be ready to try a world record in [00:48:00] London, but I tend to think that's not possible, but I'd still like to win the world age group championship. Of course, London is not a given, you know, there things are all in turmoil again.

And the betting line is that London's going to either cancel or not let a foreigners in or, or the age group championship will not be run because so many people can't get there. But in either case the following weekend, I'm doing the Boston marathon. Pretty likely to be a go.

Kevin: Boston's the weekend after London? And there you go. There's your back-to-back and not just back to back marathons, but back-to-back hard effort marathons, right. You're looking to do well in both of those I'm sure.

Gene: Oh yeah. I'll certainly run all out at London. Yeah. At Boston, Boston is likely to suffer a little bit, but I've done it before.

The first time I broke three hours was at [00:49:00] Rotterdam.  I ran 2:57 and then eight days later, I ran the Boston marathon.  I wasn't going to set any records there. Well, actually I did set a record there. I did set the age group record, but it was into the worst weather of all time, Boston marathon, where it was raining, 37 degrees, 20 to 30 mile an hour winds and not tailwinds.

It was certainly a race that will probably never be equaled for bad weather.  But yeah, I was able to run that hard.  So and then I have a vacation in December, so that'll be the end of my season after a few  smaller races.

Next year, next year, I don't know. November is my planning month. That's where I kind of stitched together everything I hope to do, you know, get the long ultras here and the important marathons there, and then fill in in between, if I've got an open weekend, I say drat an open weekend, I've got to find an enter button somewhere.

[00:50:00] But obviously not everybody can do this. So probably my best advice for running when you're old is financial advice. Make sure you're set for retirement because you don't have to blow yourself out running early. You can have a blast when you retire. If you have enough money, you can travel and run and it's every bit as fun as running when you're young, take it from me.

Kevin: Yeah, and I love that. You've got a lot of these amazing destinations that you're traveling to. You had mentioned that running and traveling go hand in hand and certainly that's seems to be the case and would be for some of these of remote ultra distance trail races.

So, Gene how much longer will you run? And by running, I mean, how much longer will you run in these big races consistently?

Gene: Well, I may have peaked for speed [00:51:00] and probably peaking for distance very shortly. When your goal is to run and in amazing places, know that can go on for a long, long time and, and the social aspect of running, that's not going to go away. I know a lot of really old guys go out there and, have running groups.  They're barely going faster than a walk on the trail I run on once a week. But, you know, they just love it. And it doesn't matter that they're a shadow of what they used to be.

So  yeah, not many people can keep it up more than 15 years of hard running. And this is my 15th year. So I’m a little bit afraid, but then there's always somebody like Joan Samuelson. I mean, she isn't running as fast as she was when she was younger, but she's at the top of her age graded scores.

Last time I ran Boston, she had the number one age [00:52:00] graded score out of 30 some thousand runners, which is just, just amazing for somebody who was so good in her early career, an amazing feat of longevity

Kevin: Well, speaking of amazing feats of longevity, you're doing pretty well yourself here.

And if our listeners want to learn more about you, how can they connect with you? What's the best way for folks to connect?

Gene: Well, I'm certainly easy to find on Facebook.  Just send me a friend request, but I have to warn you. A lot of people send me friend requests and all that their profile is hidden or posts are hidden and I'll look and see, jeez, I have no reason whatsoever to friend this person.

So I delete them. You better make sure I can see what you post or send me a message telling me why you want to be my friend. I mean, I just can't see accepting friends blindly, I’m sure. I probably love to be your friend if you're a runner, but make sure I know it

when you send [00:53:00] me a friend request. If you want to be a groupie, you probably want to read ultra geezer.com. That's a website that my daughter came up with. She gave it to me for a birthday present. So now I update it and I’ll be adding a lot of content to it in the near future. Right now I just have one a half constructed blog, but I've been writing articles for other websites and I've even started writing an article a month in a Japan magazine. So there’ll be a lot more content there pretty soon. And follow me at Bigfoot. Hope I can feel your vibes.  I think you'll find it fun, watching where the leaders are, where the people behind are and it's kind of fun.

I mean, you'll learn a little bit about the territory you say, oh, there look there now they're in the Mount St. Helens devastation zone, and now they're in the deep woods. I wonder what they're doing now in the middle of the night and it's a lot of fun.

And the fact that the staff, all these aid stations, this is a point to point race. It's not like an aid station that you keep coming back to. These are all one and done aid stations. But people just really love, supporting the runners, watching them. And it’s better to do it. It's better to do it, but if not, it's fun to follow.

Kevin: we can, those of us that are mere mortals, we can live vicariously through you mad men and women out there doing these crazy ultra endurance events. And certainly from the outside, looking in it folks like you and the things that you've done, it's wildly inspiring to those of us because you're expanding our consciousness, our idea of what’s possible and what the human body and the human mind the human soul can achieve. And I just take my hat off to you.  I think that's just very inspiring and love what you're doing.

Gene: Yeah. Thanks. I'm lucky that I'm as fast as [00:55:00] I am, but that isn't the most fun that I have in running. I mean winning a big races.

Yeah. That's fun. But there are sort of more like, you know, results of testing myself and you can test yourself against yourself. You can find a new aspect of running. There's just so many ways to get satisfaction running. It doesn't have to come from being really fast.

Kevin: Well said, well said, I think we'll wrap it up there. Gene,

I want to thank you so much for coming on today and sharing all of your story, your wisdom.  You're a fantastic ambassador for healthy aging and certainly just wish you all the best and all your future endeavors. And we'll definitely be following you at Bigfoot this year and sending out positive vibes for you.

Gene: All right. Thanks a lot.  Look forward to hearing from some folks.

[00:56:00]Kevin: Okay folks, that's our show for this week. All of the links to the resources we discussed in this episode and more can be found at www.silveredgefitness.com/68. And this is normally the part of the show where I beg you to give me a five star review on whatever platform you're listening on. But today I have a different ask.

What I'd really love is if you would share this episode with a friend. I'm guessing each one of you has that crazy friend who's obsessed with running. Please consider sending them a link to this episode Most podcast platforms have a share button or you can just send them to www.silveredgefitness.com/episode68. I want to thank you again for listening and until next time stay strong!