Olympic gold medalist Frank Shorter is trying to slow down as slowly as possible
Frank Shorter is one of America's most decorated distance runners. He's a five-time national 10,000 meters champion, four-time national cross-country champion and winner of Japan's prestigious Fukuoka Marathon four consecutive years. In the 1971 Pan Am Games, he won both the 10,000 meters and marathon.
But by far his best-known achievement is his 1972 gold medal in the marathon at the Olympic Games in Munich. That year, he was honored with the Sullivan Award as the nation's top amateur athlete. The following Olympics, in 1976 in Montreal, he was the marathon silver medalist.
At age 41, Shorter won the World Masters Duathlon Championship (run-bike-run). He was the first chairman of the United States Anti-Doping Agency and currently acts as an unofficial spokesperson for the agency. Now 60, Shorter lives and trains in Boulder, Colo.
MASTERS ATHLETE: What are you up to these days?
FRANK SHORTER: I travel around to events. I'm doing a lot of coaching clinics. I have the advantage, at this point, of having been my own coach. From the time I graduated from college, I was unusual in that I had been taught by my coach in college how to train myself, and I always have. I can bring a different element to the teaching process. Not just as an athlete through the experience, but actually having had to be much more aware of everything that goes on in training. The way I like to put it, 'I was an entourage of zero.'
How much running are you doing?
I run 40 to 60 miles a week, believe it or not, and then I do a lot of cross training. I actually ride the spin bike 40 to 50 minutes, three or four times each week. Yesterday, I was out for an hour and forty minutes. For me, it's not so much training to race, it's training to maintain a level of fitness and then see how fast I run. I started cross training when I turned 40. When I was 41, I entered the World Masters Duathlon Championship and won. So I know a little bit about bike riding as well and how to integrate that into my training.
Has your speed changed very much over the years?
Oh, yeah. I'm very slow. I'm just trying to slow down as slowly as possible. I've started to focus more on weight training because, at age 60, it's the one thing I've found I can get better at. I can actually still get stronger. I've incorporated that into my goal-setting as the area I can go for improvement.
What advice would you give to someone who takes up running later in life? Maybe in their 40s or 50s. Should they train differently than a younger runner?
I don't think you have to train differently. But what I think you have to realize is, while you're getting into condition, for the first year or so, just increasing the amount of mileage that you run, up to about 40 or 50 miles a week, is going to help you get faster. You are going to improve. You will. Then, after that, you've got to do some sort of interval training if you want to try and improve any more. Then, eventually, you're going to level off. Then, you're going to get into the process, like I am, where you're trying to slow down as slowly as possible and be competitive in your age group.
I think, ironically, someone getting into the sport in their 40s or 50s still can have that incredible sort of enthusiasm to find out just how good they can get. Whereas, for an elite athlete, you sort of know how good you were. It's like the old country and western lyric, 'I ain't as good as I once was, but I once was as good as I ever was.' I would tell a Masters athlete they have a shot at beating the elites, because mentally they bring a freshness to it. They'll never experience the frustration that an elite athlete does watching the diminution of performance.
How about experienced older runners who want to become more competitive? What should they focus on in their training?
Short, fast intervals at a pace faster than they want to run in 5k. You don't have to do that many. I've never done more than three miles worth of interval training. Like 12 times 400 meters. Six times 800 meters. I think people always have done too much. I see no reason to do it as you get older, because that increases the chance for injury. Injury is overuse in a certain movement. That's why you make it short and fast and work on the recovery. Once you've gotten around your 5k race pace, start working on the recovery. Don't worry about getting faster. Do that once a week and you'll get faster.
Let's talk about older athletes who want to go from running shorter distance events -- like 5k's and 10k's -- to longer events like half or full marathons. What advice would you have for them?
(Train at) what I call conversational pace. All you do is start increasing the length of your long runs and be with friends and do them at a pace where you can talk the way we're talking right now. That is the basis for being able to run the longer distances. You simply have to get used to being out there for that long. It's simply a different kind of fatigue.
You don't have to go hard. You can be totally aerobic. On those days when you feel great, maybe once a month, sure, go for a PR on a loop. But you don't do it all the time.
When you do that, you're just showing yourself you're in shape. That's not really what's getting you in shape. What gets you in shape is running along at a conversational pace and increasing, at least once a week, the total distance that you run. Don't worry about overall distance in a week. Focus on the distance of your long run.
If you want to run a marathon, you truly have to get up to the point where you're out there for at least two hours. I do it every week. I think that keeps you a little less prone to injury than trying to work up to running three hours. I think mentally it's easier. It's the same as with the intervals. If you keep the number down, you don't wake up that day trying to figure out a way to get out of the workout. It's the same way with the long run. If you keep it (at two hours), then you really can get an idea of your improvement. You can start to sense that the two-hour run is going better and better.
Whereas, if you're trying to build up to a three-hour run, all you've got is that one three-hour run. And then you're toast and you have to back off. If you're doing it on your own, you're better backing off the total amount and doing it more consistently.
You were one of the co-founders of the Bolder Boulder 10k, which has evolved into one the largest races in the world. You won the race in 1981. In 2005, you served as the official starter. Are you still involved with the race?
I work the TV every year. [Shorter is part of the television broadcast team.] I jog in the race every year. I jump in one of the B or C waves and then I finish up and do the TV for the elite race. So I still feel like I'm part of it.
I'm still on the advisory board, which is a very loose term for a group that gets together about five times a year, offers suggestions and eats pizza.
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