Earl Fee shows how to go from good to great

WARNING: This article will make some people defensive, upset, making excuses for their less than excellent physical condition, while others will find hope in it. Proceed with caution.

Canadian Earl Fee went from being a good runner in his youth to being a great runner in his later years. By applying what we can learn from his hugely successful transformation, we can maybe go from average to amazing shape or maybe become a master athlete or a more successful one. Before we see how he did it, we should probably take a look at why he is considered such a great runner today.

Earl was a good, maybe even a very good, middle-distance runner in high school and college; for example, his 400m time was around 51 seconds (not bad, but not off the charts either). After a 33-year hiatus from racing, this nuclear engineer/supervisor decided to start racing with his two sons, Curtis and Tyler. At the time he was in excellent shape, he had been active over the years with tennis, water and snow skiing and was in the habit of doing about 50 push-ups every day. At 56, Earl competed in his first race since college, did well, found he was fun, and hasn’t looked back since.

In his 24 years of competing in Masters, Earl has been very successful, to say the least, in the 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 300m hurdles, 10K, cross country and more. How successful? He has won 12 Canadian age group cross country titles. As of 2009, he has broken 53 (and counting) master world records and still holds 14 of them. Last March, on his 80th birthday, he celebrated by breaking a world record of 1:11.23 in the 400m at the Ontario Masters indoor track and field championships. This time he annihilated the Canadian 80-84 age group record by 8 seconds and broke the existing world record by more than 4 seconds; Showing his endurance, just three hours later he was back on track running the 200m in 32.07, narrowly missing American Mel Larson’s world record of 31.86 and breaking Aleks Ernesak’s Canadian record by over 3 seconds. A few weeks later in Raleigh, North Carolina, he set a new outdoor world record in the 400 with an impressive time of 1:10.64 and back in Toronto a new outdoor 800 world record (pending? ?) with a spectacular time of 2:48.95. If Earl is slowing down, it’s not much. If you want to watch Earl’s 800m world record run, go to YouTube and type in “Fee breaks World 800m”; really worth checking out.

That Earl Fee can run so well at age 80 means he’s doing something right. In a talk he gave this November at the Ontario Senior Games, he told the audience: “My main training secret … is age slower than my rivals”. Let’s see how he has done:

• Earl uses short, intense anaerobic intervals instead of long aerobic runs “to slow the aging process” and set new records
• He follows hard workouts and races with easier ones and stretches several times a day.
• Cross training (rowing, weightlifting, swimming and pool running) is interspersed between sessions/race days
• Use mental techniques before and during races to improve results: see training as a mind-body experience
• Formally and informally he studies the art and science of running and training: he keeps meticulous records of his running/training and refers to them often to see what works and what doesn’t.
• Eat well: Enjoy a low-glycemic index diet consisting primarily of fish and a little chicken for protein, fruits, nuts, whole grains, red wine, and plenty of vegetables: Take 13 nutritional supplements, including vitamins C and E, arginine and glutamine (amino acids), fish oil, coenzyme Q10
• Earl has maintained the long stride of a much younger runner by doing periodic stretches throughout the day. Stride length typically decreases by about an inch per year due to loss of flexibility.

Earl also believes in a balanced life. In this sense, he is not only a runner, but also a family man, artist, poet, motivational speaker and author. He is the author of The complete running book: how to be a champion from 9 to 90 and has another planned for the end of 2010, entitled: 100 years of youth naturally: body, mind and spirit training.

Although Earl acknowledges that good genes have played a role, he says that the “intense training I’m doing keeps me young…” Looking at all of his Canadian and world record performances in his 60s, 70s and now in his 80s, we can assume that you probably know what you are talking about. To find out in finer detail how Earl stays so young and continues to amaze the running world, check out his blog posts at YoungerLegsblogspot.com

If Earl Fee can go from good to great, maybe we can learn a thing or two from him. So maybe we can incorporate a couple or more of his secrets into our own lives so we can move from where we are to maybe too!