Run Long After 60

At ten years old, Lance Griffiths showered at the gym because there was no hot water at home. His father was a competitive bodybuilder who used coconut oil before every session, so the boy went to school smelling of coconuts and was bullied for it. The name they gave him was Coco. Fifty-four years later it is the only name anyone uses. He competed in the Mr. UK in 1990, decided the sport was not w...

Andy Croom Mathews is a Florida history teacher who became a race director almost by accident and an ultrarunner almost by eavesdropping. In 2001, at 39, he overheard two men in their fifties talking about something called the Vermont 100. His thought was simple: if these guys can do it, I can do it. He mailed in a paper application with a check, flew to New Hampshire without arranging a ride to t...

In this episode of Run Long After 60, I sit down with Neville McKeown — a 70-year-old from Durban, South Africa, who found me on Instagram lifting weights with a smile on his face, and who turned out to have one of the most remarkable stories I have ever put on this show. When we recorded this, Neville had hit his weekly fitness goal 475 weeks in a row. More than nine years without missing a singl...

In this episode of Run Long After 60, I sit down with Dean Karnazes — on his 64th birthday. He quit running at fifteen. He didn't start again until the night he turned thirty, when he walked out of a bar in San Francisco after too much tequila, took off his pants, and ran thirty miles into the dark in a pair of silk boxer shorts. That night changed his life. Thirty-four years later he has never ta...

The race has been held seven times. John Clarke started all seven. John Clarke finished all seven. Nobody else has ever done that, and nobody else ever will. It isn't a record waiting to be broken — it's closed. To match it you would have to go back to 2020 and start over, and 2020 is gone. The Last Annual Heart of the South is Lazarus Lake's journey race. You park your car at a farm in Castle Roc...

In this episode of Run Long After 60, I sit down with Lori Balue — a 63-year-old functional health practitioner from Southern California who was 225 pounds at 40, asthmatic, pre-diabetic, and on an inhaler a doctor told her she'd never get off. She takes no medications now. She hiked San Bernardino Peak two days before we recorded this. She's got Mount San Jacinto this weekend and Mount Whitney in...

You pay your entry fee. You drive to a cornfield in Bryant, Georgia, and you park your car. You get on a tour bus. Nobody tells you where the bus is going. That's how the Last Annual Heart of the South begins. Somewhere out there — for Will Cooper, it was three hundred and fifty-five miles away this year — the bus stops. The route arrives by email the night before. There is no crew, no aid, no cou...

Ann Trason is widely considered the greatest female ultrarunner of all time — 14 Western States wins, 20 world records, a career that rewrote what was possible. But this episode isn't about any of that. It's about who Ann is at 65. With rheumatoid arthritis attacking her joints. Using a walker. Refusing surgery after spiral fractures. And training right now to climb Aconcagua, the highest peak in...

It didn't take more than half a second to say yes. Paul James Johnson had just finished telling Mark about his fourth Cocodona 250 finish — four belt buckles, a thousand miles at that distance — and right there, mid-interview, invited him out to crew and pace. Mark showed up the day the race started. He didn't leave until everyone packed up and went home. Six days. Forty-four miles as pacer, from...

There are fewer than 40 people on earth who have finished 100 or more races at the 100-mile distance or longer. Bobby Keogh is one of them. He has 108 official hundred-mile finishes — closer to 140 when you factor in his multi-day mileage across 6-day and 10-day events. He ran his first trail race at 32. He is 77 years old. He has been at this for 45 years and he is not slowing down — he is regist...

In this episode of Run Long After 60, I sit down with Mark Werkmeister — a 65-year-old ultrarunner from New Mexico who retired at 53 after a 25-year career as an engineer at Intel, started running ultras in his late 40s, and hasn't stopped since. Mark is grounded, humble, funny, deliberate. A guy you'd love to have crew you or pace you or just hang out. He didn't start desperate. He didn't start c...

In this episode of Run Long After 60, I sat down with Andy Jones-Wilkins — known throughout the trail and ultrarunning world simply as AJW — for a conversation rooted in the history of ultrarunning, the growth of the sport, and what it really means to evolve with it. AJW is a ten-time Western States finisher with seven top-ten finishes. He has written AJW's Taproom, a weekly column at iRunFar.com...

In this episode of Run Long After 60, I sit down with Ed Ettinghausen — known throughout the ultrarunning world as The Jester — the first person in history to finish 300 races of 100 miles or more. He is the number one ranked 100-mile finisher in the United States and the world. He has 38 DNFs. And he will tell you exactly what he learned from every single one of them. But Ed didn't come on this s...

In this episode of Run Long After 60, I sit down with Keith Allison — a 61-year-old runner from British Columbia who had never run a 200-mile race before this year. His first attempt was the Cocodona 250. He finished in 99 hours, 29 minutes, and 57 seconds. That time made him the first person in the 60–69 age group in the six-year history of Cocodona to break the 100-hour mark — out of 34 finisher...

He's been running since he was 15. He's never had a major injury. At 60, he just went out and ran 30 miles for the first time — and felt fine. Dave Perry found his audience six months ago when his daughters told him to start posting his runs on TikTok. No ring light. No script. No production team. Just a 60-year-old man in Northern California going out and running — and his videos have crossed 10,...

Run Streaker Series – Episode 2 In this episode of Run Long After 60, I sit down with two brothers — Chris Nicolaides (66) and Michael Nicolaides (63) — who have each run at least one mile every single day for over ten years. Chris started his streak on Thanksgiving Day 2015. Michael started his 33 days later. Neither one has stopped. But the streak numbers alone don't tell the story. These brothe...

This one is personal.   For the first half of this episode, I'm sitting down with my running coach, Henry Howard — deputy media director of the American Legion, RRCA-certified coach, the creator of RunSpirited, and a five-time 100-mile finisher. Henry has believed in me for years, sometimes when the data probably said he shouldn't. We talk about how he balances running a major media operation at t...

In this episode of Run Long After 60, I sit down with Taylor Nichols — a West Hollywood, Los Angeles actor and bicycle advocate who has been fighting for safer streets for over 15 years, and who hasn't stopped riding since he bought a Bianchi off a drug dealer in Aspen, Colorado in the mid-80s.   Taylor rode bikes as a kid in Michigan, put the bike away at 16 when he got his license, and didn't ge...

In this episode of Run Long After 60, I sit down with Jenny Hitchings — a 62-year-old elite masters runner and coach from Sacramento, California, who didn't discover she was competitive until her late 30s. What followed is one of the most remarkable arcs in masters running history. She didn't stumble into records — she hunted them. Systematically. Breaking times that had stood untouched for over 2...

In this episode of Run Long After 60, I sit down with Ray Mena — a 70-year-old athlete from Long Beach, California, who started running at 45 and never stopped pushing. Ray's story is one of the most layered I've heard. He didn't move through phases — marathons, then triathlon, then trail. He stacked them. Simultaneously. For years. Sub-3 marathons. Ironman. Leadville 100. Wasatch 100. Zion 100. N...

In this episode of Run Long After 60, I speak with ultrarunner Gail Leedy — a 72-year-old trail runner who has spent decades in endurance sports, completing more than 100 races and continuing to show up year after year. But Gail’s running life is built around something even more fundamental than ultramarathons: consistency over time. She didn’t grow up with access to running or organized sports. L...

Lion Caldwell has been running ultramarathons since the early days of the sport — and at 74, he’s still chasing 100 miles. His career stretches back to the late 1970s. No GPS. No super shoes. Just effort, instinct, and a willingness to go further. In this episode of Run Long After 60, Lion shares stories from a lifetime in endurance sport, including: The 1979 New York 100-miler Winning London to B...

Run Streaker Series – Episode 1 In this episode of Run Long After 60 , I speak with ultrarunner Tim Hardy — a runner who has maintained an 18-year run streak while also completing more than 130 ultramarathons , including races like Badwater and The Last Annual Vol State 500K . But Tim’s running life is built around something even more fundamental than ultramarathons: running at least one mile ever...

In this episode of Run Long After 60 , I speak with Leslie Cohen — Los Angeles bankruptcy attorney, Abbott World Marathon Majors competitor, Age Group Champion and one of the most remarkable masters marathoners I’ve met — about discovering endurance running later in life and continuing to compete at a high level as she starts her seventies. Leslie didn’t begin running marathons until around age 50...

In this episode of Run Long After 60, I speak with Kevin Fleeger — a 2x Cocodona 250 finisher and one of the most deliberate athletes I’ve met — about what it means to get smarter with age. Kevin didn’t begin ultrarunning until 59. In May 2025, fourteen runners started Cocodona 250 in the 60–69 age group. Only three finished. Kevin was the first finisher in that division. But this conversation isn...