you everyone and welcome to ga the run with will and barbara have a graph for men and i'm your host for today's segment now i started running when i turned fifty a while back i wanted to stay fit and healthy for the rest of my life it's one of the greatest gifts i've ever given myself now my guest today shares my enthusiasm for running but here's where we're a little bit different while i started out late in life at fifty she's been running well since she was a kid and here's where else we differ i am training for my seventh marathon i feel like i'm catching up and she is training for her twenty seven marathon a very special one and we talked to her  minutes just going to tell us all about it now my guest today gail way she kiss of it is an acclaimed author and the word winning author and journalist focusing on sports and health and fitness and her pieces have run in magazines like of the wall street journal york times and she was a contributor to run this world for about fifteen years but she's very connected to the new york road runner organization has been for a long time focusing specifically on their charity team for kids as a coach and in many other ways but gal has also come out with her new book and it's called running past fifty and i'm very excited to talk with her about this because what she did was she interviewed many people who are legend in the world of running and she picked their brains on why they keep running but even more importantly how they keep running so we have a lot to talk about gail thank you so much allen joining me says i excited to be here and they came up with a lot of the world class marathons a couple of years ago they all combined and said you know what let's have this series and it was originally boston chicago new york london and berlin and if you ran all five of those you got this big metal but we love going and i had already done those five but i thought really you know i don't really think i want that medal and then a few years ago they had a tokyo nine think i want that medal so i'm going to tokyo and when i finish running that i will get the big metal oh that is so very very very excited in a couple of friends from new york road runners are going with me and they are also receiving it it's going to be a big awards so exciting i'm very happy for you and understand that you are training a little differently this time around i sure am in my twenty six marathons i have always run them i've always believed i'm very old school that you run a marathon and when i started training for tokyo i got injured and it was a really bad injury but nothing was going to keep me from tokyo so i reached out to a couple of people i reached out to jeff galloway i reach out to  seventy's and it first i was like them like i don't know about that they said carol it's going to change your life and i have really embraced it i'm on a run four minute walk one minute program and i've done it throughout four miles i can do this and i and i did it already way in the back and i ran for four minutes and then i i just pulled myself out of the side and i walked for that one minute will everyone run by me and i didn't care and it was such a  glorious day to begin with and i know braced it and i really had a ball and i really loved it so i have i said mentioned i do use the program and jeff has always said that when you use this program you just have to keep your ego in check your ego o door because it is a little daunting when the other runners are running by you but i don't know about what happened with you on sunday at the four mile race but i have found that very often all started out and yes they're running ahead of me but i can keep my just coach e bay he came up with my plan and he's in my head saying just stick to it just stick to it you know there's a good program we know it works for many many people get certainly has worked for me i never ran until i hit fifty and so i think legends in the world well the less your normal person too i wanted to make sure i had a mix of the legends yes has ever but he loves the legends ari wants to know what bill rodgers is doing sure but then i wanted the every day runner people who you and i can relate to i can't relate to a bill rodgers i love him and i love a story but when it comes to running never going to be bill rogers but i can be somebody else who's running like me and in my age and you know maybe a four hour marathon  a five hour marathon i can relate to that person so i wanted to make sure i had a mix right so that there was someone there everyone could say oh that's me yeah it's very relatable well done and who from all the people that you interview do you feel was the most love with all of them because these people opened up their lives to me and i mean we laughed we cried we just did everything on the phone together or in person when i could so to say who is my favorite it's like asking a mother who's your favorite child all of them and they all had completely different stories which is one thing in the beginning my publisher said you know to make this interesting you've got to make sure the stories are all different they were all different millman who at eighty ran eighty miles to celebrate is it is birthday like that's incredible and he was so funny when he told me about it and one that he and his wife were in the room she was part of the interview very nice and she would insert her is also a rather no no but just a really great support person so to have the two of them laughing together and chuckling during the interview is just it was wonderful is one that i do that to you know for my birthday every year i do run my age except with little change than what you just get of the when i turn sixty for example it was six point zero not sixteen and you know when i first picked the people i had a range of everyone from fifty to one hundred  all i know these people were just amazing and as i got into the older ranks i first i thought how are these interviews going to go you know as a little worried so when i interviewed betty lynn byrd from atlanta she was a world class sprinter and i set up a time we always arranged a time and she was in atlanta what is around november when i called her and she was i think maybe eighty nine at the time so she didn't pick up the phone right away like maybe this isn't a good sign so i waited a couple a while and then i dialed the number again and she picked up the phone and she was out of breath and i said oh it's so good to hear from you which she said oh darling i'm so sorry i was late i was outside on the latter hanging my christmas lights and i said it's a little to interest she said oh that's a little the neighbors say they stand underneath it with a net she was hysterical everyone brought something different to the table do you hope that will be like that don't you hope that when we're here  before and after and i find it's incredible it is in that research is out there you know everyone has known from the beginning of running that it's healthy for you it's the way to do it have a long jetty too to curb any type of illnesses that d was the first question like my knees are fine how are yours and then over time with more research it's not a problem runners have probably better knees and sedentary people tell me something about your fever run so for your favorite race you have one do you have one that was really meaningful to have a couple of really special marathons i think when i ran the new york city marathon in two thousand and one and after that the trade towers yeah that was that was a cry fest and it was also just so significant to bring the city back together again and i was given a a dream assignment by runners new york road runners to run with a fireman who had been there that day oh my good so hang out with them and it was just a day when i will never forget really really incredible what do you do to prepare for a very important race a marathon for example the day before or do something special i always either change it around b coffee and whole wheat toast and peanut butter and then during the race i'll take a guru or something every five miles right and that's all i need and that's all you in the yeah i mean i don't need a lot of these things that are out there now luckily my apartment building is run especially foreign marathons you always have to be careful what they're serving on their aid stations because it's not always what we're used to or what we even know absolutely and i was sleeping in tokyo and wind that mistake at one eight station late late in the race they serve scotland year ago and that was really incredibly incredibly beautiful and quite easy compared to new york as it was pretty flat where you as i don't know if new york is a very tough course it is you know so if anyone out there listening is thinking about it it is rain are you trained for it right yes especially the hills people don't think of it as hills but every a bridge every ramp onto a bridge is a hill well has been your toughest of the twenty six that you've done so far what has been your most difficult you know big sur was really difficult because the year we ran it that the year i ran it there was an avalanche at the end so they had to change the course we never went over that historic bridge we ran to the bridge and back but in redesigning the course they added more hills so i remember the night before listening to the race director he goes i've got some good news and bad news we're going to have great weather we're going to have more hills so whatever you think your time is and ten minutes to it and it was really tough and everyone talks about the beauty of pixar and it is spectacularly beautiful i think i looked once over sort of like the over one of them it was really quite beautiful scenery along the coast i'm like but still get started we have a job to do with more important to get the job you have a favorite marathon so london was great because my daughter was living in london at the time and she said i'm going to be you know on the side gave her a big hug and there was a photographer there any captured it was in the paper the next day i was like ok that i was worried that i was arthur absolutely that's also every marathon is special every marathon it's almost like your first marathon always we experience to anyone who's never actually experienced a full marathon it is something to strive for yeah when you say new york is probably one of the best and to have for your first time you know you referenced in your book and your wonderful book one of everything about running it was a very special he's a brilliant writer memoir of quest talking about his life a very prolific writer yes and for him to take it and all of a sudden out of all the beautiful books he's written to do  i'm running yes this is going to be special and it was it really and how it's really taken him around the world and how he runs everywhere it's a very special book and i was very delighted to see that you also rebel that's one of the things that everyone talked about in this book regardless of what their ages are or where they go running is the first thing they do when they move to a new town or when they're visiting a new site or on tour they go for a run right and that's what i do i've always first thing i'm out the door running while everybody is still asleep and i'll come home and i'll say now i know we were having breakfast oh and i found out where that museum was because you ran the city yes that's exactly what i do when they travel let me ask something do you prefer running alone or do you like running with a group i was always a loner running and then when i started coaching and i would be out there running with the people it was so much fun i mean we would just talk and the miles go by so much faster when you have a group around when you're talking and you're not counting down oh my god one more mile one more mile so i've become more of a group runner now i mean i still do a lot of my long runs by myself but i love the camaraderie and that's a big part they came out in there's a section here called lessons learned yes and it's the running community it is a very sick national community and one person described it is a tribe of light people who travel to races to do the same thing over and over again but it's the spirit and the camaraderie and maybe you just see these people once a year if you will run the same marathon or at the masters events which people are going crazy over it's like a birthday party what made you decide to write this particular book because i am over fifty and i thought you know there's a lot of people out there still reading the master's segment of running is growing it is the female segment of running is growing that you are now fifty seven percent of marathons and races in general and you reference some of those statistics are both amazing it's amazing and there are more masters running and i think the new york city marathon two years ago there was sixty sixty percent of the masters category were running and they're fast so i thought they have a lot to share  so that's why i decided to write the book and maybe i could learn something you know how is your running changed over the last let's say ten years it's it's gotten slower as you've gotten older yes well you just you just slow down it's it's a natural thing that will happen to all of us we get slower so a lot of people give up you know there's a group out there who say i don't want to get slower i don't want to look at my times and see that i'll never set a p r or their diminishing so they stop running that's a shame because horribly recognized that that's their money is the oh yeah if teething yeah what they're doing and it is a gift yeah so most able to want to nurture that gift yes so it's a mental preparation to get over that to get over the ego and say all right what's going to keep me out there what's going to keep me interested and that's where we thank goodness for age group divisions yes age grading divisions because you can still compete within your age group and i think runners are the only people who look forward to a birthday because you know like oh wow i'm going to be seventy i'm going to be in a new age group but you know if that's exciting so that keeps you out there and also the fact that running is a gift and you want it in your life forever and order to have that in your life forever you need to but just share it just reset the goals yes and reset your head and just get out there and enjoy it and that's hard it was even hard for me but i've really loved this new attitude of running even a marathon and just being out there and enjoying it not looking at my watch still hard it's because we're all competitive we are all competitive yes but you can take that competition and channel it into a healthier way right very well said and for me it's a little easier because i was never a fast runner because i store that when i turned fifty and i store the really at the very very bottom if you will galloway run walk run program that i've discussed already that it really has helped me to maintain this you know my what i think there's a woman in the book kathy bergen and she's in her eighty's and she was a hoot she was so funny because again she grew up where women were not allowed to participate in sports you could be a cheerleader i don't maybe there was a tennis team maybe depending on what state you live in and i didn't i grew up in the same era i had no outlet for running i couldn't join a track or course country team but she was even that much older than me so when she was i think sixty her husband i think played another sport and he discovered masters events usa t f masters events so he was going to go and she said well i want to go to but what will i do and he said anyone can run so she signed up and it was her through race of her life and she loved it loved it and now she's setting world records in the high jump and she's finally finding all those things that all the young kids today have yeah and we found her tribe we didn't have it you talked before about you know running alone running with a group you know i find that i like to balance the two i like to run with my weekly running group especially the as the runs get longer if we're training for a marathon yet because i can do very low lead to go i don't know about you what your what is your longest run my own restaurant is still twenty or it's going to about two twenty's and then i like a three week taper i used to do a two week taper when i was younger ok but one of the things as you get older is you need a lot more recovery time you do so four weeks before any marathon i run up to thirty miles and that's great that's just my routine and it does tell me don't struggle logically more than anything else but i also really enjoy my runs alone during the week the other a little shorter yes you know and do i love my alone time running i've always said listen the head it's my religion that get out there and it's just such a spiritual feeling to be out you know i love a pre dawn run where you see the sunrise or you see a moon at night and you just you know i have all my my set runs and i've been running there for so long i'll know all that person moved or a look this person the b b and it's just it's a beautiful thing that clear my mind i saw all the problems yes yes yes and every ran track and i was so jealous of the fact that they could run because to me it was just such freedom you know and they were also in cars country and i could see them run through the woods or run on the beaches and i was like i want to do that there was something in me that just i just wanted to run and feel that i wanted to feel the wind and i wanted to feel the salt water on my face but i couldn't you know i tried to be a chiller didn't even make that turn i was such a nerd i couldn't be a cheerleader so i thought you know what don't tell me i can't do something i was also one of those sixty's don't tell me i can't do anything and i one night i just put on my kids and i took the family dog and i ran around the block when i was sixteen years old and i haven't stopped saying it's interesting because that was in  sixty seven yes it was the same year that catherine switzer was almost thrown off course at the boston marathon that's me and here i am running at night for the same reason because we're female to inspire you she did yeah and we have become friends i've had so many mentors and wonderful people in my life to she could delay a is another mentor she was the first woman in the world to run a sub three hour marathon at age fifty and she lived in my hometown and she took me under her wing and she's the one who taught me we had to travel to races together which is another wonderful thing that runners do we just get a car and go on a road trip in rather a bus and i would go to races with her when we would finish whether it was a half marathon a marathon we'd go back to the room and the first thing she would do is massage her feet and thank them and she said you have to thank your feet think of what they just did for you and i couldn't agree more i didn't do that i haven't been doing that but i'm going to do that yeah because i think that's incredible we should be thinking or we should  there's a lot of medical books but there wasn't a book to inspire us to say that you had a deep running you can run forever if you nurture it and take care of it and treat it like a gift and the gift though that is it's in the credible gift the one that i i know that you'll keep doing yeah i say my vote is stick with the jeff galloway for the long haul i like my you know i have to mine daughter just moved to boston as i mentioned and she lives right at the bus and finish line so i there i mean getting to staten island and everything else but it's so worth it yeah but you've also run the have an ultra marathon or a no i did i did a half iron man triathlon i was that mean a half hour and i was that actually well so instead of going the full iron man distance you do it's like seventy three miles it was great and i did it fifty so it was you know it wasn't just celebrate your fifth it's kind of and i had done triathlons for years and i decided to up the game because everyone said well are you going to do an iron man like i don't know if i really want to tackle that but i will tackle a half and it was fantastic i loved it and what's after tokyo what's next on your her after tokyo i'm going to take some time off and try to really recover and heal so that i don't have to worry about getting injured again i'm going to take all the advice in my book and i tell myself that i did and then i would yeah i'll keep running marathons but i'm just going to enjoy them and joy and enjoy being everyone thank you for joining in gotta run with will and i want to thank will send chaz also one that think everyone at manhattan neighborhood network and remember this whether it's running cycling or whatever just