Marathon, in his seventies and eighties · 1990s–2010s

Ed Whitlock

Ran a sub-three marathon at 73, in laps of a cemetery.

2:54:48

Toronto, 2004, aged 73

The times

In 2003, at 72, he became the first person over 70 to run a marathon under three hours, in 2:59:10. The following year in Toronto he went faster still, 2:54:48 at 73, which remained his quickest time after turning 70. He set age-group records across a range of distances into his eighties.

How he trained

Hours of slow laps around a cemetery near his house in Ontario, in old shoes, wearing whatever. No heart-rate monitor, no coach, no periodisation in any modern sense. He described it as boring on purpose.

The point of the boredom

The routine was the whole method. Enormous accumulated time on his feet, at an easy effort, sustained for decades. He had found a thing he could keep doing and then kept doing it for longer than anyone else.

Still going

In October 2016, at 85, he ran 3:56:34 in Toronto and became the oldest person to finish a marathon under four hours. He died the following March, at 86, about five months after that run.

What to steal

Find something you can keep doing, and then keep doing it for a very long time. That is the whole trick.

Where they come up

Checkpoint 10GritRan 2:54 for the marathon at 73, the first man over 70 to break three hours, and kept setting age-group records into his eighties. His training was hours of slow loops around a cemetery near his house, in old shoes, for years on end. Nothing about it was clever. It was just never interrupted, which is the entire argument of this checkpoint.

All 26 case studies. Profiles are factual and drawn from the public record. Where a performance carries an asterisk, this app says so rather than leaving it out.