Login required to started new threads

Login required to post replies

Prev Next
Gene Dykes Sets 70+ Marathon Record at Jacksonville Marathon
Quote | Reply
 


https://www.jacksonville.com/sports/20181215/dykes-surpasses-record-as-burkhardt-davis-win-marathon




Running 2:54:23!






.

Once, I was fast. But I got over it.
Quote Reply
Re: Gene Dykes Sets 70+ Marathon Record at Jacksonville Marathon [hblake] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
Amazing....but as a Canadian, lets see how he does at age 73 :0) When Ed set the record at 2:54:49
Quote Reply
Re: Gene Dykes Sets 70+ Marathon Record at Jacksonville Marathon [hblake] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
Amazing and congratulations to him
He just missed out at the Toronto Waterfront Marathon earlier this year....but lets see how he does when he is 73.
That's when Ed ran 2:54:49
Quote Reply
Re: Gene Dykes Sets 70+ Marathon Record at Jacksonville Marathon [hblake] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
That's really cool, that guy is my new hero.. And yes, at 70+ they should do one or two year jumps in age groups, it is exponentially more difficult each year once you are still moving and 70(so I have heard) it sure seemed that way starting at 60!!!
Quote Reply
Re: Gene Dykes Sets 70+ Marathon Record at Jacksonville Marathon [hblake] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
Since I live near where Ed used to live, and Ed remains my idol, I am a bit disappointed by this news.

However, since I am getting older, I am super excited by this news! Maybe sub 3 marathons in one's 70s (or perhaps 60s), don't have to be the realm of only a select few (not to say Gene isn't a total outlier - just like seeing more people normalize what once seemed impossible).
Quote Reply
Re: Gene Dykes Sets 70+ Marathon Record at Jacksonville Marathon [monty] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
Plus knowing him he’s probably racing tomorrow.

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
Quote Reply
Re: Gene Dykes Sets 70+ Marathon Record at Jacksonville Marathon [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
actually, much more likely that he'll be playing golf, unless he got a round in today (not uncommon either).
Quote Reply
Re: Gene Dykes Sets 70+ Marathon Record at Jacksonville Marathon [monty] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
It's not just age though. Some of what has allowed Gene to become so fast has just been personal circumstances. He was not running at anything like this pace 5 years ago, but he has been able to really devote himself to running (not exclusively, but without much concern for its impact on other parts of life). As he has said often, he has gotten faster over the last several years, not slower, which contradicts most people's expectations and experience of their late 60s. Only time will reveal at what point his speeding up comes to a halt, but there's obvious reason to conclude that it starts now, any more than there was when he (or anyone else, by implication) was 68.
Quote Reply
Re: Gene Dykes Sets 70+ Marathon Record at Jacksonville Marathon [PaulDavis] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
As he has said often, he has gotten faster over the last several years, not slower, which contradicts most people's expectations and experience of their late 60s. //

Not really.. He was much faster in his teens and 20's..Of corse one can get faster than you were a year ago, 5 years ago, 10 years ago, but with most athletes that rose to some higher % of their potential in their youth, they are never that fast again past50/60. No one gets to cheat Father Time like that, even Gene.


His unusual set of circumstances had him quitting quite early(competition) after achieving only a small % of his then potential. For whatever reasons(and we really are never gonna know for sure) he just got flat as a kid and gave up the ghost. But whatever it was, it has either disappeared or is no longer a factor in running fast as a 70+ year old. He got a do over, and now is hitting his peak for a 2nd time around, only this one has far fewer competitors, and you dont have to run 5 minute pace to dominate it...
Last edited by: monty: Dec 16, 18 11:07
Quote Reply
Re: Gene Dykes Sets 70+ Marathon Record at Jacksonville Marathon [monty] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
Well, I ran with Gene on and off all through his 60s. I don't think he would have characterized his situation then the way you've done (though he might now). I don't think he sees any real connection between the runner he was in college and the runner he was in his late 50s and then 60s. He might be wrong about that, I don't know.

The general media and the running media are also full of stories about how slowing down in one's 60s is more or less inevitable, regardless of whether one ever achieved 10% or 100% of one's "youthful potential". Gene has said in several interviews that he wonders what will happen if/when more people discover their full potential without any earlier history of athleticism (and the resulting minor wear and tear and injury etc.)
Quote Reply
Re: Gene Dykes Sets 70+ Marathon Record at Jacksonville Marathon [PaulDavis] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
There is something called the 10,000 hour rule / 13 years. That is the time it takes for you to reach maximum proficiency in what you pursue. So maybe he took a break from the particular clock. All succumb to it (with some outliers, which is the name of the book I got this from). You see young stars rise fast only to whither quickly
Quote Reply
Re: Gene Dykes Sets 70+ Marathon Record at Jacksonville Marathon [synthetic] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
The 10k hour rule is completely anecdotal. Malcolm Gladwell dreamed it up, and there is plenty of evidence that it's really not generally applicable. There are some cool stories to support it, and some cool stories to refute it. This not a particularly scholarly examination of it, but musician and producer Rick Beato gets into it in an easy to handle way here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy_MQ0F9tuQ
Quote Reply
Re: Gene Dykes Sets 70+ Marathon Record at Jacksonville Marathon [PaulDavis] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
Rick Beato gets into it in an easy to handle way here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy_MQ0F9tuQ


That dude is all over the place, and unfortunately does nothing to refute the 10k rule. All his examples are it taking more than that, and of course that would be the case for people not meant to be at the very top. Guess what, some people spend a 100,000 hours at something, and never are great..Of course Gladwell's proposed theory is just a general but close enough for horse shoes approximation. And of course there are hours spent doing something that may be counted, even though they are not absolutely related. If you were swimmer for 10 years as a kid, that might be applicable to you playing water polo, or surfing, or becoming a top triathlete.

I liked the book, but of course it is not gospel. But it is fun that in most cases he was not far off. So kind of a bell curve with 10k smack dab in the middle..
Quote Reply
Re: Gene Dykes Sets 70+ Marathon Record at Jacksonville Marathon [PaulDavis] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
PaulDavis wrote:
Well, I ran with Gene on and off all through his 60s. I don't think he would have characterized his situation then the way you've done (though he might now). I don't think he sees any real connection between the runner he was in college and the runner he was in his late 50s and then 60s. He might be wrong about that, I don't know.

The general media and the running media are also full of stories about how slowing down in one's 60s is more or less inevitable, regardless of whether one ever achieved 10% or 100% of one's "youthful potential". Gene has said in several interviews that he wonders what will happen if/when more people discover their full potential without any earlier history of athleticism (and the resulting minor wear and tear and injury etc.)

Cool that you know him. His story seems similar to Whitlock's in that there was a long break during the middle years of life.
'Full potential' is never full when the attempt to achieve it is way past the true peak of prime, which is most assuredly an age related thang...you're always going to bump into an ever lower ceiling.
Quote Reply
Re: Gene Dykes Sets 70+ Marathon Record at Jacksonville Marathon [dtoce] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
dtoce wrote:
'Full potential' is never full when the attempt to achieve it is way past the true peak of prime, which is most assuredly an age related thang...you're always going to bump into an ever lower ceiling.

I don't know ... with endurance sports, there's so much mental game involved that I don't know that the physical prime period (whatever you define that to be) is necessarily correlated with peak performance. Clearly when it comes to absolute world records (e.g. a 2:01 marathon), we're talking about people who manage to get it all to come together at the same time.

But there are things that I did in my 40's that I would never have been able to do in my (say) late 20's or early 30's because I just didn't have the right psychology for it (and conversely, I ran 100 miles when I was 19 yet I would never do that ever again, even though I became a much better runner in my 40s, because I never again had the right mental situation for that sort of thing). When was my prime for a given event or type of performance? Once you get beyond, oh maybe a half-marathon or so, into the territory where the mental game is a big part of it, I am not sure it's easy to say. I am not sure I remember ever asking Gene if he thought he could have run a faster (than 2:54) marathon when he was younger, but I have a suspicion that if he was forced to give an answer, he might say no. Not because he wouldn't have found it physically easier, but because he just wasn't in the right head space for that sort of thing.

Anyway, we can just sit back and watch. Gene will just keep running.
Quote Reply
Re: Gene Dykes Sets 70+ Marathon Record at Jacksonville Marathon [dtoce] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
dtoce wrote:
Cool that you know him.


Since I am sure that Gene will read this at some point, I want to be completely clear: over the last 13 years or so, my wife has been one of Gene's main training partners, I'm just the tag-along who sometimes runs with them, and sometimes with just Gene.
Last edited by: PaulDavis: Dec 16, 18 14:22
Quote Reply
Re: Gene Dykes Sets 70+ Marathon Record at Jacksonville Marathon [PaulDavis] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
PaulDavis wrote:
dtoce wrote:
'Full potential' is never full when the attempt to achieve it is way past the true peak of prime, which is most assuredly an age related thang...you're always going to bump into an ever lower ceiling.

I don't know ... with endurance sports, there's so much mental game involved that I don't know that the physical prime period (whatever you define that to be) is necessarily correlated with peak performance. Clearly when it comes to absolute world records (e.g. a 2:01 marathon), we're talking about people who manage to get it all to come together at the same time.

But there are things that I did in my 40's that I would never have been able to do in my (say) late 20's or early 30's because I just didn't have the right psychology for it (and conversely, I ran 100 miles when I was 19 yet I would never do that ever again, even though I became a much better runner in my 40s, because I never again had the right mental situation for that sort of thing). When was my prime for a given event or type of performance? Once you get beyond, oh maybe a half-marathon or so, into the territory where the mental game is a big part of it, I am not sure it's easy to say. I am not sure I remember ever asking Gene if he thought he could have run a faster (than 2:54) marathon when he was younger, but I have a suspicion that if he was forced to give an answer, he might say no. Not because he wouldn't have found it physically easier, but because he just wasn't in the right head space for that sort of thing.

Anyway, we can just sit back and watch. Gene will just keep running.

True. We will be able to watch and enjoy.

The mental game of many 20 somethings is weak compared to older peeps but do not for a second believe that that mental aspect alone at an older age can compare to those that have both the mental game and the peak body when you are at age 20-30.

It is debatable as to when peak fitness occurs, and it is certainly related to the specific sport, but in running, the records over the span of years speaks for itself.
Quote Reply
Re: Gene Dykes Sets 70+ Marathon Record at Jacksonville Marathon [monty] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
monty wrote:
Rick Beato gets into it in an easy to handle way here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy_MQ0F9tuQ


That dude is all over the place,

yeah, coherence and on-point-ness has never been one of Beato's strong points.

Quote:
and unfortunately does nothing to refute the 10k rule.

OK. Here's some more solid stuff:

https://www.inc.com/...he-original-stu.html
https://journals.sagepub.com/...177/0956797614535810
https://www.6seconds.org/...know-about-practice/

Also, I was wrong. Gladwell only popularized it, it was K. Anders Ericsson who did the research on which Gladwell based his proposition. Here's Ericsson and Pool in their book "Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise" (https://www.amazon.co.uk/...&tag=idetoval-21)

Quote:
First, there is nothing special or magical about ten thousand hours. Gladwell could just as easily have mentioned the average amount of time the best violin students had practiced by the time they were eighteen (approximately seventy-four hundred hours) but he chose to refer to the total practice time they had accumulated by the time they were twenty, because it was a nice round number.

And, either way, at eighteen or twenty, these students were nowhere near masters of the violin. They were very good, promising students who were likely headed to the top of their field, but they still had a long way to go at the time of the study. Pianists who win international piano competitions tend to do so when they're around thirty years old, and thus they've probably put in about 20,000 to 25,000 hours of practice by then; ten thousand hours is only halfway down that path.

Second, the number of ten thousand hours at age twenty for the best violinists was only an average. Half of the ten violinists in that group hadn't actually accumulated ten thousand hours at that age. Gladwell misunderstood this fact and incorrectly claimed that all the violinists in that group had accumulated over ten thousand hours.

Third, Gladwell didn't distinguish between the type of practice that the musicians in our study did--a very specific sort of practice referred to as "deliberate practice" which involves constantly pushing oneself beyond one's comfort zone, following training activities designed by an expert to develop specific abilities, and using feedback to identify weaknesses and work on them--and any sort of activity that might be labeled "practice."
Quote Reply
Re: Gene Dykes Sets 70+ Marathon Record at Jacksonville Marathon [hblake] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
And, a 50k/Marathon Saturday -Sunday double two weeks before. Incredible.
Quote Reply
Re: Gene Dykes Sets 70+ Marathon Record at Jacksonville Marathon [PaulDavis] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
In ‘Fast over fifty,’ Joe Friel talks about research that indicates that those runners who maintain a ‘competitive’ training regime keep their performance from dropping off way before the historical age declines say it typically would be. The research seems to show the reason for historical declines in performance with age has more to do with a decrease in training than increase in age. I am really impressed with Gene’s recovery ability, hope he keeps it up for a few more decades!
Quote Reply
Re: Gene Dykes Sets 70+ Marathon Record at Jacksonville Marathon [PaulDavis] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
PaulDavis wrote:
He was not running at anything like this pace 5 years ago.

I'll say! Back then, he was so slow I kept up with him. Once, anyway.

Our trajectories have, uhm, diverged since then.

Congrats to Gene! I thought his comment about how this frees up his racing schedule was funny, too.
Quote Reply
Re: Gene Dykes Sets 70+ Marathon Record at Jacksonville Marathon [Bob Loblaw] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
Once I discovered that the record would not be ratified, I briefly considered altering my 2019 plans to accommodate another record attempt, but I had way too much fun stuff on tap for 2019, so I'm just going to go out there and have a blast. Only five marathons, but 13 ultras to keep the year interesting. I'll dabble with a marathon record attempt next winter.
Quote Reply
Re: Gene Dykes Sets 70+ Marathon Record at Jacksonville Marathon [vonschnapps] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
> hope he keeps it up for a few more decades!

Amen to that!
Quote Reply
Re: Gene Dykes Sets 70+ Marathon Record at Jacksonville Marathon [monty] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
It's hard to compare my speed now with how fast I was early on because a "long distance" race back then was 2 miles, and now I really hate anything shorter than 5K. I've only run shorter than 5K outside once, which was just last year in the 1500 meters. I ran a time that was roughly equivalent to 5:30 for the mile. 4:50 was about as good as I could do in high school, and my best time in the 2-mile was 10:17. Oddly enough, I could not better those times in college. So, yes, I was a faster miler in high school than I am now. But, I couldn't even run 26 miles as a kid, and the two or three 20-mile jogs I did left me completely exhausted, so one could argue that I am a faster distance guy now. Of course, I didn't train for long distance back then, so it's a bad comparison. Have you heard of the rule, "you only have 15 good years no matter when you start?". I'm entering year #13 of racing now, and I really hope that rule means I can improve even more in the next three years!
Quote Reply
Re: Gene Dykes Sets 70+ Marathon Record at Jacksonville Marathon [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
I take an annual three week break every year, which started right after Jacksonville. My first post-Jacksonville race was last weekend - a 50-mile trail race in Louisiana.
Quote Reply

Prev Next