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.