Olympian Shorter leads boomer pack

Brian Metzler, Special to the Rocky

Published October 30, 2007 at midnight

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Since winning a gold medal in the marathon at the 1972 Olympics, Frank Shorter has long been revered as one of the principal figures in the original running boom that changed the face of American fitness trends.

The longtime Boulder resident solidified that status by winning a silver medal at the 1976 Games in Montreal and helping start the Bolder Boulder 10K in 1979. He's slowed down since retiring from competitive running in the early 1980s, but he's still a trend-setter.

Shorter turns 60 on Wednesday, a milestone birthday often met with the notion that life will soon become more sedentary. That won't be the case for Shorter, who runs between 30 and 60 miles and bikes as many as 10 hours every week.

"My only goal now is to not look as old as I am," Shorter says. "My parents didn't look like me when they were this age. Even from the early part of the running boom, we've been able to be part of a paradigm shift. I've always enjoyed over time being able to find different ways to take advantage of that. Now I just find my own way to fit in with my training. And I'm just happiest when I'm out there moving."

Shorter isn't obsessed with exercise or maniacal about training as he was in his days as a world-class runner. He rarely enters races and when he does he's low-key about his efforts. But the man who won nine marathons in his career says he feels the need to be active more than ever.

And he's proud to be at the leading edge of another trend - that of the relentlessly active baby boom generation.

"As you get older, you have to find other ways to fill what I call the exercise quotient. I have a certain amount of exercise that I feel I need to do in a day," he says.

"It's fun to be the anecdotal experience on which the researchers will then rely to set their protocols to show why what you were doing works. I don't want to wait for the New England Journal of Medicine to publish it and then do it. I would rather be in on the front end."

Running tips from Frank Shorter

• On essential training elements:

"If you want to improve as a runner from 5K to a marathon, I still believe the only interval training you ever need to do is 5K race pace intervals. And if you want to run a marathon, make sure you're doing one long run once a week."

• On training for a half marathon or marathon:

"Train as consistently as possible. The more consistent you are, the less you have to be completely precise about everything you do. And when you get to race day, your security comes from knowing you have trained consistently so you can look at your training logs and say, 'I'm ready.' On race day, you might not feel particularly good, but you know your training can get you through the race."

• On taking it easy as your race approaches:

"Nothing you do in the last two weeks is going to help you get fit. Everything you're doing at that point is trying to keep your nerves down and stay as rested as possible. You need to keep up your routine as much as you can so that all of your biorhythms are right. The mistake that people make is that they lay off so much that their routine and comfort level get thrown off. Once you get there, just let it happen."

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