If there’s one person who proves that age is just a number, it’s Gene Dykes.
Not only does the 70-year-old still run every day, he can knock out a marathon in 2:54.
“I’m have a blast running,” says Dykes. “Every day is a new adventure.”
Dykes says he generally runs around 1,300 miles in races a year. With his training added in, that total comes up to right around 3,000 miles a year.
Despite his experience running, Dykes decided to hire a coach five years ago.
“I’d always resisted hiring a coach because, I mean, he’s going to tell you how to run. Who doesn’t know how to run? I said, well, obviously, I’m getting old, if I want to get a new PR, I’ll have to take a chance.”
It paid off.
He managed to shave 35 minutes off his marathon time and get his 5k time to under 20 minutes.
Thanks to his taking a chance of hiring a coach, he was able to hit a new PR of 2:54:23. It’s also an unofficial world record.
“I told my wife when I retired, oh, I’m not going to run all the time, I already run as much as I could. But I was so wrong.”
Our hats go off to this guy. It doesn’t look like he’s going to let anything slow him down for a long, long time.
