How a 64-Year-Old Ran 82 Marathons and Averaged 3hr 15min | Ron Romano

On chasing speed vs letting it come to you

Summary of what you will download into your brain

• 💨 Chasing speed vs letting it come to you

• ⏰ How a 64-Year-Old Ran 82 Marathons and Averaged 3hr 15min – What’s Ron Romano’s Secret?

• 🤬 Strava is paceIST and doesn’t care about short-distance people

• 🔬 Running Sports Science Explained for Distance Running in 4 minutes

💨 Chasing speed vs letting it come to you

Have you ever noticed that the best runs happen when you’re not forcing them? And it’s usually the same for life.

I like short-interval speed workouts. One to five minutes tops. They’re fun for me. Others like tempo workouts: You know, the 10-30 minutes at threshold slightly faster than half marathon pacing.

Because of my genetics and natural love for speed, I have caught myself many times chasing the faster paces. On many occasions, “I have to run this fast because insert thing” takes up space in my mind rent-free.

Usually, it’s “I have to hit this time to be race-ready in 4 weeks.”

But sometimes it’s “I can’t run slow because that means I’m getting older”.

But one thing I’ve found is that the first interval is rarely the predictor for how the rest of the workout will go.

Even after a 10-15 minute warm-up, my nervous system may not be operating at peak efficiency during the first interval. This gradual adaptation is known as neuromuscular activation, where the nervous system progressively increases its firing rate and motor unit recruitment as exercise intensity rises. Additionally, my brain may be regulating my effort subconsciously through protective mechanisms, possibly making the initial exertion “feel more difficult” to prevent overexertion or injury before my body is fully acclimated to the demands of the workout.

So I’ve stopped chasing speed, and I just let it come to me.

How did I do it so that you could try it for yourself?

1 - The mentally hard way - Don’t look at your watch

Feel it out and trust that you’re most likely going faster than you think. But in that same breath, if you do finish your interval and see your watch says a slower time, don’t sweat it.

This is why it’s the harder way: You’re trusting the process and not freaking out. Easier said than done. If this feels too difficult, try number two (below) first and work towards number one after.

2- Do a “blow out the cobwebs repetition”

This is a rep that’s 25-50% shorter than what you’re going for but at the power, pace or effort that you should be hitting for your intervals.

For example - I like to do anywhere from 5-12 x 400 meters to 1k reps at my current 5k fitness to see where I am in the training block/period.

I’ll do about 50% (for a 1k set, I would do 500m) as my last warmup surge/run-through at whatever feels right. Then, look down and see what the pace/power is. Again, it’s usually faster than I want to run, which means I’m ready. But if it’s slower than what I want, that doesn’t mean I’m not ready; I need to adjust expectations for the first interval and ease into it.

Like most good things in life, this is just a framework: Modify it to your needs. Don’t force it and let it come to you.

⏰ How a 64-Year-Old Ran 82 Marathons and Averaged 3hr 15min – What’s Ron Romano’s Secret?

I’m finally able to run while video podcast. I’m calling this new series “Conversations in Zone 2”. It’s where I literally go for a run with someone in zone 2 (or sometimes zone 1!) and talk about something that I’m curious about to help us all better understand consistency, focus, patience, belief, etc. All the cores of the 1% better runner.

How Consistency Transforms Your Running Performance at Any Age

If you’re trying to level up your marathon time—or get better at running overall—here’s the facts: it’s not about crushing crazy workouts or following some weird diet. The secret? Boring consistency, recovery, and getting your mindset right. Oh… and “Age ain’t nothing but a number” is very, VERY right. Ron Romano, who’s 64 years young and has finished 82 marathons (the last few have been in the 3 hours and 15-minute range), proves that if you stick with those basics, you can keep running fast, stay injury-free and actually enjoy it as you keep getting older. Crazy, eh? Let’s dive into how he does this magic.

Consistency Beats Going All-Out Every Time

Let’s keep it real: one big, hard workout won’t make or break your running. What really works is showing up regularly, even for the easy stuff. It’s like compound interest—those small, steady deposits pay off in the end and grow. Running ain’t different. It’s the consistent effort, day after day, that eventually gets you faster and stronger. So yeah, it’s fun to go hard sometimes, but the jelly and the sauce of this habits sandwich are just staying consistent, even when it’s boring.

Read, watch and listen to our conversation on your next run or workout here.

🤬 Strava is paceIST and doesn’t care about short-distance people

For the last few years I’ve had this running joke in my head that Strava legit doesn’t care about the easy short runs or even the short hard runs. The algorithm is a weird one. However, algorithms are based on how humans interact. The human side of things was validated after talking to a runner that I coach. He said he doesn’t like putting up his warmups and cooldowns of his long runs because it lowers his average pace, and he wants the average pace of the long run to reflect the overall pace/effort (Even if it’s easy). I was blown, because he said that his friends make fun of other guys on his ground for putting up slow runs. I had to check his age because this is not how a 40-year-old, fully functional professional adult should act. But yeah, this is a thing.

Anyway, I decided to record this on my way to the gym, and it somehow is one of my most viewed and most commented posts of all time on Instagram. The hateful comments directed at me are hilarious and I’ll be doing more deep dives on Strava, run fitness algorithms, virtual coaches, and more.

PS - the title (that only two people have gotten) is a play on Kanye’s first and most infamous 2004 George Bush rant.

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A post shared by @dlakecreates

I love putting this newsletter out each week! It’s like my way of sharing some cool, “deep Daren” running thoughts and practical tools & tactics I have accumulated over the last 12 years. But I’m super curious… what stands out to you? Or is there something you think I should dive deeper into? Drop me a comment below, and let’s see where this conversation goes."

🔬 Running Sports Science Explained for Distance Running in 4 minutes

In another timeline, I should have been a scientist. I love experimenting on myself and reading studies, papers and the nerdy scientific side of running. Obviously, I’m not a sports scientist, but I do like it when things are TLDR’d and explained simply but without dumbing the science down (I’ll soon be certified as a run coach and have certifications in general sports/exercise science).

The problem is trying to find this type of Andrew Huberman Labs-style data dump about running is actually not that abundant on the internet. I get it, the mass of people want easy how-to stuff. I make some of that, but when you take away the science and terms behind a lot of things in running, it loses it’s meaning.

This video about the science of distance running does a great job of “dumbing it down for smart people”, as I like to say. Definetly will be posting more of this in the future to, at minimum, scratch my own curious itch.