My Journey to "Forever Runner"
About the Author
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My Story
Living in the Pacific North West, I was a long time pavement pounding marathoner and thought I was pretty fit and healthy, when out of the blue, when I turned 50, I suffered a heart attack! After triple bypass surgery, I didn't know what to do other than to keep running. So I hopped right back in to training and ran our local Captiol City Marathon 7 months later.
I was so happy I cried at the finish, but I still wasn’t sure how all of this would effect my running career.
Fortunately, I was invited to join a Hood to Coast relay team of open heart surgery survivors down in Portland after they saw an article in my local newspaper about some crazy heart attack survivor running a marathon.
Hood to Coast Relay is the most popular and largest running and walking relay race in the world, annually drawing participants from over 40 countries and all 50 states. Known as the Mother of All Relays, the event takes 8 to 12 member relay teams 198 miles from Mount Hood to the Pacific Ocean. The event has sold-out for 36 straight years and on lottery opening day for 31 consecutive years!
The “Scar Trek” Hood to Coast team was an incredible group of master endurance athletes, all open heart surgery survivors. We spent about 24hrs together in two vans between our relay segments. From them, I learned, despite our setbacks, there were no limits to what we could still accomplish.
So I decided to switch to trail running and ultra racing, enjoying success over the next 10 years running over 50 ultramarathons winning age group awards and a sponsorship from Hammer Nutrition. Now I was never an elite runner, I was a solid mid-packer like many of you, who just happened to do good in my age group.
When I turned 60, I decided to step it up and joined a CrossFit gym and increased my hill workouts to build my strength up. It was great, I won my age group in all my races and continued that training for a couple more years, Then it happened...
I had another heart attack!
I researched the internet to find out what I was doing wrong and how to fix myself.
I read articles, blog posts and listened to a bunch of different podcasts when I finally found my answer.
I listened to a podcast featuring Dr Phil Maffatone, and it suddenly clicked. I remembered him as the coach from back in the 80's who transformed the broken down pro triathlete Mark Alan, into an 8 time Ironman champion.
His diagnosis was simple, most athletes suffer from chronic stress because of their diet and training.
It finally dawned on me, I was getting fitter, but I was killing my health in the process.
I bought and studied all his books, implemented his approach and as a result, at my last event for the season, a tough sky runner marathon, I not only won my over 60 age group but also finished second in the over 50 age group!
My success lead me to get certified as a Primal Health Coach and a MAF foundations graduate. However, I found that there wasn’t specific training for us older runners following the Maffetone Method (Zone 2 training). As I started to share my experience with other older runners, I developed my unique training approach, the Forever Runner Method and became an online running coach for the over 50 crowd.
Fast forward to now, I’m 71 years old and still going strong. In March of this year, out of the blue, I suffered a “widow maker” heart attack. I was very fortunate to have immediate medical attention and was brought back with only minor heart damage.
I decided to retire from online run coaching to spend more time with family and friends but I still share my method and lesson’s learned through my weekly Forever Runner Newsletter and YouTube/Podcast.
This method has helped hundreds of older runners gain more enjoyment out of their runs. My mission is to lead and support 10,000 runners over 50, who are tired of getting slower and injured, to optimize their fitness and health so they can enjoy more freedom, independence and vitality as they age.
Thanks for taking a look. I would appreciate some honest feedback on this chapter. This review is not about spotting typos. Instead, the most useful feedback is about stuff like:
Where do you get confused or lost or have an unanswered question.
Where do you disagree, or have different experiences.
Where you start to get bored and feel like skipping ahead or giving up.
Anything you find especially interesting or helpful.
You can leave comments below(paid member) or email them to me at: Herb@foreverrunner.com
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