How a 64-Year-Old Ran 82 Marathons – What’s His Secret? Ron Romano

Ron Romano @ronrunsnyc 00:00.308:

Over the long haul, consistency is what separates the people who achieve success in the marathon and who struggle and fight injuries. You have to have a good routine. Hard days hard, easy days easy.

Ron Romano @ronrunsnyc 00:14.493:

People get that wrong all the time. It’s so easy to get it wrong. It is.

Daren DLake 00:20.557:

In this episode, you’re going to learn why age isn’t a barrier to maintaining performance, how consistency is key. It’s so trite, but it’s so true. Questioning limiting beliefs about aging and performance, when to stay adaptable, change your training methods, and even your mindset. Why aiming for small, consistent improvements in daily routines is where you should actually focus. And a whole bunch more. This is Conversations in Zone 2, where we, the 1% Better Runner, go for a run and chat with Ron Romano, right before the Sydney Australia Marathon in September of 2024. He’s a three-time six-medal Abbotts World Major finisher that is averaging around 3 hours 15 to 3 hours 30 minutes per marathon and oh did I mention he’s 64 years old and this is his 82nd marathon. Absolutely crazy. I am Darren, run coach, sub three-hour marathoner, and 10-hour Ironman finisher. And since 2012, I’ve been coaching other runners, researching and experimenting on how to get 1% better each day, each week, each month, whatever it wants to be. I do this through habits and incremental gains in my training, racing, and life, all so that you can run and live your best one step at a time. Let’s get into the combo. All right, we got Mr. Ron Romano, I want to say Ray Romano, from New York City here in Sydney, Australia, and he is running the Sydney Marathon, which he is not a major yet. And this guy right here, we’ll get into him in a second. He has run 81 marathons, started running in his 30s. I think you started running marathons, what, in your 50s? He did all six Abbott Majors in one year twice. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. 2019, 2023.

Ron Romano @ronrunsnyc 02:05.308:

Only seven of us in the world can do that.

Daren DLake 02:09.942:

Pretty amazing. He’s 63 years old, which is even crazier because he acts like he’s probably 34. And it looks like he’s 33. Honestly, couldn’t tell if there was no gray in your beard that you were older than 33. I love that gray beard, man. Yeah, gray beard is great, man. I got no grays now. I’m 42 left here. First one to kind of start off this conversation is in zone two. Do you think Sydney is going to be a major?

Ron Romano @ronrunsnyc 02:33.892:

I absolutely do. You do? I think it’s happening in November. They’ll get the word and it’s going to happen. Yes.

Daren DLake 02:41.016:

I think so too. We’ll see. See in November, but this year they got the weather. It’s going to be very cool. I think 16 degrees high Celsius for you Americans that don’t get the metric system that is 60 degrees. Yeah, 60 degrees. You’ve run 81 marathons, right? Yes, sir. Going on 82 in a few days? Yes. You’ve averaged 3.15 per marathon, 3 hours 15 minutes, right?

Ron Romano @ronrunsnyc 03:09.507:

Around that? In 2019, when I did all six, you nailed it. 3.15 average. My high and low was 3.17.02 was slowest, and 3.13.55 was fastest. They’re all about a minute apart through the whole year. That was a pretty epic year. Got sharp.

Daren DLake 03:27.853:

 So if you could go back to your first marathon and run alongside yourself, what would you tell yourself?

Ron Romano @ronrunsnyc 03:36.276:

Oh, great question. I think… And I’m sure you know this and your listeners, your pod YouTube channel listeners know this. You got to fail a lot in life to learn and grow. And no matter how many warnings we get about our first marathon, things we shouldn’t do, we make all those mistakes. I made every one of them. Didn’t know. you know, when to fuel, what to fuel with, didn’t understand it. This is, you know, 1993, so we didn’t have a lot of that stuff around in terms of fuel, but still, I didn’t really understand what I got myself into. So I was over my head on First Avenue, I went into the bathroom where the basketball courts are on First Avenue on the right. You know, you’re a New York City guy. So, Got down on the stall. This might be TMI for many people, but I think you got to relive this stuff. I tried to get up and I couldn’t. My quads were locked. My glutes are locked. My calves were spasming. And you know, that’s like mile 16, you know, 17, maybe, probably 17, nine to go. And I remember going, dear Lord, what have I gotten myself into? But you know what? I finished it and I learned so much from it. And I think that’s what the lessons are, man. Yeah. Keep going. Stay in the fight is my mantra and the theme of my podcast. So you keep going, man. You hit a hard spot, you just keep moving.

Daren DLake 05:05.789:

I love to stay in the fight. But before we get into that, we are in we just got through Barangaroo, which is one of my favorite areas here in Sydney. It’s a new area down by the water. But now we’re in the rocks, kind of the Peninsula. Peninsula. I can’t say it like an Australian. Sorry, Ray Romano.

Ron Romano @ronrunsnyc 05:26.677:

I know you get that confused a lot.

Ron Romano @ronrunsnyc 05:28.779:

And I have a brother, Ray, so it’s even more. I’m used to being called Ray sometimes by my mom, so it’s all good.

Daren DLake 05:35.124:

Well, speaking of your mom, stay in the fight. Yes. How? How does that play in your head on kind of a day-to-day basis? What’s the story behind that?

Ron Romano @ronrunsnyc 05:45.02

Well, it all came to be my mom’s had lymphoma 30 plus years. God bless, just turned 92. And like a lot of people in life that have health hardships or challenges, she’s handled them all with a lot of grace and dignity and just never let it get her down, man. And I thought about it a lot. You know, it’s old school Irish. My dad’s Italian, my mom’s Irish. She used to say, you put one foot in front of the other, you get down the road, and you just keep moving in life. So I translated my mom’s, one foot in front of the other, keep moving down the road to stay in the fight. And she’s always been like my role model for being tough and gritty and just pushing through hardships in life.

Daren DLake 06:34.132:

One step at a time is what I say. That's 1% better. I think some people say, get that knockdown seven, get up eight. Yes, sir. Yeah, that's, you need those kind of simple sayings, even though it's like, sometimes like a duh, but it's also like, yeah, it is that simple some of these days. Is he filming us? Yeah, I hope so. He's filming me, he's filming myself. He's got the right angle, man. It's perfect. I know. All right, we got, we're in the iconic, right under the bridge of Sydney, Sydney Harbour Bridge. And we got the Opera House over there. We got a boat passing. This is very Sydney right here. This is Sydney, baby. Sydney's hyped. Let's go. Yes. It's going to be part of the marathon course that he's doing in a couple of days. Sydney Marathon. Right now is the part where I go, hey, if you're not feeling this, make sure you subscribe. Right. Share it out with your friends about how amazing this is. Rah, rah, rah, rah, rah. All right. While you should go out and do that anyway, how about I actually give you something that will help you? Is the running, health and fitness and endurance sport internet too much sometimes? Is it too much conflicting content on how to train right? Or you just don't have time to read and watch the latest trends on how to, I don't know, carb cycle for your next marathon. Don't worry. I'll take care of that for you by showing you how to train, race, and live 1% better consistently. To do this, just sign up for my free newsletter, OPB. I figure out this whole 1% better thing so you don't have to by scouring the endurance sports deepest and darkest corners of the internet. Go to 1betterrun.com/ forward slash news, all spelled the normal way, to be inspired and motivated on the regular. Let's get back into it. So one of the things that I've taken from Mike Treece. Do you know Mike Treece? At Run Die Energy? I don't. You don't? Okay. But I'll give him a follow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We did a bunch of podcasts together. Cool. English doodlers in New Zealand now. Nice. He's 60. I think he's the exact same age. Okay. And he's still running a 17 minute 5K. Still does. Yeah. You think he did a 10 hour Ironman last year? He's a faller. Yeah. Straight up. Yeah, he's up there with you. He's not a marathoner, ironically. He'll do Ironman, he'll do 5Ks. How funny is that? He's not doing marathons. So Mike Tree is all about slowing down and slowing down. And what specific tool are you using to not let that, oh, I'm old, bad knees type talk. I'm too old for this. Because I even can't, I'm 42 and I catch myself saying that stuff. Sure you do. I'm always like, I'm getting old. I'm like, why did I just say that? Like, is that just a thing we do? You obviously get up every day running three hour, low three hour marathons consistently. Is there one specific tool that you have?

Ron Romano @ronrunsnyc 09:18.842:

Well, I don’t think, I don’t know if it’s one tool. I think to be, to really be successful in the marathon and think by defining successful does not mean running on sub three or anything else. It just means your optimized performance for you, okay? That could be five hours, that could be finishing, it could be 2.30 like you’re talking about with your boy in New Zealand. So, I think… Over the long haul, consistency is what separates the people who achieve success in the marathon and who struggle and fight injuries. You got to be consistent. You have to have a good routine. How many miles a week you plan to run. Hard days hard, easy days easy-

Ron Romano @ronrunsnyc 10:07.654:

People get that wrong all the time. It’s so easy to get it wrong. It is.

Ron Romano @ronrunsnyc 10:12.137:

Hey, I feel totally recovered from my track run or my long marathon pace miles run. Okay, that doesn’t mean you run 30 seconds within the pace you just did on the run before yeah, so I Watch my heart rate. I can actually do 8, 10, 12 mile runs at 100 heart rate with the Polar chest strap or the KOROS optical armband. It’s not like I’m going off watcher’s base heart rate. I would say that’s a big thing that people get wrong that holds them back. You know, go hard. bleed out your eardrums, your eyeballs, on the hard days. And I don’t really mean that, but you know what I mean. Just push. It’s supposed to be hard, but on those easy days, recover. Let your body get back, build itself back, and be ready for whatever’s next on the schedule. You said a lot there.

Daren DLake 11:12.023:

I think that that just takes experience. From my, from my experience, it takes experience. And you knowing like, like even like high zone two stuff, if I do too much of it, even though it’s zone two, it will wreck my body. Especially with flat and concrete only. Like, I’ll get up running really good speeds and I’ll keep doing it. I’m like, oh, I’m only in zone two. And it’s like, well, my body gets wrecked, even though it’s not my heart rate. So that’s taking experience to just go, Easy day, that’s part of training. The easy day is the training, the recovery, the rest. Yes, sir. That is the training. What is it? Mike Tree said it. He said, if you do the crime, you got to do the time, and the crime is doing the hard run. Then you got to do the time again, the rest, and the recovery, and the sleep.

Ron Romano @ronrunsnyc 11:59.522:

I like that.

Ron Romano @ronrunsnyc 12:00.262:

Yeah. I like that. And when we actually do it the right way, then the body is getting stronger, man. Everything’s working in the right direction versus you’re fighting it, man. You’re swimming against the tide and you don’t want to be doing that.

Daren DLake 12:15.627:

All right, we are at the Opera House. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We’re at the Opera House right now. We got the Sydney Harbour Bridge over here. Yes, sir. While we’re at the Opera House, let’s talk about beliefs. So, what beliefs have you had that have changed over the last year or two? That like, you were like, this is how it is in running, maybe even life. And you’re like, okay, no, no, it’s not like that.

Ron Romano @ronrunsnyc 12:51.421:

I try to tie mostly everything back to running in my own life because Running sets the table for everything we do, right? We’re a better husband, better wife, a better brother, sister. better boss, employee. So, I think running teaches you patience. It teaches you humility. It will humble you no matter how hard you work at your craft. Look at the elites. They have to bounce out of the marathon in Paris at 1K into the race. Just think about how gut-wrenching that is. How much work they put in for four years. So, no matter how hard we prepare and how much we put forth, we’re going to get humbled and we’re going to get knocked down like you talked about before. So how do we handle that adversity? How do we move forward and not feel like this sports out to get me or, you know, now I’m getting stress fractures because of celiac and my body can’t absorb the nutrition instead of thinking that it is that way, trying to be more proactive and take ownership instead of me leaning on doctors who maybe they know a lot about celiac. Oh you see that? Yeah. Oh so that’s my partner. Oh wow. But maybe they know a lot about celiac but they don’t know anything about running or marathon training. So I think One big change I’ve made is just I take full ownership of all of it. If I’m injured, it’s me. I don’t blame anyone else. I must have done something. Am I not rotating my shoes enough? Am I not taking enough rest days? Maybe I need more sleep. And I think that’s been a big part of me getting back to being fully healthy again and feeling strong and running faster times.

Daren DLake 14:43.832:

I tell a lot of the athletes that I coach, I’m always like, Yo, this isn’t only got hit by a bus. This isn’t cancer. Correct. This isn’t bad luck. You chose to do this. Yeah. So it’s going to suck because you, you know, you’re injured. You got a little nagging thing, a little whatever. You got to figure out how to logistics around your life. But like you choose the hard and that’s great. Yes. It’s phenomenal you choose the hard because it’s yours. It is hard. And you can’t blame it on anyone except yourself. But when we take ownership,

Ron Romano @ronrunsnyc 15:12.566:

It’s just the right way to approach it in all areas of our life. And our running will be better for it, man. Don’t point the finger out, point it back and just say, this all ends with me. Fix it, figure it out.

Daren DLake 15:29.838:

So last question, what is one thing that you’ve done naturally that’s super easy to do and implement that’s given you the biggest gains in your running and or life?

Ron Romano @ronrunsnyc 15:43.940:

I would say it took me a while to kind of get really better in this area, but I would say having a very long-term view to whatever it is that you’re trying to tackle or get better at, whether it’s work, a relationship, running. It’s not the race. It’s not the Brooklyn half marathon. It’s not the Sydney marathon. What’s the real goal? Move the timeline out and give yourself you know, the actual amount of time required to really get where you want to be. And then what steps do I need to take with my coach, with my teammates, with my running habits to actually make it come to be. So long-term view and leads to success.

Daren DLake 16:33.865:

I love it. I love it. All right, we’re going to end it. That was the last question, but you’re from New York. What’s your favorite place to run in New York City?

Ron Romano @ronrunsnyc 16:42.970:

Well, there’s many great places, as you know. I would still have to say Central Park, because my nickname by a really good friend of mine, a running friend, Greg Matkin, is the mayor of Central Park. So just from how many miles I’ve rolled there, going on group runs, getting shout outs from people. So for me, that is an incredibly high feeling to just be rolling around when all the team long runs are going on. You know, New York City club teams like Central Park Track Club, my team, or Brooklyn Track Club, whatever. Just seeing runners and getting the high five or the peace sign or the shout outs is a natural high. So, love that. And I do a lot on the west side path. because track is too difficult for me these days where it’s on the body a little too much but I can do pickups and 1k repeats 5k repeats in a long run out there and it’s flat like here so it’s just easier and doesn’t beat the body up so those are Probably my favorite areas.

Daren DLake 17:46.506:

I do love West Side. It was a bit far from me. I was living in Queens. Oh, OK. But every time I go to ride out there, I love it in Central Park. Actually, I was in Long Island City, and I live in Long Island City, Queens. Oh, it’s beautiful. Yeah, and we had that path that I run along.

Ron Romano @ronrunsnyc 17:59.791:

You got all the bridges. Yeah. You can get into Brooklyn easy.

–

Ron Romano @ronrunsnyc 18:03.853:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ron Romano @ronrunsnyc 18:04.473:

You’re right there. The bandit crew, I did long runs with them. We would always end up there. You know, all those different bridges and whatnot.

Daren DLake 18:14.078:

New York City prep work. Hey, man, I really appreciate you taking the time to run with me today. All the best on your marathon, man. Number 82. Much love, man.

Ron Romano @ronrunsnyc 18:23.086:

I’ll hit you in New York when I get there. Yes, sir. Hey, and my huge thank you to you for asking me to come on and share some miles and for your thoughtfulness on the questions. Keep it rolling in running life coaching and with your show and your content, man. Appreciate it, man.

Daren DLake 18:38.339:

Cheers.