Longevity in Endurance Sports: How One Age Grouper Makes it Possible Ep 28

Welcome to the Find Your Edge podcast. I'm your host, Chris Newport, founder, head coach, sports nutritionist, and exercise physiologist at The Endurance Edge. Our mission is to empower people to reach and sustain peak performance and health.

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Let's do it. All right, welcome back everybody, and we are excited to have a guest today who not only happens to be our longest tenured client but also our most mature. So welcome to the show, Mr. John Murphy.

Yes, good morning.

So I asked John to be on the show for a couple of reasons. I think you're the perfect person even though We'll probably bring this up at some point. You're like, do I want to listen to myself? No, not really. But I think you're the perfect person to speak to longevity in endurance sports, mindset, overcoming obstacles, and so much more. So first, let's get out of the way. Um, how old are you? Or I should say, how young are you? In mind and in body?

I will be 69 in August.

Okay. So in other words, you're 68.

I am 68 right now.

You got a while until it's August, John.

Yes.

Yes. And then how do you, but how do you feel? Like, do you feel that age?

No, I don't. In my mind, I'm 25.

I love it. So I think it would be a good place to start is when you first came to us, which was probably, uh, roughly 10-ish years ago.

Right.

And I remember sitting down in Panera Bread, talking to you and you had DNF'd a half Ironman.

Right.

So tell us about that. What was the race? What was the experience?

I don't remember the particular race.

It was in California.

Oh, the Wildflower.

Yes.

And what had happened? Oh, poor planning. Under, under hydrated. I tried something new as far as salt supplements. And the whole lower half of my body was just one long, huge cramp.

Oh, yeah. And by the way, John has set records for sweat testing in our office for being one of the heaviest electrolyte sweaters.

Yeah, that was a period where there was this thing about salt was not good for you.

Yeah.

And so it's also generational. Yeah. Right. And so, as is my habit, I overdo everything, right? So I overdid removing salt. From my diet.

Yeah. I had to convince you to buy a salt shaker. Yeah.

And, uh, so that was not a good day.

Yeah. So you came to us and you wanted to continue to do triathlon, right? Right. So, and you did. So how, how would you describe that process of going from what sounds to be like more winging it to being a little bit more structured about it?

Well, I needed the structure. Your workout plans took the worry out of me. Am I doing the right thing? Am I doing the wrong thing? Now I can just follow. I could just follow a plan that, and in doing this over time, we have talked about many more things than just triathlons and training. And so I needed that structure. And it took care of the problem pretty quickly as far as that.

Yeah. As far as finishing. Now, would you say you went from not finishing or doing terribly to being like first place?

No.

So I think it would be nice for you to speak to that. Do you feel like people have to be extraordinarily fit or fast or athletic to get into this?

No, it was about the experience, right? The drive to just, to train hard. And that's another thing about the program was that I was overtraining. I was doing it wrong. And so I needed the structure to keep me on track. I've always been a back of the pack finisher and never comfortable with that because you, you go in with a mindset of this is what I want it to be like.

Yeah.

And it never is. It absolutely never is. And so with your help, I became comfortable with my back of the pack finishes and, you know, accepted that. The better training took away the injury and the self— I don't know if I want to use the word self-destructive, but the self, the things that I was doing wrong that was preventing me from having a good experience.

Yeah.

So when I sorted it all out is being an athlete, you always want to excel. But then you getting me to accept the fact that, you know, I was a back of the pack finisher and there's nothing wrong with that. And, uh, so as I've moved, as I've gotten older, my age groups have changed and the, and then the, the makeup within that age group has changed. So now I'm mentoring a new age group. Where, you know, I'm— there aren't that many people.

Yeah.

In my age group.

So now you are potting.

Well, what happened last April, almost a year ago, I did Pinehurst Sprint. And my running has declined because of a knee that has no cartilage in it left. It's just gone. Where did it go?

I remember that. X-ray that you sent to me.

Where did it go?

Where did it go?

Did it like dissolve in my bloodstream? Or it was, I had cartilage and then one day, then it didn't. So it took me, like a lot of things, it took me a long time to accept the fact that I can't run anymore. My run, walk, run intervals became walking, walking a lot, and then trying to run. And then you, then, then the light bulb goes off saying, this is not good.

Yeah. I feel like that was a hard transition going from triathlon to another endurance sport.

Right.

So, um, and I wanted to, I want to kind of go back and touch on a few other things that you've already talked about, but tell us where you're at now. Are you still doing triathlon?

Specifically?

No. Okay. So, cause you just talked about how you can't run, right? Although, I mean, I guess you could run, but it's just not worth it to you anymore, right?

No, it had gotten to the point where if I, if I could run, I could, I could attempt to run once a week, like 6 miles out there at the Tobacco Trail. Cause it's nice and user-friendly, flat. And not too hard of a surface. And so, um, you know, I just came to the realization that I should stop this, this, this nonsense.

But you haven't stopped.

No. What I'm doing now is swimming was always my best of the 3 disciplines in the triathlon. And so now I'm 100% swimmer. Um, Gosh, I swim more than 10,000 meters a week, different, different workouts I have. I'm signed up for Swim the Loop in October. That's 3 and 3/4 miles. And so once I can feel comfortable that I, that I'm, I'm doing good at that, then maybe in 2023, I'll see if I can find a, um, a 10K swim, 6 miles.

Yeah. Yeah.

And, um, so now that's my new obsession is swimming, is swimming.

Yeah. Especially open water swimming.

Open water swimming.

Yes.

Although you've done a few masters workouts, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

Well, what I do is the masters, a lot of them are, you know, they're college athletes that are in their, um, um, that they're in their, their 30s and 40s. And so I can't keep up with them. It's, it's the same as with triathlons. I'm even with swimming, I'm, I'm slower than those others. I'm, of course, I'm what, 25 years older than them about. And, uh, so I swim with them, I do their workouts, but I'm off to the side. I don't, I don't concern myself. I finally got my headspace to where I'm not, I'm not, I'm not competing with these other people. But, um, people my age and my level are too slow for me. I don't want to hang out with them. So I want to be around people that are so much more advanced. Yeah, they're going to pull me through things and put me in things that are going to, you know, make me a little stronger, a little better.

So I think that, I think that is a good segue to If you, cause I know your knee was bothering you for a while. What kept you in it? Or at least in triathlon specifically before going to open water, what kept you in it so long? Do you think it was stubbornness or persistence or community?

All of that. I mean, being, the delusion that I can still do this. I can still do this. And I just— training harder is going to fix everything.

Yeah.

And it just exacerbated the issue till, you know, that drive home from Pinehurst. I mean, I was almost in tears with the realization that this is stupid and I can't do this. Stop this. Stop this.

Yeah.

And so then I want to, you know, I give myself 24 hours for to be upset over something or even grieving. I give myself a 24-hour period and then I go back and I press restart. And so that was my plan. I'm going, well, I can't do this now. Now I have to find something else. Well, I'm already doing it. So I just dropped the other things.

Um, well, you're still biking.

I bike as a recovery workout.

Yeah.

To get out in the fresh air. Maybe when the weather gets really good, I can still get that feeling where you're just soaking in sweat and, um, get a good workout there. The kind of workout you wouldn't get in a pool.

Yeah. So I want to go back to being a back of the pack finisher. How long do you think it took you to sort of wrap your head around that?

Like, um, I don't think I ever really did, to be honest with you. Um, it was always, you're excited at the beginning of the race and getting ready for the race and during the race. And then when you come in and, you know, a lot of the bikes are gone because people have finished and they're on their way home.

Getting into transition, you mean? Yeah.

Or you go to the table where the after, where the after-race snacks are, and there's just like not, you know, crumbs. I mean, those kind of things.

Yeah.

So it's not good. But then right away, like I said, I give myself 24 hours to be upset over something. And then I go back to work.

And then you move on.

And then you move on.

Do you think that is partly an issue with like race organizers? Do you think there should be more pomp and circumstance for the back of the pack than the front or the middle?

No, no.

Okay, so tell us about that.

No, because it just highlights the fact that you're a back of the pack finisher. It's embarrassing enough without having people going, hey, look who's here, the last person.

So, uh, great segue to probably one of my favorite moments in my coaching career. Which was, uh, I believe it was 2019, like just pre-pandemic, and you did, um, Ironman North Carolina in Wilmington, 70.3, and, uh, you were coming around the final stretch of the run. Do you remember this?

I'm not sure what you're leading up to. Okay, so they were gonna pull me off the course.

They— so there was that very rude lady from Iron Man. No offense, Iron Man, or maybe I do mean offense, I don't know. But she was in her little golf cart, and literally we could see the finish line, like it was like a matter of a couple hundred yards away. And she comes rolling up on her little, um— we had found you with our bells, so we were chasing you with our cowbells, and you were kind of like jog walking a little bit. And, um, it was me and a couple other athletes who came out to, to find you. And we were kind of chit-chatting with you and she rolls up on her little golf cart and she's like, get in.

Yeah.

And we all basically, she's like, you got to get out of the road. So we got on the sidewalk and I remember we sort of like surrounded you. We were like your shield. Like, don't touch him. He's getting to the finish line because it's right there. And, uh, I just remember that being like such a cool, like, community feeling.

I mean, what's the worst that could happen? I could get— I could get arrested.

I mean, for what?

Yeah, public disturbance or something. But we shoot her away and I finished. Yeah.

And there was a great, like— and there was a ton of people at the finish line and they were all super happy. And that was a really cool moment.

Yeah. Yeah.

That was a lot of fun.

Again, it wasn't all that long ago, but it was also at the point where for the last few years, I should have stopped the part of my running had declined. And it took, I mean, it took a long, long time for me to come to the realization that I shouldn't be doing this. And, you know, I would do workouts and then feel like I was in a car wreck for a couple of days. A couple of days. Yeah, it was that bad. But immediately after I stopped running, I could feel myself healing and better. And yeah, I mean, and you got a little bit more into strength training. Yes, yes, I am doing that now. Yeah.

I kind of had to beg you to do that.

Yeah. Because I was so obsessed with, I got to do mileage on the bike and I've got to get my runs in and everything that there, there was an avoidance to the strength training. Whereas now as my, as I, as I age, it's becoming more important for flexibility and strength.

Yeah. Especially now that you're only swimming, so a non-weightbearing activity.

So my attitude now is I can't, I can't, reverse the damage in my knees, that I'm going to strengthen everything else around it, above and below it. I'm constantly sore. It just travels north and south. And that's the reality. If I'm not sore, I'm concerned. Yeah.

So I think this is definitely the athlete mentality.

Yeah, it's not pain. It's just stiffness or soreness, you know. Um, that just—

you think the water helps that?

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I don't feel anything. And when I'm out of the water after doing like a 2.5-hour workout, you know, um, after I have a little snack, I feel like I could go— I could go back out and do it again. I could do it all over again. But that's just the endorphins, you know, lying to me. Right. Where I might get, get in and spend another 15, 30 minutes and go, why, why are you, why are you doing this?

Yeah. So what would you say, what do you think keeps you going both in swimming and in just keeping rolling? And I'm referencing this little triangle here too, that you wrote before we got started. I don't know if that ties into it, but What keeps me going?

I don't know that I can give you an answer to that. I, um, I look forward to it. Um, um, I make sure I'm not training 2 consecutive days. I'll always have a day in between, and sometimes I'll add an additional day in between so that I'm going, I need to go, I need to go, where you're really looking forward to a workout because you've taken an extra 24 hours off. So what keeps me going? I don't know. It's just so in my— I don't know if you want to say—

Habit structure?

It's in my habit structure that I structure my life on what's— what workouts are in front of me.

Yeah.

And what recoveries are in front of me. And it's been that way for a long, long time.

Yeah. Um, what do you think are some of the hardest parts of endurance training or just like staying active as a master's athlete?

Time.

What do you mean by that?

Um, you know, um, even though I'm semi-retired, I'm a semi-retired person that works a lot.

Right.

By the way, we are right now at the office, which happens to be within Triangle Aquatic Center. And John is a lifeguard. So I love how you do the jobs that every other, like, 18-year-old is doing.

Right. I'm also a swim coach and I'm a swim teacher, swim instructor.

Yeah. So it's been a cool evolution going from, cause you retired like March, was it February or March 2020?

Uh, yeah. Yeah.

That.

And, um, I swam here and so I decided, you know, while I'm thinking about what I'm going to do with myself, I just got a job here so I could swim here for free and have unlimited access. Well, not unlimited, but access that the public doesn't have, right? That was my motive to get the job.

Yeah.

And it's, you know, like, like a lot of things, they, they become something else. And so there's that. Um, so I don't know that I answered your question.

Well, what, what— yeah, so I, I, I squirreled you. Um, what do you think is the hardest part So we talked about like more of the, you know, what gets you going, but is there anything that's hard about that?

Um, just, uh, finding the time and then availability or opportunity to get out there. Right. Um, you know, the pool is not always available. Right, right. And I don't know, I don't know that it is hard.

It's, it's just, it's just part of your life.

It's so ingrained in me that I schedule everything else around it. Everything.

I feel like that's great advice. No matter what age you're at, right? Like making that a priority?

Yeah.

What, what would be the alternative?

Oh, I, I'm, I'm, I'm scared to think about it. What, what else would I do? Right.

Yeah.

Um, I can't even picture myself doing anything else, to be honest with you. And so now the mindset is, how can I continue to do what I want to do, which is training and entering events? I enjoy the training way more than I enjoy the events. The events, the before and the after are cool, right? You are with like-minded people that have great attitudes and they are fun. It is just the event itself. It is, it is, I am never satisfied at the end. Like, I could, if I had just done this one thing, I could have gone from this place to that place.

And, um, so some of that, like, natural regret perhaps.

Yeah, yeah. Like I said, I give myself 24 hours to feel sorry for myself, and then I go back at it. And I don't know that I change anything other than getting right back to it.

Yeah. Um, tell everybody what you like to do with your medals.

I have never kept or saved one medal Or I'm all about the t-shirts and the hats. That's all I care about. And I would give you the medals.

Yes, I just had to convince you because you were throwing them away.

Yes, I was. So I would do an event—

I have them in a box over here.

I need to hang them up.

And you would— I would— your other office on the other side of Cary, I would go after an event, I would go hang the medal on the door.

On the door, yeah. And they would add to our collection. And then people come in, they're like, are these all your medals? I'm like, well, mostly they're John's. And a lot of them were because you raced a lot.

Well, you get a participation medal, and I didn't really— I didn't really want—

you were in it for the hat and the shirt.

I want the hat and the shirt. And yeah, usually you have to pay for the hat, but that's okay.

So let's say somebody is interested, and I consider a master's athlete, at least in dietetics, to be 50+. Every sport sort of considers masters to be different. Like you mentioned, swimming is more like 30s, even 20s. Um, if somebody is considering getting into endurance sports, whether it's triathlon, whether it's cycling, whether it's swimming, whatever, and they are 50+, what would you tell them?

Start out slow, right? Ease into it. And a lot of people get into it because they have come to the realization that they are so far out of shape. I am, as a Slim Instructor, I am working with people that are, you know, that age. And they have come to some realization that they need to get in shape and it is hard when you are starting like that. So, it is about creating new habits and new lifestyles. After you have been doing the same thing that were not that good for you for a long, long time, how do you change that? You just have to be real, you know. Be realistic with your expectations. And it's a long road. But, you know, you will see progress. You will see plateaus and you will see progress and you will see declines. And isn't that life, right? Life is highs and lows and plateaus in between, right? It is all of that. And so, why would, why would doing triathlons be any different? It's not.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that gave me chills. Well, so many people have the expectation of, I get into something, let's say triathlon, let's say running, let's say weight loss. And they expect a very straight trajectory of either upwards or downwards, depending on what your goal is. And it just doesn't happen that way. No, but what I hear you saying is keep going.

Just keep going. Yeah. And, um, I use, you know, the disappointing or the lows or the plateaus to motivate myself. I rethink something. I rethink everything. Like, what, what, what is the one thing I would have done differently? Like, what did I eat the night before that you know, made me feel like I was going to crap my pants in the middle of a swim, right? What did— why did I do that? Why did I do that when I know in my rational mind that I shouldn't have done that?

Yeah.

And so, um, there's all of that and it doesn't change. Um, you know, um, it just sounds like it evolves, right? That's cool. And you have to be patient with yourself. Yeah, being realistic and patient. Yeah. Um, which is hard, hard for me, right? Um, I'm— I constantly feel like I'm not just doing enough to get that little bit better. But with my swimming, I have, you know, I guess with age you get a little smarter about yourself, and, and so I'm relaxing more mentally as far as expectations. Um, and, um, I, you know, keep track of how my workouts are, and I'm— and I have a, um, my goal split times, right? As long as I'm at that, I'm good. But getting back— I mean, this is a little off the question, but getting back to the strength training, now that I'm doing more of that, my split times have dropped in the pool.

Which in other words, they've gotten better.

Yeah, yeah, significantly.

How about that?

And then after I get out and I have a great workout, my split times are going like, did I not count my laps right? And is my watch wrong? And all of that. And then, you know, then I realize, yeah, it is that much better. And then I think, well, if I take this many seconds off of If I take 1 second off each lap and I'm doing 218 laps, how many minutes is that?

Yeah.

I mean, 1 second off a lap.

So it sounds like you're keeping your brain active too.

I'm doing math.

Yeah.

During the whole workout.

And as a side note, you don't have a special watch, like you don't have the fancy gears and gadgets and apps and stuff like that.

I don't need all that information because at this point um, it's not, it's not going to change. It's not going to change what I'm doing. Yeah, I'm just keeping track of real-time splits and, um, and finish and, uh, keeping track of, um, keeping track of that.

So if we're going to tie all this together, what I'm hearing you say is if you're going to get into, or if you are currently in endurance sports. Don't stop. And perhaps shift your expectations, shift your mindset. How would you like to put a cherry on top of this for everybody listening who needs maybe a little bit of a pick-me-up?

Yeah. Be realistic about your progress. Find partners, right? Find like-minded partners or a trainer.

Even if they're 25 years younger than you are.

Yes. Like I said, um, people my age are too slow for me. And so I don't hang out with them. I don't want to ride with them. I mean, not to sound mean or anything, but you know, if I'm hanging out with people that are 20 years, 25 years younger than me, they're moving, they're working harder. And that just pulls me through. I can't keep up with them, but it's just being around them. You know, the vibe that's in the group motivates me. Right.

I would definitely say that you have built a bit of a reputation in our group. Oh my gosh. That everybody looks forward to seeing you. Why? Everybody loves John. Right.

Right. I'm sure.

And there's some people, oh, that grouchy guy. Yeah, that grouchy guy who's like, big old softy on the inside.

Am I really that grouchy?

No, you're not. But everybody looks forward to having you. So I think you're a great part of our group.

Right.

At least.

Right. Right.

And the longest standing member.

Yes.

Which is pretty cool.

When was your— when did I first meet you in that spin class? What was that gym?

Yeah, that Probably, uh, yeah, of course both of us need a shot of water at the moment so we can remember what that place was called. But yeah, it was— I was— I guess I was teaching a spin class over at the gym, and it was either 10 or 11 years ago.

Yeah.

Anyway, yeah, one way or the other, stick with it and be patient. Be patient. What's our third? What's our third? We need 3 things, John.

Find partners, find workout partners, get a trainer, get involved in a program, at least use a trainer to get you started, to jumpstart you. That is the way it started. You and I have been working together for more than 10 years and it has been an evolution, which has been really cool. Yeah, for both of us.

Jon? Thanks for coming on. That was really fun.

It was fun.

Yes.

Awesome.

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