Health - Injuries?

Athlete: Sean Wade

Age: 49

Residence: Houston, TX

Career: Coaching

Family: CA Notice at Collection

Lifetime PRs:

Mile: 4:02 (1991)

3,000-meter steeplechase: 8:35 (1990)

Half-marathon: 1:03:30 (1995)

Marathon: 2:10:59 (1996)

Periodized Training Can Help You Hit Your Goals:

5K: 14:49 (2009)

10K: 30:11 (2006)

Half-marathon: 1:07:09 (2007)

Marathon: 2:20:30 (2007)

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• 3 mile warm-up, light stretching and drills, sprint the straightaways and jog the turns for a mile

• 12 x 200 meters in 32 seconds, 30 seconds recovery between each

• jog 2 minutes

• 800 meters in 2:04

• use foam roller after cool-down
 

Can a 50-year-old run a 4:20 mile? Sean Wade, who at age 30 ran the 1996 Olympic marathon in Atlanta for his native New Zealand, hopes to attempt that feat next February when he turns 50. Wade, who has run and raced nonstop since his world-class days, won the Fifth Avenue Mile 45–49 division in a sensational 4:25 on September 13. Training for the mile for the first time in his career, Wade, a Houston resident, will run his fourth mile in five weeks on October 4 when he contests the Navy Mile on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.

Fifth Avenue: In New York, with the 40–44 and 45–49 men grouped together in one field of 730 runners, Wade—age 49 years, 7 months—won his division by 11 seconds and was the outright winner by 15 meters over 42-year-old Boyd Carrington of Long Island. Wade’s performance was age-graded at 95.44 percent. After a snappy 63-second first quarter on a downward slope, Wade slowed on the hill in the second quarter, hitting the half in 2:13. He took the lead at about 1,000 meters and was never challenged.

Grand Finale: With Wade’s mother coming from New Zealand to New York for vacation that weekend, she was on hand to cheer her son at the finish. To celebrate the occasion, Wade managed to hustle up tickets for an even bigger New York event that same day—the U.S. Open men’s tennis final between Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. Sean grew up playing tennis, and after being ranked No. 1 in New Zealand as a teen, he was awarded a scholarship to a junior college in California. At the time, he says, “I hated running.”

Mile Movement: Trying to reinvent himself as a miler to gain the speed he claims he’s long lacked, Wade has been doing sprint workouts since the spring. Four days before Fifth Avenue, Wade ran a track mile on Long Island in a field of 20-somethings in 4:25.76. Two weeks earlier in Houston, he’d run a road mile in 4:23. Wade had been hoping for 4:20 at Fifth Avenue and will try again in Washington in an elite field of men half his age. The Navy Mile is a first-time event on an out-and-back course near many of the capital’s historic landmarks.

Age Records: Wade turns 50 in early February, and if fit and healthy, will immediately jump into an indoor mile, perhaps on the fast Armory track in New York. The world indoor 50-and-up record for the mile is 4:26.75 set in 2002 by Nolan Shaheed of California, then 51. The world outdoor mark is Shaheed’s 4:25.04 set in 2001. The oldest runner to break 4:20 is Brad Barton of Utah, who at 48 in 2014 ran 4:17.54. Barton also turns 50 in 2016.

Sub-15:00: Wade, who ran the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland, is just as keen on a sub-15 minute 5,000 as he is on a fast mile. Last spring, in California, Wade ran 15:06.70 in a track 5,000, 25 seconds faster than the No. 2 runner in the world in the 45–49 division in 2015. Wade will attempt a sub-15 again, also in California, in the Silicon Valley 5K on the roads in San Jose later this fall. Wade’s license plate reads: Sub15.

Training Intensity: As hard as he ran, Wade says the Fifth Avenue Mile “didn’t even hurt.” That’s not bravado. It’s recognition of his hard-to-believe training intensity that, he says, makes races feel easier than workouts. An example: 6 x 1 mile in a 5:02 average with 2 minutes recovery. Another: 2:10 for 800 meters, jog 800, 2:07 for 800, jog 800, 400 in 61, jog 400, 400 in 60, jog 400, and 4 x 200 in 30 seconds each. “When I do workouts, I do them really hard,” Wade said. “It’s the only way my brain works. I can’t hold back.”

Daring Run: When he came to the U.S. to play tennis, Wade first attended Menlo Junior College, near Stanford, and then Grossmont Junior College, in the San Diego area—cursing the coaches who would make him run laps for fitness. He transferred to Rice University in Houston, where eventually, he says, “I got burned out on tennis.” Around that time, he took up a dare and raced a Rice trackman in the 800, winning in 1:57. The man who hated running was not surprised. “With all my jumping and sprinting in tennis, I could have run a 50-second 400 with no training,” he said. After quitting tennis, Wade ran his senior year at Rice, graduating in 1989 with an 8:50 steeplechase to his credit.

Marathon Man: In the early 1990s, Wade got into marathoning on a regimen of about 85 miles a week. He would run Houston every year, achieving his 2:10:59 PR in 1996 to earn his Olympic berth. In the Games, he had an off day in the Atlanta heat, placing 83^rd in the field of 111 finishers, in 2:30:35. Wade won Houston in 2003 in 2:24:23. In 2007, at 41, he ran faster, 2:20:30, to win the masters division.

Peak Year: Wade’s best year as a master came in 2008 when, at 42, he won the 40–44 division in 21 of 22 major races across the country. His masters victories included the Peachtree 10K in Atlanta, the Carlsbad 5K in California, the Bloomsday 12K in Spokane, Washington, and the Utica Boilermaker 15K in upstate New York. Wade’s only masters loss was a second at Falmouth.

Pool Work: Wade’s mantra is: get older, run shorter. After suffering calf injuries in recent years that affected his racing schedule, Wade found a happy medium in training “only” 60 miles a week plus daily pool work. In his current schedule, he runs up to an hour every day with another hour of running in the pool. Wade says that he can do up to 270 strides per minute in the water for 45 to 60 minutes.

Busy Coach: As coach of a program he calls “The Kenyan Way,” Wade supervises more than 400 adult runners per week in group workouts. The participants, many training for the Houston Marathon in January, meet Monday for hill sprints, Wednesday for tempo runs and Saturdays for long runs.

Feeling Great: As a young competitor, Wade says, “I ran because I was good at it and didn’t want to waste my talent.” Now, in mid-life, Wade says he enjoys running more each year as a lifestyle and thrives “on the feeling of being in great shape.”