Run Long After 60

Episode 32 - Dave Perry | @fitandrunning60: Longevity, Plants, and 45 Years on the Road

He's been running since he was 15. He's never had a major injury. At 60, he just went out and ran 30 miles for the first time — and felt fine. Dave Perry found his audience six months ago when his daughters told him to start posting his runs on TikTok. No ring light. No script. No production team. Just a 60-year-old man in Northern California going out and running — and his videos have crossed 10,000 views. Multiple times. What makes Dave so relatable isn't that he's an elite. It's that he isn't. He's a middle-of-the-pack guy who married his high school sweetheart, served in the U.S. Army, raised two daughters, has four grandchildren, and has been quietly building one of the cleanest longevity lifestyles you'll hear described on this show. Plant-based for over a decade. Sober for over 35 years. Fasting daily in a 2-to-4 p.m. window. Asleep by 9:00 p.m. and up at 4:30 a.m. In this conversation: the Atkins-to-fish-to-plant-based journey that dropped his cholesterol from 240 to 152; why he stopped racing at 50 and never looked back; how making TikTok videos actually made him a better runner; surviving long runs without taste or smell after Covid; and why he's only ever run one marathon and one Ironman — on purpose. This episode also opens with a long and deeply personal running intro from Mark — his full reflection on crewing and pacing Paul James Johnson at the Cocodona 250, what it meant to witness a multi-day event for the first time, and why that experience changed everything. Dave Perry is the guy who makes you think: maybe I'll go out and run today. That's the whole point. 🎥 Watch the full video episode on YouTube — search Run Long After 60. 📲 Follow Dave Perry on TikTok: @fitandrunning60 New episodes every Sunday. Audio at 5:00 AM. Video at 12:00 PM Pacific.

Episode 31 – Chris & Michael Nicolaides | Brothers With a 10-Year Run Streak

Run Streaker Series – Episode 2 In this episode of Run Long After 60, I sit down with two brothers — Chris Nicolaides (66) and Michael Nicolaides (63) — who have each run at least one mile every single day for over ten years. Chris started his streak on Thanksgiving Day 2015. Michael started his 33 days later. Neither one has stopped. But the streak numbers alone don't tell the story. These brothers have run 97 miles together at Umstead 100, stayed in Damascus, Virginia, to help rebuild after Hurricane Helene instead of racing, and once ran the Appalachian Trail together during Covid just to see each other. Running every single day is not just what they do. It's who they are. This episode is the second installment of the Run Streaker Series. The series began with Episode 24, when Kevin Brunson — an 18-year run streaker who appeared on Episode 12 of the podcast — reached out to Tim Hardy, another 18-year streaker, and brought him on the show. Kevin and Tim had followed each other's running for years but had never actually spoken. Their first real conversation happened on that episode. At the end of that conversation, I challenged Kevin and Tim to find the next guests for the series. Tim Hardy knew exactly who to call. He had met Chris and Michael years earlier at a marathon dinner — and unknowingly planted the seed that led them both to start streaking. Tim is happy to take full credit. And full responsibility. Both Kevin and Tim join this episode as co-hosts, anchoring the Run Streaker Series alongside the brothers. We talk about: * The New Year's Eve dare around a fire in Richmond that started everything * Running before a hernia surgery — and again the night after * The midnight split: how to get two streak days out of one late-night run * Running Heathrow Terminal 5 back and forth, four times, to hit two miles * 97 miles side by side at Umstead 100 — and what happened at mile 97 * Hurricane Helene, a canceled race, and staying to help rebuild a community * Raven — the Miami Beach runner who has gone every single day since January 1st, 1975 * What all four would tell someone thinking about starting a streak The Nicolaides brothers exist in rarefied air inside the running world. They are believed to be one of the only brother pairs on earth holding an active run streak of this length. And when you hear the four of them in the same conversation — two brothers at ten years, two friends at eighteen — you understand immediately what that kind of commitment means, and what it gives back. This is Run Streaker Series Episode 2. If you know a run streaker — or a sibling pair still going — I'd love to hear from you. Kevin Brunson and Tim Hardy return as anchors of the Run Streaker Series and will help bring future guests into these conversations. If you know a run streaker whose story should be told, send them this episode. Run Long After 60 is produced as a video-first podcast. If you'd like to watch the full conversation, you can find the video version — including chapter markers — on the Run Long After 60 YouTube channel. 🎧 Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, or Amazon to follow the journey. 📍 Hosted by Mark Vega

Episode 30 — Henry Howard | My Coach, My DNFs, and What Comes Next

This one is personal.   For the first half of this episode, I'm sitting down with my running coach, Henry Howard — deputy media director of the American Legion, RRCA-certified coach, the creator of RunSpirited, and a five-time 100-mile finisher. Henry has believed in me for years, sometimes when the data probably said he shouldn't. We talk about how he balances running a major media operation at the American Legion with competing in and coaching ultras, the Burning River 100 that taught him the most about the distance, and what most amateur runners misunderstand about having a coach. He also reveals what he thinks is waiting for him on the other side of 60 — including some breaking news about a recent pickleball injury.   For the second half, the mic turns around. I'm coming off my first 100-mile start line at the Leona Divide — a DNF at mile 28, nine hours in, swept from the course. It was my third DNF in five months (Red Rock Canyon 100K in November, Sean O'Brien 100K in January, Leona Divide 100 Mile in April). That record deserves honest analysis, and Henry is the right person to give it.   We talk about who actually picked these races (I did — not Henry), whether the stroke history I carry from two ischemic strokes in my early fifties ever changed how Henry coached me, and the framework I've been building called Data Not Failure — the idea that every DNF contains information a finish doesn't, and that information is the foundation of whatever comes next.   We walk through all three DNFs, look at the pattern honestly, and face the question of whether Bigfoot 200 in August is the right next race. Henry doesn't give me a simple yes or no — which is exactly the right answer.   This episode closes with Henry's message for every runner over 60 who wonders whether the window might be closing. It's the right note to end on.   FIND HENRY HOWARD: Website and Monday Motivation Newsletter: runspirited.com [http://runspirited.com] Coaching inquiries: runspirited.com [http://runspirited.com] Instagram: @henryhoward   Run Long After 60 is a podcast built on the conviction that age is not a barrier to doing hard things. Subscribe wherever you listen.

Episode 29 - Taylor Nichols | Bianchi in Aspen. Built Safer Streets in West Hollywood. Still Riding.

In this episode of Run Long After 60, I sit down with Taylor Nichols — a West Hollywood, Los Angeles actor and bicycle advocate who has been fighting for safer streets for over 15 years, and who hasn't stopped riding since he bought a Bianchi off a drug dealer in Aspen, Colorado in the mid-80s.   Taylor rode bikes as a kid in Michigan, put the bike away at 16 when he got his license, and didn't get back on one until he moved to Aspen for a theater job. He rode up to the Maroon Bells at 11,000 feet, got stoned at the top, flew 17 miles downhill, and said: I'm a cyclist for life.   The advocacy came later — when his kids were old enough to bike to school but the streets of West Hollywood were too wide, too fast, and too car-dominated to feel safe. So Taylor got appointed to the West Hollywood Bicycle Task Force, spent six months going deep into urban planning and street design, and helped transform Santa Monica Boulevard into something the whole community could use. That work eventually led him to Bike Talk — a weekly radio show on KPFK 90.7 FM now airing in 16 markets — where he co-hosts conversations with the politicians, authors, and urban planners reshaping how American cities work.   This is a different kind of episode for Run Long After 60. We talk about:   • The Bianchi, the Maroon Bells, and 40 years of never stopping • The West Hollywood Bicycle Task Force and what it actually changed • 45,000 Americans killed in traffic violence every year — and why it's not an accident • "Car crash" not "car accident" — and the book behind that shift • Bike Talk: from underground Kill Radio to 16 markets on KPFK • E-bikes: why research shows older riders get more exercise on them, not less • How protected bike lanes make roads safer for runners and drivers too • What it actually takes to get someone over 60 back on two wheels   Taylor closes with a line that's going to stay with me. It's not his — he credits a writer named Tom Flood — but it's the whole argument in ten words: "Bicycles offer the freedom that auto ads promise."   He's right. And after this conversation, I believe it.   Run Long After 60 is a video-first podcast focused on running after 60, ultrarunning, longevity, and staying active later in life. If you'd like to watch the full conversation, you can find the video version on the Run Long After 60 YouTube channel.   🎧 Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, or Amazon Music to follow the journey.   📍 Hosted by Mark Vega

Episode 28 - Jenny Hitchings | Life PR at 59, World Record at 60, Still Not Done at 62

In this episode of Run Long After 60, I sit down with Jenny Hitchings — a 62-year-old elite masters runner and coach from Sacramento, California, who didn't discover she was competitive until her late 30s. What followed is one of the most remarkable arcs in masters running history. She didn't stumble into records — she hunted them. Systematically. Breaking times that had stood untouched for over 20 years, many held by Olympic champions and Hall of Famers. Eight American records in her 50s. A world record at New York City. Then a lifetime PR of 2:45:27 at the 2023 London Marathon — two months before turning 60. Six months after that, she aged into the 60-64 category and immediately set that world record too at Chicago. And she is still nervous before every race. That tension — between historic achievement and deeply personal vulnerability — is what drives this conversation. We talk about: * Being the only runner in her family, and a late bloomer by any measure * How getting a coach at 40 changed everything * What it felt like to miss the Olympic Trials by 10 seconds in 2012 * A phase of trail running she loved, podiumed in, and then quietly left behind * Why race anxiety hits five days out — not race morning — every single time * The self-induced pressure of chasing records you yourself set * Tokyo 2024, half a cup of water in a marathon, and a hard lesson in fueling * Coaching 16 remote athletes and a youth running club on Thursday afternoons * Achilles surgery on January 2nd — and what recovery actually looks like 12 weeks in * Why she wants to bow out gracefully, organically, and entirely on her own terms Jenny's story is about what happens when elite performance meets the very human experience of aging — and what it costs to stay competitive when your body starts negotiating. She holds the records. She feels the pressure. She still gets nervous. And she's not done yet. Run Long After 60 is a video-first podcast focused on running after 60, ultrarunning, longevity, and staying active later in life. If you'd like to watch the full conversation, you can find the video version on the Run Long After 60 YouTube channel. 🎧 Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, or Amazon Music to follow the journey. 📍 Hosted by Mark Vega