The Fastest 70-Year-Old, Who Does a Marathon Under Three Hours
Beatrice Lessi
I am 60. Of course I want to know how someone starts running at 60 and breaks world records at 70. That is exactly why I picked up Mike Sheridan’s Dare to Dream: How at 70 I Ran the Marathon in Under Three Hours — and exactly why I could not put it down.
Sheridan’s writing is lean and purposeful. When he walks you through his training methodology, you feel the discipline behind every split time. This is someone who has thought deeply about what the body can do, and then gone out and proved it — repeatedly.
But what surprised me most was the poetry hiding inside all that rigour. Sheridan is a remarkable visualiser. He constructs his races in his mind long before he runs them, seeing the finish line with a clarity that most of us reserve for daydreams. And he compares the marathon to Ravel’s Bolero — that deceptively quiet opening that builds, bar by bar, into something enormous. As a description of what it feels like to run 42 kilometres, I cannot think of a better one.
His chapter on Kenya — where his love for running was born — is the emotional heart of the book. I will say nothing more. Just get there.
One detail I found quietly brilliant: his pre-race breakfast is porridge soaked overnight, so it is already half-broken down by the time race morning arrives. Smart, simple, effective. Very Sheridan.
And then there is the thing that moved me most. This man barely mentions getting older. It floats in the background occasionally, like a fact he finds mildly amusing, before he gets back to the business of running faster than people half his age.
If you have ever wondered whether your best performances are behind you, read this book. The answer, according to Mike Sheridan, is a very fast, very emphatic no.
