Bob Matteson of Vermont is 91 and good to go for Orono. And he got a great send-off from his local paper today. Check out this article, which I’ve also reproduced below. Bob’s coach, Pete Farwell, says: “They say if you don’t use it, you lose it, and here is a guy who’s kept using his fast-twitch muscles his whole life. He’s always rushing — how many 91-year-olds have such a full day that they have to squeeze in their workouts?” Classic. Later Bob himself says: “During the first few steps of any run, you’re thinking ‘Why the hell am I doing this?’ But after a few moments that feeling disappears. Running is a continual thing, a perpetual thing. It’s impossible to keep at it unless you have that drive, that determination, to succeed.” Go Bob!

Great story — and longer than you normally see in a newspaper:

Faster than the hands of time
ADAM WHITE, Sporst Editor
Bennington Banner
Article Launched:07/28/2007 02:59:04 AM EDT
Saturday, July 28
Unlocking the secrets of a track master who is at his peak – at age 91
BENNINGTON — There is a secret to winning a footrace. Anyone who has put enough pavement beneath his or her feet can tell you that it’s not how you start, nor how you finish, that determines whether or not you come in first. The secret lies somewhere in between, in the stretch of time known to experienced runners as the third fourth.
Take any race — from a 100-meter dash to an ultramarathon — and simply divide its total length into four equal parts. The third of those parts is the critical period, the stage at which a champion ascends and the rest of the pretenders fall away. It is the stage at which many a “fast starter” runs out of gas, and an equal number of “kickers” find themselves in too deep a hole to effectively utilize their hidden burst of energy and speed. It is the race within the race, a perfect microcosm for the greater contest that frames it.
Bennington’s Bob Matteson is a master of the third fourth. It is there that the 91-year-old track star has buried one opponent after another, and many a long-standing national — and even one world — record. And it is there, within that invisible realm where conventional time dissolves into a cadence of labored breaths and pounding feet and heart, that this marvel of athletic longevity first took shape, and has since grown into a story that most casual observers simply cannot believe.
All of the secrets behind Bob Matteson’s almost otherworldly success can be found in the third fourth.
*****
The first secret lies within numbers, both in the digital readout of a stopwatch and the pages of a calendar.
It is just before 2 p.m. on a Wednesday afternoon, and Bob Matteson is in yet another race against time. He glances at his wristwatch and closes his eyes, making a few rapid-fire mental calculations.
“I’ll be at Weston Field for my workout at 4 p.m. If I’m late, just wait for me,” he says.
Of course, he ends up being a few minutes early instead. Weston Field is on the campus of Williams College, and is home to a state-of-the-art rubberized track on which Matteson conducts a number of his regular workouts in preparation for regional and even national track competitions. It is also the home-away-from-home of Pete Farwell, the cross-country and long distance running coach at Williams – and Matteson’s training partner.
“This is the greatest track coach in the United States right here,” says Matteson, gesturing to the 56-year-old Farwell as the two prepare for the workout.
“Sure, I’ve got lots of wisdom to impart,” says Farwell with a smile. “Very little of which pertains to running.”
As the practice session begins, a clear pattern begins to show itself. Each of Matteson’s separate track events — from the 100-meter dash through the 800 — are replicated, with Farwell running alongside Matteson and keeping one eye on a stopwatch to monitor their pace.
And in nearly every individual run, the coach must rein in his pupil, either verbally or with a hand on Matteson’s shoulder, to keep him from accelerating too much.
“He’s always trying to kick it in,” says Farwell during one of their “short rest” periods. “I have to keep telling him to save some for the rest of the workout, and he still keeps trying to go faster.”
Farwell is often forced to remind the nonagenarian that in a race against time — Matteson’s competitions are more commonly against established records than actual opponents — the classic strategy of pace becomes all the more critical.
“When you’re trying to set records, your enemy is time — and time is made in the third fourth,” says Farwell. “In a race against an opponent, that is also where you can punish somebody — or where you can end up punishing yourself.”
Matteson only ever faces a handful of actual opponents, as his 90-95 age group isn’t exactly teeming with able-bodied contenders. Many an experienced competitive runner has long since broken down by that age, succumbing to the tremendous physical wear that repetitive groundstrike imparts on the feet, ankles, knees and hips.
But aside from the occasional muscle cramp or hamstring pull — the likes of which Matteson recently suffered in a training mishap — the senior star has remained relatively free of medical limitations that one would assume to be commonplace for someone of his advanced age. He trains five days a week, with a workout schedule to rival that of competitors even one-quarter his age. And he is no worse for the wear, climbing a long flight of stairs to his Bennington office every day and filling much of his “free time” with outdoor sports such as kayaking and hiking.
“They say if you don’t use it, you lose it, and here is a guy who’s kept using his fast-twitch muscles his whole life,” says Farwell. “He’s always rushing – how many 91-year-olds have such a full day that they have to squeeze in their workouts?”
The answer: Not many, because again, most 91-year-olds are too worn down to have workouts in the first place. But when asked why he is still able to lead such an active lifestyle even as he approaches the century mark of his life, Matteson gives a wry smile and divulges one of the true secrets to his track success.
He didn’t join the grand race of life until its third fourth.
“I didn’t start running competitively until I was in my seventies,” says Matteson. “If I had started back in my twenties, maybe I’d be broken down by now. Running can be awfully hard on the body, after all.”
Matteson’s foray into competitive running occurred in the late 1980s, when his daughter Ruth — then a senior at Mount Anthony Union High School — enrolled in a class at Bennington College. While Ruth was in class her father would wait for her in his car, reading or reviewing work-related documents. After a period of time the daughter became concerned about her father’s docility during her class, and suggested that he get out of the car and get some exercise.
“Why don’t you check out the campus?” Ruth asked. “Run around or something.”
Bob Matteson took his daughter’s suggestion to heart, and soon found that pounding the pavement was not only energizing, but something for which he possessed an above-average natural acumen. He soon caught the attention of area running gurus Steve Zemianek and Dan Geer, both of whom encouraged Matteson to try out competitive running.
“I started out doing road races, but soon discovered that I was better at track,” says Matteson. “There, I could take better advantage of the fact that I had pretty good speed at shorter distances.”
The rest, as they say, is history. Matteson quickly took the Masters track circuit by storm, breaking record after record even as the years ticked by and his natural aging process continued.
But within that last phrase lies the next secret to Matteson’s improbable track career, at a point in life where most men retire to a lifestyle of easy chairs and prescription drugs.
Back on the Williams track, Farwell recounts the story of one particular wide-eyed observer of one of their workouts, who initially guessed Matteson’s age to be somewhere in the vicinity of 60. Farwell laughed and told her to guess again, and to this time pick the absolute oldest that the senior runner could possibly be.
“Seventy-five,” guessed the woman.
“Wrong,” said Farwell. “That man right there is the youngest 91-year-old you will ever meet.”
*****
The second secret lies beneath an electron microscope, in a laboratory in Boston, Massachusetts.
It is there that research geneticists first pinpointed a specific region of human Chromosome Four that is likely to contain a gene or genes associated with extraordinary life expectancy. This discovery, first divulged in an August, 2001 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has shed new light on not only uncommon longevity but also the remarkably delayed aging process of individuals like Bob Matteson.
In other words, long life and robust health and fitness at an advanced age could now be pinpointed to specific genetic make-up – found somewhere near the third fourth of a strand of human DNA – giving scientists some of the first concrete evidence that such characteristics are hereditary.
“We have known that only a few genes influence longevity in lower organisms, and now that appears to be true in humans,” wrote study co-author Thomas Perls M.D., M.P.H., a geriatrician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. “We’re not trying to find the fountain of youth. If anything, we’re trying to find the fountain of aging well.”
This was no news to Matteson, who was long aware of such a “fountain” within not only himself, but also many of his familial predecessors. His grandmother Ruth had lived to be 100 years of age, while both of his parents showed similar vitality until an automobile accident took his mother’s life and left his father gravely injured at the age of 88.
Even then, when doctors told Peleg Matteson that he had a 1-in-100 chance of surviving his injuries, the longtime Bennington dentist defied the odds and pulled through, living another four years until his death in 1975 at the age of 92. Such resiliency has become a Matteson family trait, and something that Bob Matteson points to as perhaps the biggest reason for his late-in-life athletic success.
“I have little doubt that a lot of my situation has to do with genetic luck-of-the-draw,” says Matteson. “People in general are living longer and remaining active longer nowadays, but in my case I suspect the reasons are heavily genetic.”
Scientific research would seem to agree with Matteson’s deduction. The genetic link to longevity is rooted in DNA components called single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), specifically one SNP called apolipoprotein C3 (APOC3) that occurs in clear frequency in centenarians, by a margin of up to 25-percent over younger-aged control subjects. By simply studying blood samples of members of a specific family in which above-average longevity is prevalent, geneticists have found an overwhelming trend toward the increased occurrence of APOC3.
“It is safe to assume – based on previous studies – that if you studied the Chromosome Four region in one of (Matteson’s) DNA samples, you would find a similar trend,” says Kathryn Irenze, a research geneticist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Broad Institute.
But Irenze contends that this genetic “tag” alone is not a singular explanation for the staggering late-life accomplishments of Bob Matteson. She refers to several documented cases of subjects with increased occurrences of APOC3 who didn’t display anywhere near the longevity or vitality that Matteson has, and suggests that there are different but equally important components at play in his particular situation.
“While there is undoubtedly a genetic component to longevity, the reality is that lifestyle isn’t given nearly enough emphasis in these studies,” says Irenze. “You can make an analogy with personality: A number of studies show that it is determined up to 50-percent by genetics, but that means that at least half of who we are comes from our experiences, our upbringing. I would say that lifestyle plays as much a part in this gentleman’s case as genetics do.”
*****
Thus, the final of Bob Matteson’s secrets lies at the bottom of a stew pot.
The hands working that pot belong to his wife of 45 years, Mary, who likely plays as significant a role in her husband’s accomplishments as any other component of his life. A native of Japan, Mary has kept her husband on a healthy diet throughout their time together, a diet made up largely of fresh vegetables and non-fatty meats which have helped keep both of the Mattesons healthy and energetic.
“I insist on fresh vegetables at every meal,” she says. “Every meal has a green salad, and we grow fresh parsley and basil ourselves.”
Bob Matteson describes he and his wife as “not heavy eaters,” who enjoy simple yet flavorful meals that have simultaneously provided the optimum fuel for his workouts and active lifestyle in general. He suggests that without Mary’s dietary diligence, his physical conditioning might be significantly more of an uphill battle than it is.
“I have to give Mary credit,” says Matteson. “Without necessarily designing to do so, she has made us both healthy eaters, and likely done a lot to help me stay in shape.”
But the influence of Matteson’s lifestyle on his athletic accomplishments isn’t limited strictly to meals. He is living testament to the idea that success is a choice, and that no amount of genetic predisposition or even physical fitness will equate to competitiveness without an accompanying attitude and drive to succeed.
“Running is about determination,” says Matteson. “During the first few steps of any run, you’re thinking ‘Why the hell am I doing this?’ But after a few moments that feeling disappears. Running is a continual thing, a perpetual thing. It’s impossible to keep at it unless you have that drive, that determination, to succeed.”
But how easy is it for a 91-year-old man – literally coming out of the third fourth of life itself – to keep up that kind of drive? The harsh reality is that time is a monster to someone of Matteson’s age; a force that slows the mind and body and makes every solitary step harder, let alone every race at every meet throughout a track season.
“Now and then, I start to feel the aches and pains that come with being an ancient guy,” says Matteson, his face softening a bit. “And when I look at my times, I think I’ve started to decline somewhat in the last year. ”
But just as quickly, Matteson shuffles through some papers and pulls out a dog-eared yellow booklet entitled “Age Graded Tables.” Flipping through page after page of numerical charts, he begins to plug his most recent race times into a series of mathematical equations.
Suddenly, his times begin to shrink. What these tables do, in fact, is factor in the inevitable decline in athletic performance that comes with age. Matteson’s 400-meter time from earlier in the season – 99.39 – is transformed into an age-adjusted time of 51.39. His 4.50 time in the 800 becomes a 2.20. With these equations and a calculator, he is turning back the hands of time, causing his legs and arms in those previous races to retroactively pump a little harder, a little faster.
Just like that, the twinkle is back in Bob Matteson’s eye.
“According to these tables, my times – when adjusted – are still up there in the 90th percentile,” says Matteson with a smile. “Had I run these races at my peak, at age 20 or 22, I would have set American or even world records across the board.”
And that is precisely what he intends to do, or more accurately, continue to do. Matteson currently owns eight national and one world record for his age and age group, and has his eye on further accolades at the upcoming USA Masters Championships at the University of Maine next month. What comes after that is a mystery even to him; suffice it to say that the track master sees himself as far from being in the home stretch of his athletic career.
In other words, Bob Matteson is right where he wants to be, in the very place where his hard work and determination have led him to heights unknown to most. In his track career and in his life, he is in the third fourth.
“At this point, I just take it one season at a time,” says Matteson. “After this particular event, I’ll take a look at how I do and how I feel, and go from there. But who wants to go down to Florida, sit in the sun and wear a straw hat? Not me.”
Adam White is the Sports Editor of the Banner. He can be reached at awhite@benningtonbanner.com.