What M90 phenom Earl Fee eats in a day
Here are some of nonagenarian Earl Fee's secrets to setting records on the track
Earl Fee, who turned 90 years old on March 22, holds 59 world records on the track. Fifty-nine world records! His most recent is for the M90 800m, which he broke by more than four seconds last weekend at the Ontario Masters Championships at Toronto’s Varsity Stadium. We caught up with Fee by phone to talk about how he fuels and trains.
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Fee, a retired engineer, was born in Saskatchewan but has lived in Toronto for many years. “My main secret is aging slower than my rivals,” Fee jokes, adding that aging slowly runs in his family. “When my mother was 69, she looked about 40.”
Here’s what Fee’s nutrition looks like:
Breakfast
Porridge made with steel cut oats with walnuts and pumpkin seeds (four days a week)
Eggs with a baked red potato and beans (three days a week)
Occasionally, if he’s going for a run soon after, he’ll have a protein shake made with whey powder
To drink: 2.5 glasses of water with flaxseed, occasionally tea
“I really like coffee,” says Fee, “but sometimes it bothers my heart.” He’s had some issues with tachycardia (an abnormally fast resting heartrate). He typically avoids fruit juice, because it’s so high in sugar.
Lunch & dinner
“At lunch I normally have a [protein] shake or some soup, or sometimes I skip it. I find it’s just a habit–sometimes I go running about 2:00, and when I come back I’m not that hungry.”
At dinner, Fee typically has either fish or chicken. “I like red meat, but not too often–maybe about once a month. The main thing is, at night I have a lot of steamed vegetables, all different kinds, and different varieties every day so I don’t get tired of them. I like yogurt for dessert, maybe a little bit of chocolate, but not too much… I think it’s important to get good microbes in the stomach.”
Training
Fee is currently training for the Canadian Masters Championships in Ste-Thérèse, Que. next month, and there’s always another record in his sights: “I’m trying to break the [world M90] 400m record and the 200m hurdles record this year,” he reports. After nationals it’s the NCCWMA (North America, Central America and Caribbean World Masters Athletics) meet in Toronto.
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Fee trains three times a week. “In between running days I go to the University [of Toronto Athletic Centre]. I swim or I run in the water, or walk in the water, backwards, sideways and forwards, and after I finish I do about six minutes of leg swinging. Also in the morning I do a lot of leg swinging before I get out of bed, and also stretching. At night I do about 30 pushups, squats and one-armed rows, and I have a rubber band for exercising the legs. I stopped doing the weights, because if I do weights in between running days, the next day I run and my legs are tired from the weights. I find the light things I’m doing at night are sufficient.”