"We've had runners train for marathons, and we've had some fairly fast runners over the years," she said.

"Even my own runners trained harder 30 years ago than in recent years," Newton said.

Some runners train a lifetime to reach the Games, competing but never winning a medal.

"When runners train together, they want to have a runner that's a little faster than them, for motivation," Mr. Cerveris said.

An enthusiastic runner, Mr. Colchester was training for a marathon next month in Greece.

Some people say that since these runners and their forebears live and train at altitude, they're bound to be good.

The runners live and train in Portland, Oregon near Nike's headquarters.

No small achievement, really, for a man of his years, considering how hard and how long the runners trained for this.

In those days, few runners trained; they relied upon their natural abilities, and ran on race day only.

All the runners trained in the same way.