Twice a Runner: Fred and Deb Torneden — Still Chasing the Next Adventure
More than four decades after their lives first came together through running, Fred and Deb Torneden are still competing, still coaching, still setting records—and still asking the same question: What’s next?
There was nothing about Fred Torneden that suggested a future 2:11 marathoner.
Growing up on a family farm surrounded by the wheat fields and pastureland of rural Kansas, Fred was the smallest kid in his middle school class. By his own description, he was far more likely to be picked on than picked first for a team.
Then, in ninth-grade physical education class, something happened that changed the direction of his life.
Coach Gerry Rice had the students compete in a decathlon. Fred struggled through nearly everything. He was near the bottom in the sprints, hurdles and jumps and dead last in the throwing events.
Then came the mile.
Fred was placed in the slower heat with the kids who weren't considered athletes. On the final lap, something clicked. He accelerated away and crossed the finish line in six minutes flat—faster than the winner of the supposedly fast heat.
In four laps, Fred had discovered something about himself that nobody, including Fred, knew was there. He could run. That small discovery on a Kansas track would eventually carry him farther than anyone could have imagined.
From Rural Kansas to 2:11:35
Fred became a four-time NAIA All-American at Fort Hays State University and won the NAIA indoor three-mile national championship.
His first marathon came while still in college. Years later, on September 30, 1984, he stood on the starting line of the Twin Cities Marathon against some of America's best distance runners.
He crossed the finish line first. 2:11:35.
It remains an extraordinary marathon performance more than four decades later. During that race Fred also passed 20 miles fast enough to establish an American record for the distance. His performance helped earn him a place on the United States team for the inaugural World Marathon Cup the following year.
Yet the athletic accomplishments are only one part of Fred Torneden's story. In fact, that is one of the central themes of his memoir, Twice a Runner: A Marathoner's Journey to a Finish Line of Personal Transformation.
The book isn't simply about how fast Fred once ran. It's about what happened afterward.
Then Came Deb
If Fred's running résumé is formidable, he married someone whose career could stand beside it.
Deb Pihl Torneden became one of the most accomplished distance runners in Kansas history.
At Kansas State University she was a four-time NCAA All-American and eight-time Big Eight Conference champion. Her performances included a 4:39.06 indoor mile and 9:09.60 outdoor 3,000 meters—school records that endured for decades. She qualified for four U.S. Olympic Trials and represented the United States internationally.
And unlike an athlete whose competitive identity belonged to one period of life, Deb simply kept going...and going...and going.
Now in her sixth decade of competitive running, that consistency is one of the things Fred admires most about her. He says that, other than childbirth or injury, Deb has essentially never stopped training. That may explain why, decades after her collegiate career ended, she is still winning national championships.
But longevity hasn't come from simply repeating the training she did at 20. Quite the opposite.
The Masters Athlete Has to Change
This is where Fred and Deb's story becomes especially relevant to the athletes AthleForte was created to serve. Fred returned seriously to competitive running later in life, but he knew immediately that chasing his younger self would be a mistake. The runner who once accumulated enormous mileage could no longer train like the man who ran 2:11.
Fred describes one of the great contradictions of masters athletics perfectly:
The mind still remembers being 20. The body does too—just not in the same way.
His philosophy now is essentially to stay in his own age lane.
The lifetime personal records may be untouchable. That doesn't mean competition is over. There are new competitors, new championships, age-group records and age-graded performances to pursue. And perhaps most importantly, there is still the simple pleasure of seeing what the body can do.
Their training reflects that change. Now in their 60s, Fred and Deb generally run only four days each week. Other days incorporate cross-training, cardio, core work and upper-body strength training. Easy days really are easy, often kept in lower heart-rate zones.
For athletes who spent decades believing harder was always better, accepting that can require almost as much discipline as the hard workouts once did. Deb learned that lesson through experience. Her Division I years produced tremendous performances, but the heavy training also contributed to repeated injury cycles after college. When Fred began coaching her in 1988, recovery and careful adjustment became much larger parts of the equation.
The objective was no longer simply to survive the training. It was to remain capable of training tomorrow. Nearly four decades later, the results speak for themselves.
A Second Running Life
Their competitive careers have now come almost full circle. Fred and Deb eventually returned to Manhattan, Kansas—the “Little Apple”—where their relationship had begun in 1983. And there, remarkably, another chapter of their running lives unfolded.
In 2024, both competed on masters 4x800-meter relay teams that established age-group world records.
Husband and wife. Same track. Same day. Within roughly an hour of each other. Two world records.
It's difficult to imagine a more appropriate moment for a couple whose lives have been intertwined with running for more than four decades. Fred calls this second competitive chapter exactly what the title of his memoir suggests:
Twice a Runner.
But the “twice” in the title has a deeper meaning.
The memoir describes not only two periods of Fred's running life, but a personal and spiritual transformation. Faith became central to Fred and Deb's lives, their marriage and the way they view their accomplishments. For Fred, running became part of something larger than races, records or medals—a vehicle through which he began thinking about purpose, perseverance and what constitutes a life well lived. And Twice a Runner ultimately became as much a love story as a running story: Fred's expression of faith and his tribute to the woman who has shared the journey with him.
Coaches as Well as Competitors
Fred and Deb also spent nine years coaching together at Butler Community College, Fred's alma mater. Ask them about that period and they don't immediately talk about trophies. They talk about the athletes.
They remember watching young runners mature, overcome difficulties and discover abilities they didn't realize they possessed—the same kind of discovery Fred experienced in that ninth-grade mile years earlier. Today they continue that work through Master Class Runner, providing individualized coaching to runners.
Their own decades of competition give them an unusually broad perspective. They know what it means to train an elite young body. And now they know what it means to coax performance from an older one. Perhaps that's why their message for masters athletes isn't “pretend you're still young.” It's almost the opposite. Accept where you are. Train intelligently. Recover. Compete. Enjoy it.
Then find out what's next.
What's the Next One?
That may be the phrase that best defines Deb Torneden. She has accumulated records, championships and honors that could provide plenty of reason to spend time looking backward. She doesn't.
Her attitude is essentially: What’s the next one?
Another race. Another challenge. Another chance to see what she can still do.
Fred shares that outlook. He jokes that growing older may be mandatory, but becoming “old” is another matter entirely.
Training has to change. Sometimes the mind still wants to do things the body no longer handles as easily.
Both understand that eventually times slow. Training changes. Recovery takes longer. The distance between what the mind wants to do and what the body permits can grow frustratingly wide. But none of that requires an athlete to stop being an athlete. Competition can simply acquire a different meaning. The younger Fred once measured himself against elite marathoners and a stopwatch showing 2:11:35.
Today's Fred can measure himself against athletes his own age, against age-group standards—and against the person he was yesterday. Deb can still step onto a starting line and want to win. That desire doesn't have an expiration date. And perhaps that is the real lesson in the Tornedens' story.
Aging doesn't require abandoning ambition. It may require redefining it. Fred and Deb have spent much of their lives running—sometimes extraordinarily fast, sometimes considerably slower. They have been athletes, coaches, husband and wife, competitors and training partners. Their lives have carried them through victories, injuries, transitions, faith and personal transformation.
More than 40 years after their story together began, they are still putting on their running shoes and heading toward another starting line. Not because they're trying to become 25 again. Because there is still something ahead worth pursuing.
Fred describes them with a phrase that manages to capture both the humor and the seriousness of their partnership:
“Soulmates—and solemates—in Sauconys and Spirit.”
And as long as the two of them can keep moving toward that next horizon, one question remains.
What's the next one?
About Twice a Runner
Twice a Runner: A Marathoner's Journey to a Finish Line of Personal Transformation is Fred Torneden's memoir about his journey from rural Kansas to world-class marathon running and the personal and spiritual transformation that followed. Deb's story and their more than four decades together are woven throughout the book.
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Fred and Deb also coach runners through Master Class Runner.