Today Is Not That Day: Mike’s 60th Marathon at Age 80

On a dark Sunday morning in Manhattan, long before the city stirred, 80-year-old The Sequoias Portola Valley resident Mike Seashols quietly tied his shoelaces. It was 4:30 am on Sunday, November 2, 2025.  The hallway outside his hotel room was silent. But Mike knew what awaited him: his 60th marathon, and his seventh time running the legendary New York City Marathon.

He stepped onto the 5:00 am runner’s bus, one of dozens idling in Midtown, and watched the city blur into a two-hour ride toward Staten Island. Then came four long hours in the start village with nearly 59,000 other runners. “By the time you start your race, it’s like six or seven hours,” recalls Mike. But he didn’t complain. Mike has never been one to dwell on discomfort.

What he wanted to talk about was the joy.

Around mile eight or nine, in the heart of Brooklyn, the wind changed. The Verrazzano Bridge was behind him, the crowds were thick, and the adrenaline of the start was fading fast. “Man, oh man, I’m tired,” he remembered thinking. He felt aches settling in. The long morning was catching up.

And then he saw her.

“A lady, maybe in her 50s or 60s, on the left-hand side. She’s holding a sign. Her eyes connect with mine.” She smiled, lifted the sign, and Mike read the words that would carry him the rest of the race:

“You entered this race to finish. Someday you’re not going to be able to finish. But today is not that day.”

“What that did to my psyche…” he paused, reliving the moment, “today is not the day. I felt like I was starting all over again.”

His body didn’t magically stop hurting, but his mindset changed everything.

By mile 13, another feeling hit: hunger.

“The last time I ran this race was with my son, and we stopped to get some food. But this time I was by myself.”

He spotted a McDonald’s.

“I jump out of the chute, roll into McDonald’s, get in line, order my double cheeseburger with all my paraphernalia on… and they’re cheering in the McDonald’s because they know I’m a runner.”

He unwrapped it, stepped back onto the course, and kept running, cheeseburger in hand.

“It rejuvenized me. I never got tired. I never got tired.”

Hours later, wearing a brand-new medal, Mike was supposed to take the subway to his hotel. But the joy of the day had seeped so deeply into him that he couldn’t stop moving.

“I say, I feel so good, I’m gonna walk back to my hotel.”

So he did.

By nightfall, he’d logged 30 miles and 72,000 steps. Only when he opened the hotel door did the exhaustion finally land. “I don’t wake up until 9:00 a.m. the next morning. Still with my clothes on.”

He smiled and said, “It was the perfect day.”

When I asked Mike how he pushed through the moments where most runners “bonk,” he didn’t hesitate. “One is experience.”

He’s been through enough races to recognize the signs, the shifting energy, the way the body starts looking for fuel anywhere it can find it, and the mental discipline required to keep moving. And on this particular day, he didn’t bonk at all. Not until “mile 30,” as he puts it, remembering the moment he fell asleep fully clothed at the hotel.

When our conversation shifted to how running feels in his 80s, his answer carried the kind of quiet wisdom that only comes from living fully and paying attention along the way.

“As expectations are reduced because of the limitations of your aging process… you accept them. Not with bitterness… but appreciation.”

“Acceptance doesn’t mean stopping; it simply means adjusting. Maybe the next race will be shorter. Maybe it will be a walk. Maybe it will be something entirely different.” What matters to Mike isn’t the distance—it’s the mindset he brings with him.

And that mindset is anchored in his faith:

“God is my steering wheel… My job is to pedal.”

As long as he’s able to pedal, even slowly, he will. Because the message he received on Fourth Avenue, early in the race, still rings true:

Today is not that day.