Years later, Romero still just out of reach

[GTF]

http://www.fresnobee.com/columnists/james/story/1139860.html

You could listen to Pete Romero talk about weather, or his tax returns, or the effect of immigration on the global marketplace.

Because he has run 8:42.

More specifically, in high school, he ran a two-mile race in 8 minutes, 42 seconds. That alone makes you intriguing, gives you the floor in pretty much any sports conversation.
 
People have run faster. High school kids have run faster. But not many. That record has stood as the Central Section mark for nearly 42 years.

Thousands of kids have tried thousands of times. Forty-two years to beat 42 seconds. No one can touch it.
"A while back I saw a kid from Bakersfield run 8:56," Romero says.

That's 14 seconds slower. FOURTEEN SECONDS! Ralph Nader came closer to the White House.

Elite athletes come and go. They train and push, and the tracks and the shoes improve, and Romero's two-mile record might as well be in Buckingham Palace. No one is touching it.

I've got a better shot at passing Sean Connery in charisma than anyone in the San Joaquin Valley has at beating 8:42. When Pete Romero set that record at Reedley High School, on a perfect day in 1967, he did it by himself, running alone, no one pushing him.

"I could have gone faster," he says.

Romero actually ran 8:54.6 for 2 miles:
http://www.cs.uml.edu/~phoffman/nats/gods.htm