How Are You Hard Wired? One Man's Experience Tests Aging. And You?

This is Joe Cordero (center) doing what matters. Having fun. 

By Ray Glier

Joe Cordero, 88, just won’t connect with this aging thing. The wrinkles, the sagging skin, and the muscle loss are simply not relevant to him.

The challenge matters more. That’s what he connects with, not the perspectives or interpretations of age.

Stop and consider how you are hard-wired to handle aging, whether you are 60, 70, or 80.

Joe, who has won 13 national championships in the 2000-meter steeplechase, has to slide himself over the 30-inch barrier at the water jump. He is annoyed by this. Not too long ago, Cordero could high step on to the rigid wood barrier and launch himself into the water. 

So Cordero built two barriers in his backyard in Dewey, Arizona. One at regulation 30 inches high and a training barrier at 24 inches high.

“If I can do the 24, then the 30 is an easy transition,” Joe said. “Grabbing the barrier with my hands and throwing my feet over slowed me down too much.”

This is how Joe thinks: that guy 88 years old staring back at Cordero in the mirror is an imposter.

“I feel like I’m 18,” Joe says, “trapped in an 88-year old’s body. We all grow old, but growing up is an option.”

Cordero is not in denial. He just won’t be intimidated by age, or easily use it as an excuse.

Joe walks his dog 60 minutes every morning. Then, he and his wife, Mary Diver, who is also in Masters track, go to the gym three or four times a week. Cordero will stay on the rowing machine anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes. Joe stretches a lot.

Cordero lives at the bottom of a hill in Arizona. He estimates it is 6,200 feet up and Joe walks up and down that hill. That is how he trains...at 88. Joe started with four of these training runs of 23 minutes and got up to eight twice a week.

He is taking flying lessons at 88.

He refuses to say, “I’m too old for this” whatever "this" is.

**

I always wonder where the hard-wiring of Geezer Jocks comes from. What makes people like Joe so unrelenting?

Maybe it is life experiences, like these:

*Cordero was an elementary public school teacher in New York City for 29 years. Ninety-eight percent of the children and parents were there for the education. Two percent you had to look out for. There were threats and intimidation tactics, including the kind that got physical. One of the rotten kids brought a pipe to school and broke a teacher’s leg.

One afternoon at the close of school, the parent of an unruly student Joe disciplined, confronted Cordero in front of the school. When the parent was done with a stream of expletives, Cordero said, “Whatever” and turned to walk away. The parent punched Cordero in the back of the head and expected him to cower and run from more blows.

Joe, a student of martial arts, tossed the parent into the street.. Cordero faced no inquest, no demands for his firing, only gratefulness from other parents similarly bullied. He did what he had to do against intimidation, which was defend himself.
 
And this…

*Joe was stationed in Germany in the Air Force when he went through the windshield of the Volkswagen bus he was driving. Cordero was pinned beneath the 2,200-pound vehicle. He was on the side of the road—in a bed of manure, no less—lucky to be alive.

The vehicle was lifted off him. After a week of not walking and having to use a bedpan, and his body covered in grapefruit-sized bruises, he began to rehabilitate himself. That was in March. In July, on a fresh track of cinders, Joe won a three-mile race at The Air Force Championships. While other runners had trouble with their footing on the new cinders, Cordero ran on his toes and was stable. He did what he had to do.

This is what Cordero does with a challenge. This is what he has always done, whether with the assaulting parent or gruesome accident…or age. 

It is gratifying to me to witness so many Geezer Jocks, like Joe, coping with age-related issues in a steadfast manner.

**

Cordero’s tonic against the dolefulness that can sour an aging athlete is more than the challenge. It is the feeling of unshakeable…

…fun.

“The emphasis is on fun,” Joe said. “I'm not running to set records. I'm just running to stay in shape. I just expect to do the best I can with what I got.”

Last July, in the oppressive heat at the USATF Masters Outdoors Championships in Huntsville, Alabama, Cordero signed up for the 2000-meter steeplechase, the 400-meter run, the 800, and the 1500. He didn’t drop out of one of those events, even the 400, which was soon after the steeplechase race on a sweltering afternoon. 

Joe received a silver in the steeplechase (there was only one other runner M85-89), and bronze in the 400.

“When people are in their 80s, a lot of things happen that disqualifies them, one way or the other,” Cordero said. “I just show up and hope for the best and have fun.”

Here is the thing about Joe. He would not describe himself as an alpha male, the leader of the pack. Those men seldom have heroes. Cordero has heroes. One of them is Jerry LeVasseur, 88, also a member of the New England 65 Plus Runners Club. Jerry and Joe were part of their first world-record relay team in 2008. They have been part of six world-record relay teams in 4x800 and two world record relays in 4x1600.

The 2024 indoors 4x800 relay in Chicago (M85-89) still stands as a world record. It featured LaVasseur, Cordero, Bill Masterson, and Ram Satyaprasad. https://world-masters-athletics.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Indoor-Men-2026.pdf.

Jerry and Joe are part of a 4x800 world record outdoors in Sacramento in 2024 that still stands

“Jerry is my inspiration,” Cordero said. 

LeVasseur is always the lead runner in any relay because he cannot reach back and grab a baton. Jerry suffered severe injuries to his fingers in The Great Hartford Circus Fire of 1944. His mother died in the fire shielding him. Geezer Jock wrote about Jerry four years ago.

“Jerry doesn’t quit,” Joe said. “Why should I.”

Cordero is still able-bodied and says flatly, “I have no excuse not to run.”

And so with this hard-wiring, Joe runs.