And at 98, Arch Jelley cuts the figure of a man half his age.
Just as the interview starts his cellphone goes — iPhone of course — and he quickly jumps up and tells them to ring back later.
Jelley was in Dunedin from his Auckland home to help launch his younger sister’s book, Mornington Memoirs.
The book was written by Effie Cockburn, the youngest of the five Jelley children brought up in Mornington between the two World Wars.
Arch, who coached John Walker to Olympic gold at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, said neither he, nor any of his siblings, had any lofty goals, such as becoming an Olympic coach, when growing up in Mornington in the 1930s.
"We were bought up in the Depression so the big ambition when we grew up was to get a steady job. It was tough times. You had to work very hard to get enough to feed your family," Arch Jelley said.
Their father Albie, who was a test cricket umpire, was a World War 1 veteran who served at Gallipoli. He worked as a tobacconist and hairdresser in Mornington, trying his best to keep his family fed and clothed.
Effie, at 87, said she was the black sheep of the family and never caught the sporting bug. She went into theatre and directed many operas in Dunedin before she retired to Cromwell more than 20 years ago. She was a dress designer to start with before becoming a speech, drama and singing teacher.
Arch started as a surveying cadet then went away to World War 2 where he ended up in submarines off the English coast.
He came back to New Zealand and got into teaching.
After tripping round the country, teaching, he arrived in Auckland in the 1960s and met Arthur Lydiard.
The duo bonded and then started some running groups which would go on to rewrite the athletics record book in New Zealand and right around the world.
Jelley kept on coaching athletes as Effie continued teaching speech and drama.
Jelley coached Hamish Carson to the Rio Olympics in 2016 but has not coached anyone for two years.
"I’m now teaching people how to play bridge. My wife Jean and I have about 30 people whom we teach bridge to. Jean is quite young really, only 88.
"When you teach bridge you get quite a kick out of seeing people improve. Then you play against them, they beat you, and it is a win-win for me. Because I’ve coached them to get better than me."
Cockburn, who paid tribute to her husband, Bob, in tallying the index and records for the book, said she also got a kick out of teaching and advising people, and it never went away.
Jelley still caught up with John Walker every couple of weeks and said he was doing well, having been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease more than 20 years ago.
As for athletics, that itch will never go away.
"We’ve got a lot of young promising athletes coming through and we are particularly strong in field events. The biggest difference in the last 10 years is most young athletes, 80%-90% of them, go to the United States. You cannot blame them as they get a good education but a lot of them simply don’t develop or go as well [as] if they had stayed here."
So what keeps Jelley and Effie, and brother Stan (94), who lives in Christchurch, alive into advanced years? Arch did not have an instant answer.
"Not sure really. Both our grandfathers died when they were 58. Don’t know. You have to keep active I suppose ... I’m still walking 4km a day."
