"old persons list their age as older than they really are in order to place in a higher age group, we had several people do this that were obvious but none of them managed to place anyway (claimed they just 'wrote it down wrong' when confronted) no way a 58 year old woman accidentally writes down 60 or a 49 year old man writes down 55"
Whitlock ran a 2:54 at I believe 74. Not sure what equivalent 5k time that is.
Looks like he was 73 when he ran the 2:54 which is just insane.
FWIW, i still havent gone under 17 and I ran 2:47. 5k to marathon is a tough comparison to make, I know people who are 15:xx who barely cracked sub 3. It's a different animal
I'm in my late 40, and I'm still running 15 mins. I first broke 16 in mid-20s and never have broken 15 (though close at one point). I don't think another 20-ish years of aging would slow me down by more than 4 mins and I'm hardly world-class. In fact, lots of women can beat me. lol. It may be world-class for a 70 years old female though.
You don't think 20 more years is going to slow you down much? Aging doesn't happen linearly; it accelerates the older you get. Going from 50 to 60 will have a much bigger effect than going from 40 to 50. Each subsequent decade will have even bigger declines. You can see this clearly in 5k participation data. It's fairly from ages 25 to 45, but after that it starts to plummet.
Have you ever noticed how few older individuals participate in 5K races? Have you noticed how many races don’t even have separate age groups for the oldest individuals? Typically these races might…
If he's 70 and running 19 flat in races, yes, that's world class. If he's 68 and running 19:59, that's really impressive but maybe not quite world class. For comparison, at last year's USATF masters 5K championships (in Atlanta, so probably a hilly course), the top three men's 70-74 times were 19:30, 19:43, and 20:19. The top five men's 65-69 times were 17:53, 18:24, 18:55, 19:54, and 20:09, though the first four were all ages 66 or 67. If his Strava times are on training runs as opposed to races, it seems likely that he could go faster in races and so is in fact world class. I suppose you don't want to give his name, but if you say what city he lives in (unless it's NYC or LA), I expect someone in the over-50 thread would know who he is, as there can't be that many old guys in the country who are that fast.
The first place guy at 19:30 turned out to be a CHEATER so you can disregard any of his times. He is currently serving a 3 year ban because he fessed up. Can you imagine a retired college professor cheating like this?
Second and third are legitimate.
There are at least 2 new 70 guys who can run 19’s, maybe even 18’s in the US. Always someone new coming into this AG.
So the age grade is skewed by cheaters. Chances are good you can add 30-60 seconds to an age grade record and you'd have the undoped version.
I'm in my late 40, and I'm still running 15 mins. I first broke 16 in mid-20s and never have broken 15 (though close at one point). I don't think another 20-ish years of aging would slow me down by more than 4 mins and I'm hardly world-class. In fact, lots of women can beat me. lol. It may be world-class for a 70 years old female though.
You don't think 20 more years is going to slow you down much? Aging doesn't happen linearly; it accelerates the older you get. Going from 50 to 60 will have a much bigger effect than going from 40 to 50. Each subsequent decade will have even bigger declines. You can see this clearly in 5k participation data. It's fairly from ages 25 to 45, but after that it starts to plummet.
Whitlock ran a 2:54 at I believe 74. Not sure what equivalent 5k time that is.
Whitlock was an extreme outlier and did many amazing things. In the 20 years since he set all those records hardly anyone has come all that close. It's kind like if Bekele showed up in 1972 and was running 12:30s while the best in the world were running 13:20s-13:30s.
Whitlock ran a 2:54 at I believe 74. Not sure what equivalent 5k time that is.
Looks like he was 73 when he ran the 2:54 which is just insane.
FWIW, i still havent gone under 17 and I ran 2:47. 5k to marathon is a tough comparison to make, I know people who are 15:xx who barely cracked sub 3. It's a different animal
Just depends what type of runner you are. I ran 15:22 5k and 2:47.30 for (a dead even paced) marathon.
What's your source for those times? A 2016 Runner's World article by Amby Burfoot cites Ken Young of the Association of Road Racing Statisticians as saying Whitlock had (at that time) the following age world records for the 5K:
Still ridiculously fast for those ages, and faster than the 19ish that OP is citing for the person he sees on Strava, but nothing like a 14:25. Also, I seriously doubt any 100-year-old has broken 3 for the full.
Whitlock ran a 2:54 at I believe 74. Not sure what equivalent 5k time that is.
Whitlock was an extreme outlier and did many amazing things. In the 20 years since he set all those records hardly anyone has come all that close. It's kind like if Bekele showed up in 1972 and was running 12:30s while the best in the world were running 13:20s-13:30s.
1972, funny one! He would have lapped gold medalist, Lasse Viren if Viren didn't kick it in on his penultimate lap to avoid such an embarrassment.
This post was edited 46 seconds after it was posted.
I see old dudes make the "accelerated decline" claim all the time, and I just don't believe the evidence is very strong. Maybe after 70; or maybe not. But the evidence before 70 is pretty weak.
Most old folks (1) aren't training very wisely; (2) have given up on intensity; and have been convinced by their peers that (1) and (2) are a young man's game.
I grant that high level performance, and high level training, is just more difficult as we age. But that's a different claim from accelerated decline.
"Master athletes maintain high physical activity levels and have better health than age-matched non-athletes. World records show accelerated declines after age 70 in swimming, long-distance running and sprint performance. However, less is known about age-related performance declines in the general master athlete population and whether decline rates differ between disciplines and genders. We interrogated a dataset including all track and field athletes of North Rhine from 2001 to 2014 to assess age-related changes in performance. 27,088 results of athletes between 11 and 89 years of age in 12 disciplines were analyzed by regression statistics. The analyses showed an accelerated decline beyond the age of 70 in sprint, middle- and long-distance running, while in throwing and jumping disciplines the performance continued a linear decline. Patterns of decline differed between men and women. The steepest declines were observed in javelin throw and 400 m (women), and in pole vault and 800 m (men). In conclusion, performance declines in aging depend more on the specific profile of requirements than previously assumed."
Master athletes maintain high physical activity levels and have better health than age-matched non-athletes. World records show accelerated declines after ag...
On strava I came across someone in my local area who is in the 68-70 age bracket (not sure of his exact age) and he is doing regular training with a 19 5k and 39 10k. I didn't do much digging as I couldn't be bothered but in his pictures he looks even older than his age.
Hardly Ed Whitlock ran 14:25 and 29:15 for 5 and 10k at age 70! I think Fujah Singh broke 3:00 for the Marathon at 100 or something.
We had a guy in our area that ran 18:00 5K, a National record. Yes it’s World class and it least National class.
18 flat in his 70s? Not to come off as some kind of know-it-all, but this didn't happen.
Rick Becker ran 63:19? at the Crim 10 miler last August as a 69 year old. That’s 6:20 pace on a very difficult course in the heat. When healthy, you don’t think he can go into the 18’s now?
As I said already on the first page of this thread, there are always new guys coming into an AG so there are probably a few others that can go 18:??
Also, did the guy who ran 18: was it 18 flat or 18:59? And , was it done on a certified course?
