What age did you stop PRing?

Wow, thanks for that.

I am 61 and I thought my 12 minute miles were bad.

I think the main things that kept me going were:

1. I was very goal driven for those couple years out of college, since I wanted to qualify for the olympic trials. Easy to get out the door when you have a clear goal, and also when you are already very good at what you do. It's just momentum.

2. I really just love running as an activity, even if I'm not competing or striving towards a goal. So that motivated me to keep running a lot through 2020-21, even when there were no races.

3. I generally stayed in shape the whole time. There was only one 3 month period after I "retired" from very competitive racing where I didn't run/exercise for a few months because I was injured, and I ended up putting on almost 20 pounds. The extra weight was putting more stress on my out of shape body as I tried to get back into shape, which made the whole process an uphill battle. I eventually got it together but it was a slow process and I can imagine that if you don't love running for the sake of running like I do, it could be hard to stay motivated to get back into shape once you're out of it.

Started running for recreation in college. Lifetime running PBs basically at every distance at age 30, which is when I made the transition to triathlon. Basically haven't ran an open running race since then. Been continuing to get better at triathlon. 33 now. I will say that this summer/fall I've noticed threshold pace off of my half PB feeling a bit harder than normal. I've also been training for ironmans, running more like 4-5 times/week & 30-40 miles/week. A lot of my workouts are at open marathon pace. Idk how much of it is perception/not training the way I would if I were only running.

I was a junior high XC runner but was a band kid in high school. I did not get back into racing until I was 33 and pretty much started from scratch. Most of my PRs were from when I was 40-43. The thing about running your best times after 7 years of training is pretty accurate.

When I hit 45, I started losing time. I did not do a good job of adjusting my training and ended up with patellar tendinitis in both knees. I quit racing when I was about 47-48. I still try to run 20-30 mpw. But every time I get to the point where I might be able to jump into a 5k, I get hurt. And not from training. I sprained my knee falling off my son's skateboard just before I hit 50. That took a good 6 months to resolve. Then I broke my ankle a few years ago. It was almost a year before that healed.

Got serious about running at about 19-20, was early 30s for open PBs, age grade PBs early 60s (92%).

try a new sport, ffs. posts like this are depressing.....

Started at 13 but did not train seriously until 18. All my PR's were set age 22-24. After that about 5 years of hopium, but turned out to be a plateau. After I realized I had peaked (or, actually, I was not prepared to train like a maniac) I cut back training, and performance dropped. I cannot say how long the plateau may have lasted, but I reckon I would not have improved any more at my typical 50-60mpw. In my own mind, if I upped it to 100mpw I would have shaved a bit off my time, but it would not have mattered at my level (2:26 mara) so I gave up chasing the dream. Still run a bit at 68yo.

The only PR I set after college was the marathon and that was very late in life, and I didn't even try a marathon until 38. So that one is very skewed.

At 57 looking at my PRs are like looking at something someone did, it's just so so long ago that it doesn't really matter. I am very hesitant to talk about PRs even when people as because it's just so distant.

Ran two years in high school but injured my knee before senior year. 3-mile and 10K PRs are from ages 16 & 15, respectively (don't think I ran a 10K after turning 16 until I was 51 and slower), and I peaked at 16. Ran occasionally between injuries for 35 years before retiring at 51 and starting to train more seriously. My 5K times have been in the 19s between 53 and 62, so I'm not declining much, but I'm sure the times would've declined more if my racing shoes hadn't improved greatly. I think my post-high school ability peak was probably around 59, but this past May almost everything went right for the first time in years and I set a half marathon PR at 62 (the 10th half I finished, with the first being at 52).

Improved until I was 30. Never PRd at a "standard" distance after that, but did get some bests at odd distances like 20 miles into my mid 30s.

Yeah, very well put. My last PR was set just before I turned 20, after seven years of increasingly serious training. Couldn’t stop getting injured after that, was burned out, and no longer motivated. Each time I tried to recover I got not as close to real fitness as the last time before getting injured again.

Age 24

Stopped competitive running at age 26. Took two years of running off. Started running again at age 28 because I was getting chubby but only doing about 1/3 of the mileage I used to do. Only running for fitness. Glad I did it and no regrets.

Skateboarding at almost 50? What were you thinking? lol

I was a college walk on, took several years off after college, then started marathon running.

In my mid 30s I have been within 15 seconds of my mile PR, 15 seconds of my road 5k PR, and 20 seconds of my road 10k PR.

Half and marathon PRs I set last year at 34. I think I have a few more PRs still in me at the longer distances. I think five more years and several marathons around 2:30 still.

Only difference I’ve noticed is I take my recovery runs slower now and it takes me longer to warm up than it did when I was in my 20s. Top end 200/400 speed isn’t the same but everything else is close.

400 - 20

800 - 19

1500 - 25

3000 - 26

5000 - 32

10k/10000 - 33

half marathon - 35

marathon - 35

I can probably pb in the 10k-marathon but 5k or below will b tough.

I run my 800m PR in high school, did not run in college. Resumed running at 35 and set my PRs in the mile/5K/10K/Half/Marathon between 39 and 42. I tried really hard to beat my 800m PR (set at age 15), and never came close.

Track runner since early teens in English club system. My 800m, 1500m, 3000m all came at 27.

I came very close to a new 3000m steeplechase pb when I was 36 (ran a 2000m s/c pb early the same week) after I'd been running the event for 15 years, and had a knee operation. Actually, I think I set my 3000m pb after the operation, and around 31 years old.

Half-marathon and marathon pbs were both at 38, but I'd always sucked at the half-marathon, it was only the second (of two) lifetime marathons.