New study shows how much slower marathoners get as they age

"If you keep training hard, you should be able to hold pretty close to or even at your lifetime bests at most distances until you're almost fifty.

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Wrong. Almost anyone who has tried it (myself included) find that even if you keep the same training levels, it's downhill from about 35 onwards. Often runners who claim the same times at 50, weren't trying as hard at 30.

It's interesting, but here's the problem: it's what's called a "cross-sectional" study, whereas the gold standard for age-related studies is what's called a "longitudinal study."

In other words, this study assumes that it's reasonable to take (say) the 70-74 year old runners as representing what the 30-34 runners would be able to do 40 years later (or that the 70-74 runners represent what they would have been able to do 40 years earlier). That's the nature of a cross-sectional study; everybody knows this. Nothing's being hidden.

Why does this matter? History. A study like this assumes (is forced to assume, by its design) that every age group went through the same time periods (in the world), same general set of conditions, same general set of ideas about how to train, same general exposure to racing, disease, diet, equipment, and so on. Further, a study like this can't know how many of the older runners ever ran as young people, nor can it know how long any of them have been running.

If a cross-sectional study is the only possible one, then you do it. Otherwise, if you really want to nail down change, you've got to pick a cohort of runners and follow them for many years, which is obviously very difficult.

You can get lucky with a cross-sectional study, meaning that if somebody does a longitudinal study of the same phenomenon, the results will be the same. And you can get unlucky, too. In both cases you won't know for many years.

Back in the 60s, I worked on a study of aging that was meant to run for 50 years, or until the last person in the original sample died, or the funding ran out.

I'll be damned: it's still running. Good for them.

http://www.research.va.gov/pubs/varqu/summer2015/summer15-5.cfm

Studying change over time is hard.

Billy Fap wrote:

Wiki:

"Derek Turnbull (born 5 December 1926 in Waikaka, New Zealand - 2 November 2006) was a New Zealand runner. A farmer, he took up the sport of long distance running in his early 40's.

As a pioneer in masters athletics he achieved worldwide acclaim by setting numerous Masters Athletics World Records. Several of those records, set in the 1990s,[1] remain the current world record in those age divisions.

Three of Derek Turnbull's notable marathons include the New York Marathon in 1990 placing 1st for his age group 60-69 in a time of 2:41.21. Derek also placed first for the London Marathon, 2:41.57 in 1992 in the 65-69 age category. However his fastest marathon time in the 60+ age group was at the Alaska marathon in 2:38.46 in 1987."

Hi, how's flagstaff?

Turnbull was impressive, probably linked to Lydiard in some way, HRE where are you?

Jack Foster was impressive too.

I've noticed a decline in speed over 200m reps compared to the younger me (aged 23-24). 2-3s despite being alot lighter and more efficient. The difference between 33 and 34 or 34 and 35 is substantially noticeable. That is the point of indifference. To quote the Brits, "it's all tits down from here."

ROLAND RÖGER 52 year old,

400 Mt 51"02 WR

https://youtu.be/UM1wvU_jjGw?t=11s

Although, here in New England, the most consistent top finishers in local road race, are in the 45-55 age range. But that, I mean, at the end of a race, the top 3 in the 45-49 and 50-54 and 55-59 age groups typically have a combined faster top 3 than the 20-24, 25-29, 30-34 and 35-39

At what rate did they decline? nowhere near 2.5%/year. Take Lagat. He ran 13:06 at 41. He ran 12:53 after Ritz ran his 12:56, so probably around 2011. That would put Lagat at around 35-36. 13s/about 773 seconds=1.7% total in 5 years or about 0.3% slower per year. Geb ran about four minutes slower between age 35 (2:03:59 at that age?) and 40, 3.2% slower over five years, or just about 0.6% slower per year. And many get better during this period if they started out late, so the improvement due to the accretion of, say, ten years of training outweighs any loss of physical capacity. Meb ran faster during that period, before slowing after 40.

It is mostly about the training and the health.