Age grading

Not exactly arbitrary. The Age Grades are set by comparing the world's best time for a runner of that age & distance vs. the overall world record for that distance.

54 year old wrote:

trust this master wrote:

Age grading only matters when you are old and slightly delusional.

That sounds about right :-)

Following that delusion has gotten me a few national masters medals (and a few open wins on the roads) and a lot of new running friends. Delusion can be fun!

Age grading is a wonderful tool for the young and young at heart!

I would say 84 percent at 14 probably is a pretty good predictor of 84 percent at 18 say 4:30 mile. Pretty darn good!

However one big factor is how long you have been running and how hard you have been training.

Pre did not break 5 in the mile his freshmen year;)

trust this master wrote:

Hoping to get faster wrote:

Checked out whag age grading meant , I think my 1600 meter time can go down to 4:45-4:50 ish as a freshman and my age grading would be about an 84 which would mean I am in the national class, upon looking at previous years rankings in the state for freshman I would be around #25 in the state for freshman , which wouldn’t really put me in a national competition level, ik age grading isn’t perfect but I mean I’m not even close to “national level” as they are kids my age running sub 4:30’s can someone help me undertsrand ?

Age grading only matters when you are old and slightly delusional.

I kind of agree with you- Now that I'm old I use it as a guide- I'll be 60 in March but my mindset hasn't changed and my body isn't responding like it used to.

So, I key in 19:30- what's that equal to if I was 25?

I don't like race awards being based on it- the clock is the clock and what is Martin Fiz doing the tables?

It's just good to know that at my age I can feel half way decent about running a "slow" time.

ole git wrote:

54 year old wrote:

That sounds about right :-)

Following that delusion has gotten me a few national masters medals (and a few open wins on the roads) and a lot of new running friends. Delusion can be fun!

you missed the tongue in cheek.

RunningOtaku wrote:

Not exactly arbitrary. The Age Grades are set by comparing the world's best time for a runner of that age & distance vs. the overall world record for that distance.

You are correct, mathematically the percentages are directly linked to world records. However my use of the word arbitrary was in using percentages to define National Class, Regional Class etc. As Allen1959 pointed out in his post fewer than 10 American marathoners aged 60 or over ran sub 3 hours last year so for that group 80% is definitely National Class.

The equivalent time for a 30 year old would be something like 2:33. The IAAF page lists 250 Americans who ran under 2:33 in 2018. I didn't bother going through working out their age at the time of their race but it is reasonable to assume that about half will have been over 30. So we could assume that roughly 125 men aged 30 or over ran better than 80% at the 30 year old grade.

Obviously this is just a quick analysis as a detailed analysis using peoples exact age etc would take days. But the numbers indicate that for every 1 runner in the 60+ cohort who is above 80% there are at least 10 in the 30+ cohort who are above 80%.

So 80% is a good performance whatever your age, but the number of people who can achieve that level is not constant with age. The older you get the fewer people there are who can achieve it until, as Allen1959 has found out, the number of your direct competitors shrinks to single figures.

Age grading is a great tool for keeping older runners motivated and to allow them to see if they are staying fit relative to their former selves. But that's about the universe of meaningful uses for that tool.

Too many masters runners use it to claim that their performances are "better" than that of open athletes who ran fast times. I take some pride in my age graded performances, but none of them leapfrog me ahead of actual faster times. The real measure of success is looking into the eyes of the guys you raced against, win or lose, and them giving you a nod of respect or a handshake because you have them a good run despite being 15-20 years older than them. But never forget - they beat you. Too many masters runners do forget that.

Age grading for younger runners is just plain goofy.

Age grading is where a lot of the money is at for USATF runners. Now a masters runner like Lagat or Abdi can still make a living at it. But they are quite rare.

At championship races, they give prize money overall top 3 (so always all in the 40-45 or 46 age range), and then just $100 for each age group, and that's age group winner take all. But they'll go 5 deep with age grading, which makes it pretty interesting.

As far as numbers go I did a quick look at age grade calculator for open and masters 10 year categories at the 5K.

Here is a breakdown for the 90% age grade standard.

Open (20-34) - 14:24 (100s of college age runners do this every year; it's a good standard but not outstanding); and by letsrun standards it's probably below average--because of course everyone here has a $500,000 income, a $2 million home and 7 cars, and had perfect board scores all the way through college and grad school).

40 - 15:15, probably into the dozens can do this or equivalent

50 - 16:23, that's getting to rare air, and only 10-15 or so might reach this

60 - 17:44, just a handful or two going under

70 - 19:18, getting into Whitlock and Gene Dykes territory and maybe just a couple a year might do this

Thanks that makes a lot more sense