Ex-runners who run really bad after a certain age ?

A friend of mine who used to run was pretty good. He ran 28:xx on the track in college and ran a 2:10:55 at Boston one year back in the 80's. If you looked at him now, you would never guess that he used to run let alone run that fast. When he stopped competing he stopped running totally and probably hasn't run a step in the last 25 years.

Another teammate of mine ran a 4:01 mile. Probably pushing about 220lbs on his 5'9" frame now. Never would suspect him of being a runner at one time either.

I know this girl who ran 2:20-high when she was 26 and was the 2nd fastest women all-time for her country at the time. Then 2 years later she can't even run that pace for a half-marathon and she ended her career with a 2:33 when she's 29. Maybe it has less to do with aging and more that her coach got banned for life for doping his runners though.

The body keeps a tally but genetics play a huge role. Bone injuries age ya

I'm guessing Chris Bunyan, the 28:40/2:10:55 runner, originally from Great Britain who ran at Southern Illinois, in the 80's. I think he stayed in the US and became a citizen. He was tiny, about 5.4 in height. I knew him in the UK before he went to the US and he worked as a baker and ran four times a day to and from work. He competed for Southampton and Eastleigh.

Saluki Hall of Fame - Southern Illinois University Athletics

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Saluki Hall of Fame - Southern Illinois University Athletics

The official Saluki Hall of Fame for the Southern Illinois University Salukis

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Scroll down to B.....Bunyan, Hall of Fame at SIU, Carbondale, Chris Bunyan. Most of the Hall of Fame people are football players.

Yeah, I have seen this often. I would guess 99% of the time, this comes down to injuries. I have been on both sides of this—fast in high school, slow in college (missed all of it due to an injury), and fast again as a Masters runner (finally put together multiple years of consistent running). And now slow again in my late 40s. My 5k swung from just under 20 minutes to low 16 in my early 40s. I am probably at about 24 minutes right now but have found that even a month of running is sufficient to get to 20 minutes. Just having a hard time staying consistently healthy.

Life happens and priorities change. Work, kids, parents, other interests.

Also, getting back in shape hurts and sucks.

Female 62. Won a couple marathons and qualified for OTM back in the day. In my 40s I had an operation that went awry so I spent many hours anesthetized and had my guts out of my body. It was as if they took all my running ability out of my body. I now "run" much much more slowly that the identical folks that I had always run much much faster than. I look fine, thin & some muscle, I just operate differently in some invisible way.

All that is to say, that weird things can happen to the human body besides speed of aging or running out of "miles in the legs."

Expats

No one talks about the 44-45 fall off. People get their undies in a bind about turning 40 but the decline hits around 45. T supplementation has done wonders for the 50+ crowd, but those returns diminish quickly.

LOL. Sounds like my story. Got back into it in my 40s, got under 1hr for 10 miles at 45, then had some physical setbacks, surgeries, etc.. I'm 60 now, trying to get back into shape. I had a good 9 months of building up endurance and strength, then adductor strain came on which kept me out for about 8 weeks. I have built up in the past couple of weeks to 20 minutes. The form is feeling good, cruising along at 7:00 min/mi pace, or so it felt. Turns out I was going 10 min/mi pace. I really have to just laugh and accept it for what it is. I guess I'll have to learn to settle for feeling like I'm moving a lot faster than I actually am.

It's wild how running training paces at ~9:45-10:15 can feel subjectively exactly like running 7:00-8:00 did just a few years ago. I've got decades and many, many miles on this body and it feels like I just have veery little 'pop' anymore, although I can diesel on for hours at a time still.

Many races these days attach several photos and/or finish line video and I've noticed that my stride looks like a choppy little thing compared to my prime. It's comical looking and I'm just lucky that my ego and pride have diminished at the same rate as my running ability.

I also have zero doubt that many of the bounding, fast masters are on juice. I'm happy to be slowing and aging naturally. Nobody gets out of this thing alive.

That would be correct. He married his g/f, who he met at Murray State prior to transferring to SIU, and later became a US citizen. They have four adult children now. He is retired from SIU where he worked for many years.

It's funny, because I feel like I've got some pop in my stride, but my stride is like 3ft long now instead of the 5ft that it used to be at the same "feel".

Ran on some Wiltshire x-country teams with him. Was also a very good steeplechaser considering his height (or lack thereof).

I guess he didn't get Paul Bunyan's genes.

This.

Competred in HS and college, laid low a few years, then came back to competing in my late 20s and kept it up into my 40s.

Then, starting at age 43, it's been an almost nonstop series of injuries. As a result, between weeks-long layoffs, any running I do now is (1) not far and (2) far from fast.

Father Time is undefeated.

You're talking about Ted Poulos. He's just as skinny as he was back in the day. He just doesn't train at the level from his younger days. Great guy to talk to about running.

How many more hard miles do you think the 2:20s guy put on his body than the guy who never broke 3:00?

I think it was in Frank Shorter's book, My Marathon, where Shorter (c. 2015ish) explains that even though people expected him and Bill Rodgers to be out breaking masters records, it just wasn't possible given how hard they worked in their primes and what that workload did to their bodies in the long term. The bumps, bruises, aches, and pains all add up. Shorter describes himself and Rodgers as guys that moved as if they were 25 years older than they were- and we're talking about two of the all-time best American pros. The same thing happens to any competitive runner who trains seriously. Father time is undefeated!