Turning what age hits you the hardest?

I was looking through old training logs and I couldn't believe that some races were 10,15+ years ago.

I am 46, I noticed it right around when I was about to turn 45, as a runner anyway. Dealing with wayyyy more nagging type of injuries/niggles than I have ever had in the past, mainly in my feet and hips. Make running hard to do and far less enjoyable to do.

50, seriously 50 is like hitting a freakin wall. For someone that is not overweight, very healthy, my joints aches no matter what workout I try or do, injuries are constant, I have no power to jump, there's no power when I stride. Every morning is either a new ache to add to the list, or an old one amplified.

I like working out. I LOVE running, but honestly when every step and every run is just nothing but pain, you just lose the desire. I cant remember the last time I went for a run and just enjoyed being out there for an hour.

I was close to saying 50. Physically, yes for me. Mentally it's 60.

But, I broke 5:00 for the mile at 48.

I thought- I'll be decent when I'm over 50 if I break 5:00 and I can really focus my training and go under 4:50.

By 51/52 I couldn't even handle the training for it.

Are you using TRT, DHEA or anything like that?

That's not good. 😯 If you're that bad at 50 what are you going to look like at 60? Cane? Walker? Lol

current age, 65 male.....responding as a trail runner (occasionally track meets/road races) who enjoyed running 75/85 miles (17 hrs a wk....with a 4 or 5 hr long run) a week in the mountains. This all changed around 62/63, I now labor to do more than 35/40 miles a week. So, I make adjustments, I started going to the track and doing more intervals and speed workouts, I was surprised in my times compared to my late 40s and early 50s, they were nearly the same (example: 8 x 200 around 39/40...and can run a 34 controlled, not all out). At 65, I do CrossFit type stuff in the gym, sleep and rest a lot more, and only do a long run about every three weeks (10 plus miles). My diet changed from a high carb diet to low carb diet, I still eat all types of food, but I definitely try and make healthier choices. The key at the moment, is recovery, sleep, diet, and controlled workouts (never coming close to all out strides or sprints, especially the track stuff...long warm up and never going all out....control, control, etc...)....one more example outwork (proud and surprised and want to share )...about 4 months in Arizonia, I did 4 x 800s....full recovery....at 2:58 pace!.....around 5500ft)....I have really been surprised by the transition to the shorter stuff, I though 3 and 4 hours races was my sweet spot....guess not.....exciting for next summer to be trying some track and road races..... ALL GOOD

Fuuccckkk

It's over for me, especially when it comes to the last two points

Sixty hit the hardest

After 35 there were no more quick and easy snap backs to fitness.

At around fifty, recovery took way longer and gains came more slowly.

At sixty, it felt like I was aging three years for every 12 months that passed.

Progress is now not going backwards.

At 84, my experience has reversed the expected decline with age. As a kid I was too dumb and distracted, ambitious and obsessive with my work to run successfully. I was writing books and running around 17 minutes in the 5K (27:30 for 5 miles) and under an hour in the tenmile and almost exactly 3 hours in a hilly central park marathon and 75 minutes for second in a flat half marathon, and felt inept as a runner because I couldn't win anything. I turned to trail races where I usually won for my age groups, though I nearly bled to death when I cut my temporal artery on a crag (nurses in the race saved me). Now in my eighties, I win almost every race as my rivals have retired; I almost never lose to people older than me except Roger Robinson, the running writer-star from the UK, and have been first or second in several national championships over 80 including a national hill race "win" at age 75 and a 12K win at age 83. It's all mediocre times (around 9 minutes a mile at best) but I enjoy the Empire One Running Club and I'll take the wins. I'm now a few days before age 85 and...Excelsior!...am aiming for worlds!

Two was the hardest. In one year my age doubled.

Yup after 55 my power and ability to do long tempo runs drastically went down. Recovery needed more that one day. No more hard easy Tempo alternating days.. more like hard easy easy Tempo easy easy etc

Thanks for the thread! Its been quite amusing. Probably says a lot about how old LRC demo is! 20? 30! Yall got to be kidding. Try 50. Subjectively: You are 50! That is getting to the age of many of your teachers, who you thought were old, or the age of your parents a ways back when you thought they were old. You are a stone's throw suddenly from being able to draw retirement at 59 1/2. Objectively: running, lifting..it all get's harder and most notably recovery is different. The 1 day turns into 2 and 3 to recover. Lots of tweaks and minor injuries from nothing. It's the fist age where I felt old. Sleep different, pee different, look different etc.... It really dawns on you, mortality and all.

Sucks. But its always relative. My patients laugh out loud when I say im getting old. If you are 70 or 80, 50 is a kid. To me 20 or 30 is the height of your physical powers, maybe starting a career, family.... Enjoy it.

You are wrong. Aging hits women a lot harder and faster. Woman age like milk while men age like wine.

If you are a 40 year old man and keep fit you will look great.

If you are a 40 year old woman and keep fit you will look decent, but no where near what you looked like at 25.

It's called hitting the wall and woman hit it hard around 30.

You will never meet a 40 year old woman who looks better than her 25 year old self (excluding scenarios like losing 150 pounds, etc).

Same. But more at 55. Things fly under the radar. My kids were doing plyo and as i approached the box i suddenly realized a hesitancy to jump. I had to focus a bit. That kind of stuff starts to fall of if you don't pay attention. I have fallen 3x on the bike in 5 years compared to 3x in 20 before. Also hurts more.. You lose a ton of "bounce". Playing hockey with my kid is horror. Hitting the ice feels like you fell from 10 feet! falling on the bike at low seed hurts way more

For many of us who ran a lot of miles throughout adulthood, at age 50 running falls off a figurative cliff. By age 55 it becomes about trying to hold onto what's still there. Age 60 brings a sense of 'pounding' and loss of muscular resilience with every stride.

I've known a few runners who didn't start until fifties and they made great improvements. They tend to be the folks doing well in age group races. Those of us with lots of miles on the carriage are way in the back of the pack trying to maintain motivation to keep it up at all.

I assume that by age 65 or so, it'll be more walking than running. Marathoning, over. Even a half seems unappealing at this point.

Aging is absolutely awful and anyone who sugarcoats it or blows smoke about it being less than awful is full of sh*t.

Yes, I'm aware RFK Jr is on T. There's a knee-jerk negative reaction to the mention of TRT on Letsrun, but for males who are recreational athletes and have low or even below mid-range T, most would benefit from TRT.

To answer your question, the reason so many older men are on T is that it works... and it's EASY. They don't have to make massive lifestyle changes like I have had to do. And there's no stigma. At my gym, no one cares if the big guys are on T.

At 77, I would consider T if it wasn't banned. Since it is banned, I've had to look at other ways to make small incremental improvements in various markers of aging. And those steps... cumulatively... have made a difference for me. My most recent T level was, IIRC, 720.

OTOH, the things that I do to slow aging require a lot more lifestyle changes than just following a workout plan. Heck, I even approach sleep with the same attention to detail that I do to a work out. My sleep protocol alone is probably more than a dozen steps every night.

It's just way easier for recreational athletes to take testosterone and work out without having to address diet, weight management, alcohol consumption, caffeine consumption, cortisol reduction, arterial velocity pulse, inflammation management, immune system boosting, mitochondrial function, pre- and post-workout fueling, and to approach sleep with the same discipline that it takes to do a hard interval workout. They just take T.

Now, for people under 65 and definitely for people under 50, it's different. Their bodies still have the ability to produce more T. They just need to research it as I have and make anti-aging a top priority in their lives. OTOH, if they're competing, they should follow the WADA rules.

Turning 30 was the best thing that ever happened to me. Pushed me to get my life together. Aging isn’t a bad thing. With age comes wisdom and perspective. And no I don’t think of myself as wise, just wiser than when I was 25

Nobody beats age and it's cringe inducing to see obviously old men try to pull the wool over their own eyes with PEDs and weight lifting.

Everyone can see right through you and knows that your chances of aggressive cancers increase massively when on PEDs in old age. It's also extremely off-putting to be around the 60 year old 'jacked' gym rat. Slimy.

No different than those who turn themselves into robot-looking creatures with plastic surgery on their faces.

Aging is awful, but at least face it with integrity and honesty.