When did age start slowing you down?

old and in the way wrote:

the injuries are probably not age-related, more mileage-related..

early 30s should be the best years for endurance athletics.

46 was the watershed year for me, but it wasn't simply aging - pneumonia followed by pleurisy resulted in a variety of pulmonary issues.

Generally for running it seems to be late 40s, early 50s is where the real slowdown begins.

I broke down in my 30s due to over 2 decades of high mileage, combined with lots of marathon racing and training. The last 5 years of my running was basically on again, off again injuries. Then the mother of all running injuries - osteoarthritis in my knee - did me in for good.

Do I regret all the high mileage? You bet I do.

The numbers speak -- my 10K was 35 seconds slower at 32 years than it was at 25. Ok so I trained better at 25.

I was able run a mile well under 5:00 from age 16 to age 45. Two miles well under 10:00 from 18 to 32.

I became a dad at 44 and it kicked my butt in terms of race performance.

two weeks ago :(

Personal Hobby Jogger - Wow. Enlighten us with your secrets! There's gotta be more to tour consistency than just starting late!

As for me, I definitely noticed a slow down in speed during late 30s, but have been able to maintain aerobic strength with more mileage.

I'm running pretty strong at age 45, but am well aware that my PRs from 10k on down are in the past. Workouts kick my butt for a few days and I'm sore more often than not.

To reinforce some of themes I'm seeing here, I have been a lifelong runner, but never a high mileage runner. I'm probably running more miles now than any time in my life since college, and thats 50-60 tops.

I did zero marathons in my 20s and a few in my 30s that I didn't seriously train for. In my 40s my enthusiasm has been rejuvenated by trail runs and ultras where there are new frontiers and PRs to be had.

For most people I wonder how much of the slow down is due to age and how much is due to lower motivation, less hard training and for many of us, weight gain.

At 40 I'm much slower than I used to be but also run much less, never do intervals and weigh more than 20% more than I did in high school - I tend to think these factors are much more important than my age at 40 - particularly for longer distances.

Many posts here are off base. OP asked when AGE slows you down. The only way to know that is if all else stays the same (training/life etc) and the only variable is performance. El Camino correctly states his 'plateau' when training stays the same but dropoff is noted. Hobby Jogger lists his marathon time at 43 as being the same as at, what? 64? Something else is at work!

As someone pointed out, its pretty much common knowledge that anyone stating young starts to slow in early 30's. The interesting cases are those that start running at 30/40/50 or whatever. these are often impossible to assess for age degradation because training is ramped up significantly when the body is anyway past its best.

Martin Rees, a welsh masters runner, just ran a 71 for the half marathon. A WR for over 60s. Ye, thats right, I said over 60s!

http://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/profile.aspx?athleteid=1359

I guess people slow down at different rates but a lot of really good masters runners either seem to have taken brakes from running or not run at all in their younger years.

Typically is starts in the laet to mid 30's for competitive runners. The reason(s) are simple. It takes longer to recover and most competitive runners do not realize this right away, so they still go out for 12x hill repeats, when they should change it to 8 or 10 after age 35 or 40.

I'm 53 and was able to break 16 min in the 5k until 41. Then, I was able to break 16:30 until 47 or 48. Anyway, it's been like that. When I was 52, I tried to break 17 in a flat 5k. My time was 16:57, the official time was 17:01. Oh well.

It is just something you deal with.

The real shocker?

When I was running 15:10-:30, I wasn't even getting any trophies for my age group 30-39.

now, at 53, and much slower, I would trophy for almost every age group under me at over 50% of the races I run.

It's become pathetic. Fatter, slower and bigger whiners.

My training was better in 2012 than in 2011, but it was the first year in which I did not set any PR's. I turned 41 in 2012. My best marathon was 2:54, which obviously is slow for this site.

I did not race until my early 30's. My times improved as I added more miles, so I think I offset aging by training harder. Realistically, I think it is normal to see a decline by age 35 for the marathon, earlier for shorter distances.

This is all depressing....I am not going to read anymore.

You want depressing...the other day I realized that my tempo pace now was my warm-up pace in my 20's. I'm 55.

Started running seriously at 40 and improved dramatically up until age 45. Became inconsistent then, but could still pull off a good race now and then. I even had a couple of PB's at age 48. Now at 51, I can see that the years over 50 are cruel. I hope to decline at a slower rate than the Age Grade predicts so I can at least shoot for Age Grade PB's.

I definitely quit marathons. Those beat me up and wear me out. I am now focused on strength building to change things up. Trying to work on my legs to help my knees out. I am just going to focus on 5K to 10K with maybe a 15K to Half in the Fall. 1 speed workout mid-week and a 10-13 mi LR on weekends with recovery runs and spinning in between is all I can do now without getting injured and worn-out. I will swap in more bike rides as the weather improves.

Now, if I could retire early and knock off the 60 hr work weeks with 3hr+ commute, I could maybe do better.

Started running seriously at 40 and improved dramatically up until age 45. Became inconsistent then, but could still pull off a good race now and then. I even had a couple of PB's at age 48. Now at 51, I can see that the years over 50 are cruel. I hope to decline at a slower rate than the Age Grade predicts so I can at least shoot for Age Grade PB's.

I definitely quit marathons. Those beat me up and wear me out. I am now focused on strength building to change things up. Trying to work on my legs to help my knees out. I am just going to focus on 5K to 10K with maybe a 15K to Half in the Fall. 1 speed workout mid-week and a 10-13 mi LR on weekends with recovery runs and spinning in between is all I can do now without getting injured and worn-out. I will swap in more bike rides as the weather improves.

Now, if I could retire early and knock off the 60 hr work weeks with 3hr+ commute, I could maybe do better.

tigerox wrote:

1 speed workout mid-week and a 10-13 mi LR on weekends with recovery runs and spinning in between is all I can do now without getting injured and worn-out.

All??? Sounds like quite a reasonable plan for over 50. I do a week like that and the next week I add a 20-minute tempo the day before a longer slower LR.

I am one of the late starters, turning 52 soon. My PRs are mediocre, I will probably improve slightly over the next 5 years and then fall off a cliff.

For those who want to separate the effects of "aging" from the effects of motivation, weight gain, etc. -- How is that possible? The way I see it, the hormone declines from aging affect everything from mood, musculature, metabolism, you name it.

Years ago when asked “what should I do” by someone who thought he wanted to run a marathon the champion of the LA marathon answered, “run lots”.

To me that sounded like a good answer and it was exactly how I went about it.

Early on I gave up on training hard. I basically ran lots and raced lots. I logged 100,000 miles most of it at an 8 to 9 minute mile pace and raced in over 1000 events in that 30-year period. I raced from 800m and up. Seventy of the races were marathons or ultra marathons but most were 5K and 10K events. I was in the low 16’s for 5K at age 52 and then 18.50 as 70 year-old and hitting 20.03 at 72 years old. I was under 34 minutes for 10K at age 54 and still under 40 minutes at age 71.

With most of my running being slow I was seldom injured.

This wouldn’t work for a young athlete but it worked fine for me, it was healthy, and it was sure a good deal of fun along the way. I take that back.

After age 45, running anything full out in the marathon and beyond range is not considered healthy by most cardiologists these days.

For me 35 was the magic number. I started having trouble breaking 17 in the 5k after doing it dozens of times since I was 19 (15:43 pr). I ran a 16:49 when I was 37 and then never broke 17 again. Now I'm 46 and haven't broken 18 in 5 yrs. I still run 5-10 miles a day and race as hard as ever,and haven't gained any weight, but a 6 min pace nowdays feels like 5 min used to. But I am thankful I can still at least run, after 34 years of running and about 325 races.

I slowed down in my 40's but the most significant slow down occurred at about 53. I turn 60 this year and in order to continue running, I can only run three days a week (one speed, one threshold, and a long? run of only 7-miles). I have been running off and on since 1968.

I've seen two phases of slowdowns. From 16 to 20 pr’s were 15:42 in the 5k and 32:12 10k. Injury ended my college running at 20 but I kept at it with reduced training. 5k slipped to 16:26 by 25. At 26 more injuries, more reduction of training. But a big slowdown occurred about 35. 5k then down to 19:30. This was due to family, work, focus, but mostly continuous injuries. Took 10 full years off for 4 kids, marriage, and career. Picked it back up at 46 and steadily improved from 21:07 to 19 flat in the 5k until exactly age 51. I was able to train more, train harder at 51 than 49 but I slowed even with no injuries. Now 54, I've been slipping since 51, and of course, more injuries. There’s a reason we have a 50+ forum. Something substantively different happens to your body at or around 50 that is uniquely unpleasant. So to answer the OP's question: around 35 for serious running, and 51 for staying healthy and competitive.

"When did age start slowing you down?"

When my first child turned one day old.