What happens to use biologically that slows us down as we age?

Instead of trying to be the best possible 25-yr old when you're 50, try being the best possible 50-yr old while you're 50. We have age group awards for a reason.

Going beyond the scope of the original post, to talk about non-biological reasons, I think many runners just get tired of the grind and the mental taxation involved in getting in to racing shape season after season after season. And on top of that, there's the mental taxation of racing itself: the internal and external pressure of performing, the willpower of pushing through pain, etc. At age 34, I don't feel like my pain tolerance, per se, is worse than when I was 18, but I've acquired more of an avoidance of discomfort in every area of life. I used to look forward to the mix of pain and adrenaline that was to come in a race the following weekend. Nowadays I find it hard to get psyched out in a positive way on a starting line. I don't know how else to describe this mental transition, but I imagine it's what a lot of pros feel leading up to their retirement.

Yeah...right, without being injured & beat up most of the time. Lol.

I implore you to go look at the "50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum" on this site.

Read some of their posts on how beat up these guys are: All kinds of significant injuries - some requiring surgeries - resulting in a lot of rehab & downtime. A few can barely run anymore & have taken up power walking & cycling! There's also several runners that have battled cancer & other serious ailments like heart disease (one guy was even reporting his recovery status from open heart surgery!)

It's sometimes hard to read their posts with the amount of debilitating injuries & health issues they have. I would have never expected this from elite masters runners.

Now this is supposed to be the elite master runners, right? So, what the heck is going on here? I'd say many are not aging very healthy. Lol.

Worked yes. Escaped no. But best to work what can be worked. Eat well. I think marathons had the greatest impact on me. Wish half marathons had been more central back when, more abundant. Not so then, no 13.1 stickers. The last 10k of the marathon can be golden. Or brutal on the body. Or in between of course. 13.1 so much easier to recover from (obviously).

Alive, well & still excercising at age 93. He says he once was a world-champion masters miler.

Hirooooooooo

That type of punishment, injury and downtime is why I gladly accept my B-level running performance at age 63. No surprise that there are many runners at age 60, but almost all have stopped by age 70.

Others may disagree with this, but to me the fact that Nordas has results in 2024 puts him ahead of Jakob to me. Obviously that could change as Jakob gets healthy and fit, but currently Nordas’s result show he’s healthy, probably training through that 3k, and on track to the games. Until Jakob puts up a result, I cannot know if he’s ready or going to he ready. So, Nordas is ahead of Jakob based on the info available to me, as of today.

Wrong thread, 1diot.

I'm 59 years old. My body hurts so exercising is far less fun.

He made a mistake and you insult him? Get some therapy, man.

Chronic pain is often caused by inflammation. Maybe try a low carb or other low inflammatory diet.

Inflammation is also caused by injury which is caused by aging.

The accumulated miles is significant. There's a guy winning my Age Group (60-69) locally, running decently fast times. I jokingly told him that he should write a training book for us old guys and I'd love to know his secret.

He said his secret is that he started running at 59 and that I had over 100,000 miles in my legs when he started.

He's just fresher.

Injuries happen, many are age related, some are just part of the sport. I've had two knee surgeries myself, both fairly involved too. It's part of aging. Just because you run and work out and watch your diet doesn't make you impervious to aging. The other bad part about aging is that you do not heal as fast from injuries, so it's even worse.

The bad thing about injuries is how they compound through the years. You get this knee issue and you lose some ROM and power, so your body compensates, then you get this issue with your calf, so more loss of ROM, then your lower back.. they compile through the years until you are doing the "old man shuffle".

So I can live forever with the body of a 25 year old with the right food and a monkish lifestyle?

i am 78. still run 5k every other day and walk hour+ the other day. it is a stretch to call it running but as hard as when i was in my 40s. i have a lot of miles on my legs (100k+), ranked in top 37 in the world at age 61 in marathon, 10k and 5k although others who ran non certified races could well have been better, e.g. marathon has go be a major. for me decline began in mid 60s and accelerated in 70s primarily due to muscles and recovery and repeated multi month muscular injuries (posterial tibial tendonitis and hip soreness due to lack of glutes). breathing and heart not a known issue, pulse 47. that's life. i still love running and i still don't know why exactly. running is implanted in my brain. the weather is not a factor no matter how bad. my days are numbered for sure but i like walking.

What kind of times is this guy running? And what is his weight & build?

I see this is a two-part question. First, why do we age? Second, what can we do to slow the aging process as much as possible?

Why do we age? Over tens of thousands of years, humans evolved with two primary directives: reach the age of sexual maturity and then procreate. That is, aging is not programmed into the human body, it's just not given any significant priority past the age of procreation. As a result, once humans have achieved their primary objectives, their cells are not programmed for longevity so they wear out.

For an analogy, think of Indy Cars. They're designed to go very fast, hopefully faster than their competition (like a genetic advantage would be for humans) for 500 miles. They aren't programmed to fail at 100,000 miles, just as a human body isn't programmed to die at a certain age. It's just that hi mileage isn't a consideration in designing Indy Cars.

The second part of the question is far more complex and frankly more important to us. What can we do to slow the aging process as much as possible?

Until age 50 or so, the steps are relatively clear, but apparently very difficult for the typical person to follow. They include maintaining optimal weight, eating healthy and avoiding junk foods with only infrequent indulgences, and cardio and strength training.

After 50, slowing the aging process becomes more difficult. Cells become less efficient in producing energy, so it becomes more important to avoid junk foods and to provide the cells with sufficient nutrients to operate as optimally as possible. In my opinion, obtaining the optimal level of nutrients is impossible even with a great diet. Thus, you have to take supplements in order to ensure that your cells have the optimal amount of the nutrients they need to produce energy, heal, and reproduce. After age 50, hormone levels for healthy men begin to decline more dramatically, so more aggressive steps are needed to boost testosterone levels. Studies show that the best approach to naturally boost testosterone levels is repeated sets of extremely high intensity exercise for short durations of 30 seconds or less. This is hard to do with running because you can only get in a small number of all out sprints before you are exhausted. I find it much easier to get in these extreme high-intensity workouts at the gym using different muscle groups. For example, today I spent 90 minutes at Gold's Gym doing multiple sets of exercises involving biceps, triceps, back, shoulders, and glutes. My most recent testosterone level was 740. That's at age 76. I log my lifts as E easy, NTE (near total exhaustion), TE (total exhaustion) and NDE (Near Death Experience!). I try to do 2-4 sets at NDE every gym visit and 10-12 sets at NTE.

I think by the time that most high schoolers reading this reach age 50, science will have progressed to the point that we can stop aging in certain cells and organs by using stem cells to grow new, younger cells to replace our old cells. It won't cure aging completely, but it should extend LE from the current 78-ish to around 100.