This is why you won't be a competitive masters guy if you run heavy miles all your life

Sounds about right. 25 years of high mileage...but very easy pace for him.

I would not say " shape of my life" but training is going ok! My 81.4 600 was run in racing flats as I did not take my spikes to Malta as it was a young athlete training camp I was helping to run. I imagine I was sub 80 when ran 1.48 low. First race next weekend!

OverTheHillAndBackAgain wrote:

How many top masters guys are dabbling with testosterone prescriptions? There's a local guy where I'm from who looks like he's definitely on something. Ran some age graded times in the 90th percentile this winter.

I wonder what king of factor Low-T plays in master performances. Of course we all know no one has low T on letsrun.

I had mentioned this in earlier in the thread. Testosterone seems to be the buzzword in the master amateur ranks, and low-T centers are cropping up like there's no tomorrow (and aggressive advertising as well). And of course the rich dudes can afford high-octane HGH. Regardless of superb biomechanics or entry into competitive running later in life, there's got to be more with some of these 55 yr olds doing consistent 80 mpw and running 16 flat 5ks.

Exception proves the rule wrote:

I would not say " shape of my life" but training is going ok! My 81.4 600 was run in racing flats as I did not take my spikes to Malta as it was a young athlete training camp I was helping to run. I imagine I was sub 80 when ran 1.48 low. First race next weekend!

Wow! Looking forward to new World records in the 45-49 group. Sub 1:50 for sure.

Will you take a crack at the 1500 and Mile records? 3:50/4:12

Can you run about 50 flat for 400- would be about 5th all time

As a fairly competitive masters guy, I hate that testosterone gets thrown around so much when masters runners are involved. Unfortunately, I understand why it happens. My take is that if a guy is running age graded times that are up in the upper 80s or 90s, you should really figure out if those times are in line with his open times. If he was a 14:20 guy as an open runner and is now running 15:30 as an early 40s guy, or 15:50s as he nears 50, there is really nothing suspicious about that absent additional evidence.

I agree that loss of elasticity can be one of the limiting factors as you age.

Loss of bounce and springiness has hit me very hard the last five years, and I believe it is the primary reason for my personal recent rapid running slowdown.

My theory is that loss of muscle/tendon elasticity and scar tissue buildup from micro tears in muscles now severely limits elastic energy return in my stride. Not sure if that is reversible.

How I reached this point follows but is not typical.

I am 60 and have been running 70+ miles a week for 45+ years. Over 120,000 lifetime miles. PRs 4:12 mile, 30:50 10k , 2:28.marathon

Same weight and motivation as when young. Some strength declines, but not that much. Some flexibility declines but not huge. Minimal leg speed declines from when young. No injuries.

Essentially it feels like I get very little elastic energy return from muscles and tendons anymore. Very noticeable when running downhill, as the free speed gain from bouncing downhill with gravity is not all there anymore. Legs often just feel dead.

I am not a plodder/shuffler (yet) but it takes a lot more effort and work to run the same paces without elastic energy return.

Yes I have worked hard to limit/reverse this in the last 5 years with very little success. I do more plyos, stretching, strides, shorter intervals, hill sprints, weights more than ever before.

With limited time I've cut overall mileage 40% to accommodate this. Sometimes I think focusing 80% on drills and such, and cutting miles to less than 20 a week might help. But I would not enjoy being a gym rat instead of a runner.

My lifetime of running involved lots of relatively slow but hard and hilly trail runs with significant ascent/descent at high altitude. An easy 10 miler might have once taken 85 minutes and included 1500 feet of climb with the same descent at 9000' elevation.

Lots of sore quads after hilly mountain/trail races (delayed muscular soreness) Lots of pounding at 168 lbs.

You sound exactly like the OP!

this and this wrote:

I agree that loss of elasticity can be one of the limiting factors as you age.

This is an undeniable fact

Smoove wrote:

As a fairly competitive masters guy, I hate that testosterone gets thrown around so much when masters runners are involved. Unfortunately, I understand why it happens. My take is that if a guy is running age graded times that are up in the upper 80s or 90s, you should really figure out if those times are in line with his open times. If he was a 14:20 guy as an open runner and is now running 15:30 as an early 40s guy, or 15:50s as he nears 50, there is really nothing suspicious about that absent additional evidence.

This is a great rule of thumb. If the guy was a stud as an open runner, with proper training he will probably become a stud as a masters runner. Sometimes you have to go all the way back to high school because some of these guys didn't have much of a collegiate or post-collegiate career. If you have a plodder as a young man who has now exploded into age grading above 90%, I would be suspicious too.

No not the original poster

Skate wrote:

Exception proves the rule wrote:

I would not say " shape of my life" but training is going ok! My 81.4 600 was run in racing flats as I did not take my spikes to Malta as it was a young athlete training camp I was helping to run. I imagine I was sub 80 when ran 1.48 low. First race next weekend!

Wow! Looking forward to new World records in the 45-49 group. Sub 1:50 for sure.

Will you take a crack at the 1500 and Mile records? 3:50/4:12

Can you run about 50 flat for 400- would be about 5th all time

Hopefully sub 1.50, ran 51.8/3.54/4.12 in indoor races, I hope to still be able to crack 50s for 400 but only in a 4 by 4 as my starting sucks( I have given trying to do a sprint start)

Smoove wrote:

As a fairly competitive masters guy, I hate that testosterone gets thrown around so much when masters runners are involved. Unfortunately, I understand why it happens. My take is that if a guy is running age graded times that are up in the upper 80s or 90s, you should really figure out if those times are in line with his open times. If he was a 14:20 guy as an open runner and is now running 15:30 as an early 40s guy, or 15:50s as he nears 50, there is really nothing suspicious about that absent additional evidence.

And what if this "15:50s" guy keeps running sub-16 well into his late 50s/early 60s while consistently maintaing high-mileage and killer speed workouts? Wouldn't that be out of this world suspicious? And that is what's happening out there with some 55+ runners; incredible high-mileage, killer workouts, great recovery and amazingly fast times. All at the same time that low-T centers are cropping up everywhere with their aggressive advertising. There's also anti-aging clinics that prescribed HGH if you have the dough.

And these guys after getting their ribbon & handshake for 1st place aren't going to handout any business cards from the low-T center that they're using 😉.

I wish I had those PRs!

These are the guys whom I suspect got into running late. Next time you see one of them, ask them when they started their heavy training.

Both these posts are getting at some of the issues. As an open runner and early masters I was a consistent low-mid 80s age grader, but have 'improved' considerably after age 45 and it's more like 88 to 90 in my late 50s. I don't supplement with anything.

But you do see some in their mid-late 50s coming from nowhere, running fantastic times, and looking as buff as a 20 year old. One guy was running 1:20s for the half at 40s early 50s, but suddenly bursts out with 1:15s and 34 min 10Ks at 55? Or another that runs three sub 3 marathons in four weeks, each getting faster.

Those are the guys that I say need a second look, for sure. But I had a guy say something to the effect of "I told my friends back home about you, and they wanted to know what you were on!" This with my masters times being good (88-89 age grade), but not world class.He said it as a joke, but it felt like there was an implication underlying it. Pretty disheartening considering that the guy is watching me bust my ass on the track, that he was receiving training emails from me every week laying out the physiology behind our workouts, that I had battled through some injuries, and that my masters times were all right in line with my collegiate times. Plus, I am 145 lbs, so there is no real reason to believe any testosterone or HGH is involved here.

I will say that my times in my 30s were slower than my times in my 40s, but that is because my wife and I had our first child when I was in my late 30s, so all of the socializing and drinking I was doing went away, and I started living a much healthier and more disciplined lifestyle - my wife has no problem with my leaving for an hour or two to get healthy, but leaving her alone with the kids for a couple of hours to get drunk wasn't going to fly.

I say all this to make the point that it would be nice if the default were "Wow, I am impressed that this guy is putting in that kind of work at that age!" instead of "I wonder what that dude is taking." Unfortunately, the rampant spread of PEDs makes the latter the default, and reasonably so; and I have been guilty about speculation and gossip mongering myself.

Just wow... wrote:

It's not burn out. Rather, it's that the natural pliability, springiness and recoil in your tendons and ligaments (Achilles, plantar fascia, etc.) will be shot from all the cumulative usage. You simply lose your bounce. I've got no data to back it up, but that's my hypothesis. Studies have been done on the Achilles tendons of diabetics vs. normal controls and found changes in the molecular structure of the collagen cross-links to explain such changes in diabetics, which is thought to contribute to their high rate of foot morbidity, leading to conditions like "Charcot foot" (a spontaneous collapse of the foot structure), and forefoot plantar ulcers, although the other major contributor in these situations is peripheral neuropathy.

I think that you are correct. A researcher/author named Bill Blewett wrote a book about this a few years ago. His book applies to baseball pitchers but he is currently writing one about runners.

Bill was a sub 4 guy out of U of Oklahoma in the 1970s. His son plays professional baseball. He was also a researcher at the Army Research Laboratory for a few years.

Wow. Thanks for that. I'll definitely be looking at what he has to say. This is obviously an interesting subject to me of which some here seem to think I am weaving some kind of negative spin (my "shock" title may imply that, but more intended to grab attention and get people into the discussion - my apologies to "I've got a theory too" for upsetting you), but I really just would like to see research on the matter to show how the body responds to the work of lifelong dedication to this kind of training and more importantly, ways to manage the adaptations that occur to increase the probability of continued optimal performance.

90% isn't as fast or competitive as you might think. I was right at 90% when I was younger, injury, not concentrating on the right distance etc. Maybe I was a potential 94% level runner, who knows.Age 50 800 of 2:09.23 =90%. Good luck getting a medal at US masters nationals with that. I am sure I can run a 94% at age 50 barring injury.Silver medal at World championships Outdoors M50-54 8002009  2.01.4 2011  2.02.32 2013  2.03.81 2015  2.04.85 2016  2.05.89 Average 2.03.65 Average % 95.24 Age grade