anyone flirting with 40 still feel as good as they did at 20?

I'm pushing 40 as well and feel probably 90-95% as good as I did at 20. My ankles are stiff when I wake up in the morning, but they loosen up pretty quick. I agree on the alcohol take. I'm more of a light weight now, and the hangovers hurt more than they used to.

41. I feel horrible compared to 10 or 15 years ago. I am still slim, 6'1, 72kg, run ca. 100km/w, cycle 600-700/w in the summer. Walk roughly 15km to and from work. Normal bloodwork.

But I feel much worse than 10 years ago. Tgen, I could do 30km run in the morning, help a friend move, go out partying, stuff my face with kebab, and run 5km home, half drunk, trip over a fence, and wake up the next day feeling great. I now hurt my back by sneezing. I pull back muscles holding by backpack wrong. I feel hungover for days if I drink more than one beer. I have heartburn and diarrhea if i eat after 8pm. Luckily I am married, cause I wouldn't be able to hold out a whole tinder date without farting. People my age think I look sporty, but I see that I am jiggly etc.

But I am happy for yall.

Huh? Anyone who feels as good at 40 as at 20 must’ve had some problems at 20.

I’ve felt lucky to feel very good at 40, 50, and beyond compared to what I might have expected and compared to even other healthy and fit people my age, let alone people of average health and fitness. But 40 was still different from 20-30.

I used to run/workout and destroy my body and almost felt euphoric about it, loved the quick recovery, pushing my body to the limit almost felt good.

now, its feels terrible, and I cant recover nearly as well. running hard in general just feels like a chore now.

What’s your secret?

Keep telling yourself that. Honestly, I think that's the key. Some people let themselves get old by constantly saying how old they are, tired, sore, etc.

im 43. i wouldn't say i feel as good as I did at 20, but it might not be a stretch to say I feel as good as I did at 25 or 30

I did a 400 meter time trial this week and am only 6 seconds slower than I was at 20 (39 now), so I'm satisfied.

I don't drink, smoke or vape and live a fairly healthy life. I've been a non-drinker my whole life. So that is probably why I don't feel any different now than at 20. It's obviously harder to be as consistent due to the demands of corporate job, associated travel, etc but my knees are still as good as they were at 20. I know plenty of non-runners slightly younger than me who have old man knees.

also, in my case, I had a 6 year period where I really didn't run much so that could also be why my knees feel as good as they did at 20.

3 weeks from 44.

Just ran a 1535 5k and 3215 10k...faster than what I could've run at 20,25, or 30.

But I felt better then. Sorer, more tired, pretty much everything mentioned previously.

Enjoy your 40s, wait till you hit the 60s.

Much mentally stronger than at 20.

Probably 20lbs heavier. Recovery takes longer. No major aches/pains.

By the age of 60 you've lived 75% of your life expectancy. It's insane to even think how fast you can run matters at that age. you're not getting any younger after 60. You're just trying to at this point slow down the inevitable dying process...Literally everything starts to decline every system in the body. Irreversibly. At 45 you still have a chance to set PR's and reverse some age related decline in muscle mass, etc. But by 60 you're largely in maintenance mode.

By 60 you should be contemplating your will and your legacy and how you want the world to remember you. Because you are not staying on this earth forever. Don't be the old and bitter stubborn person who is a burden on their family and whose family breathes a sigh of relief when you're gone.

No I don’t feel as good at 41 as I did at 20.
I have 2 kids, a mortgage on a 7 figure home, and I have to run multiple companies. I can’t drink 5 nights a week and skip classes and still get As cause school was BS.
When you have to worry about not only your family, but every family who works for your company, you don’t rest easy.

At 20 I didn’t think I would make it to 25. I had zero worries or expectations. The only people counting on me were the people on the cross country team, and they were at every party with me. So we didn’t have high hopes.

I can’t grab a basketball rim anymore, I don’t have a six pack, but damn life is so much more fun. If you your body feels better at 40 than 20; you were either a POS at 20 or you are a POS at 40. At 20 you are the only thing that matters. At 40 you are the last thing that matters. Life becomes so much bigger than you.

im only running 12-15 miles per week right now, and if I raced, my times would stink. And of course I feel 10x better than I do when im running high mileage and racing fast times.

...I think that's probably the tradeoff...sometimes I wish I could stop, but I'm afraid of getting fat and dying of the heart attack that has gotten so many of my family members.

It’s not hard to feel better than your 20 y.o. self if you used to do everything wrong (which I did).

Sedentary life (school), ate nothing but pizza and cookies, drank only coffee and Diet Coke. Twenty pounds overweight. Acne. Insulin resistant.

Turned it around in my 30s. When you do better, you feel better.

people who do everything wrong, it doesn’t catch up to you on a predictable time frame. Acquaintance of mine (we are both early 50s) was always able to gain, but then lose, the same 20 pounds, until recently. Migraines became a fixture in her 40s. A-fib became a thing for her too. so ppl who seem like they’re getting away with their bad habits, just haven’t had their chickens come home to roost yet.