explain why women faster as they age?

1. Drugs. They take drugs and then they don't have to eat, thus able to faster.

2. They are too embarrased? That is stupid.

3. That is a retarded article with almost no research. Because it happened in 2 or 3 races then older women are now faster?

A lot of women in the 40 yr old age range probably didn't have much of a chance to run competitively when they were younger. Less shyness and more lack of fitness probably held them back in the beginning (if you know you're a 9 minute miler it would be stupid to try to line up in the front).

In a lot of local road races, I've noticed there's a shortage of both men and women in the 18-30 age range compared to older runners. College runners won't be running road races except in the summer. Post college runners often take a break from racing, and then are reluctant to start again until they can accept that they can still run and not have their entire life focused around training anymore. A lot of 25-30 year olds have babies. It may not be until late 30s that a woman ends up having the time and desire to start training seriously. A lot of women that age may never have been serious exercisers before either, since youth may have kept them thin and healthy without much work. Don't many good masters runners start running as adults?

Besides, these seem like small road races where the winning time might be 21-22 minutes. In a competitive race, potential winners are going to know they're winners and not be holding back and running 8 minute miles because they're shy.

Li'l help?

I did read the article, and found it interesting...sure, it relied heavily on a handful of anecdotes (welcome to the wonderful world of lifestyle journalism). But there was also a kernel of truth to it.

There are definitely a lot of late-blooming female runners out there: folks who didn't run in high school or college, took up running recreationally as adults, then gradually became more serious about it. (Though I found the article's assertion that "most middle-aged women grew up when track and cross-country teams were for men only" positively bizarre. I'm 46, and there were certainly girls' teams at my school...I just didn't go out for them.) I have no hard evidence, but I think there are probably more such women than there are men. And because competition is still something new and thrilling for them, they (I should really say "we," since I'm one) tend to be avid racers.

The phenomenon of women in their 40s and 50s winning (or placing high in) races more frequently than their male age-group counterparts is also real, in my experience. (I'm talking local races here.) That, I attribute mainly to the lack of depth in the women's field. If the handful of really competitive younger women in an area don't show up, and a handful of competitive older women do (and we older women *do* tend to show up), well, there are your winners. (I've been in races where the top three places on the women's side all went to master's runners.)

Surely other people have also noticed how slow the times are in some younger female age groups in a typical local race. I don't notice any particular pattern (e.g., "25-29 tends to be slower than 30-34") - it's more the kind of randomness that occurs when you have a relatively small population of serious runners.

If they were actually elite runners when they were younger, they will slow as they age.

This article is about women who decide later in life to get a bit more serious about training, not about elite athletes good at a younger age. Or could be making note that some women wait till after they are past child bearing years to really put forth a training effort.

I'm almost 50. I didn't start running until my senior year in high school because there was no girls team at my school until 1975. I was quite good for a few years, then left the sport for most of my 20's (the usual reason, burnout, injury, life and kid). When I came back in my 30's, I was a much stronger runner and eclipsed all of my pr's. got a few good years out of it. Of course now , i run like rubbish, but I'm still ambulatory.

I'm 46, and grew up in Michigan. There was no official state championship for girls until the 79-80 school year. The year before there was an unofficial championship, but that was it--nothing before that.

We had one girl on our hs team starting in the fall of 75, but no full fledged team (7 girls) until the fall of 79 (which competed at the 'unofficial' state championship).

Girls' sports essentially did not exist, or were extremely limited, until the 1980's.

Look at the NCAAs. When was the first women's NCAA championship in cross country? 1981. Betty Springs from NC State won the individual title, and Virginia won the team title. Before 1981 there wasn't diddley-squat.

Anyone else remember the lame form of "girls basketball" that was played in the 1960's? It was 6 players on the court per team--3 on one end playing defense, and 3 on the other end playing offense. It was considered harmful for females to run up and down a full basketball court, so these rules 'protected' them.

Comments and corrections. I think before 1981, the women in college sports were governed by the AIAW. I believe there were AIAW championships for track and XC before 1981, but I may be wrong. Point taken, though, opportunities were very limited for women in the 70s and before.

I think others have mentioned the lack of depth being a contributing factor to older women appearing to be as fast as younger women. If you look at the recent NYRR Club Championships, 20 of the first 25 women were in their 20s. And that was a fast group of runners. I don't think that type of runner shows up to the local Podunk 5K, while the more recreational runner will, many of whom are in their 30s and 40s.

The NCAA took over for the AIAW in 1982, the fall after I graduated. Title 9 took effect my first year of high school. Opportunities are greater now than they were then.

I don't think older women are getting faster. I certainly am not. I've been running since I was 15. My best times, for all distances, were when I was ages 24-28. I've run well since then, and didn't notice much of a drop off in my times until recently (I'm 47), but that may be partially due to injuries and a small weight gain.

I still place very well in local races, though, but it's not because I'm getting faster with age-- it's because the competition is weaker and there isn't much depth.

The younger women (locally) are not as fast as their predecessors were and the fields are not as deep as they were in the 80s.

On my post-collegiate xc team, 7 women could run a sub-5 minute mile and most of us ran 17:15 or faster for 5k and 35 or better in the 10k. The funny thing is that those times weren't that special and didn't make us seem "elite" or anything. Now, the local girls who run that time are considered super-fast. ;-)

In comparison to whom they are racing, they do seem fast, but it's only because there aren't many local girls running fast times.

I like placing in local races, but it IS kind of embarrassing that the younger women aren't racing better.

Could it be because their estrogen level drops with age? I'm not a doctor. That's just a hunch. Anyone know?

I don't think very much research has been done on that. Longtime runners probably tend to have lower estrogen levels anyway due to lower body fat and more exercise.My hunch is that changes at menopause are not as dramatic as for a non athlete (I'll report back in a couple of years :). I think natural testosterone levels, relative to estrogen may come into play and indeed, during Mary Slaney's trials with testing, I believe that was a factor as many distance runners in their late 30's have perimenopausal symptoms. I would really be interested in seeing some research done as the first generation of serious women runners is now getting up there in age. I agree with muddy girl that the fields in the local races are just plain weak these days for younger women.

I'm 47, and I'm a sprinter and hurdler. The women's 40s are much more competitive than the women's 30s. I think the reason is that when women are in their 30s, lots of them are either getting pregnant or raising small children, hence very little time to train. They may also be trying to establish themselves, career-wise which also would cut down on training time. I didn't have to opportunity to train seriously until my mid-40s; that's when my children were old enough to be left alone while mom goes to practice. Come to think of it, it's also when I had finished clawing for the promotions at work too. Just a theory.

At age 49, I agree with you completely. Ran competitively in my 20s, but my 30s were a blur of 3 pregnancies over a period of 6 1/2 years. No doctor will advise you that it is healthy to run hard while pregnant, and most women don't want to take a chance. (That combined with the gnawing wive's tale that running too much might render you sterile.) My 40s gave me much more freedom to train hard again. Shyness had nothing to do with it.

This is such a goofy article. As you know, the reason you see older women winning at local road races is because most of the elite women in the 20-24 age category are busy competing for their colleges. If they really want to prove their hypothesis, they need to have some of these fast older women enter college races unattached or something. I'm just kind of an average collegiate runner, but I find it funny when I enter a local road race, win by a couple of minutes, and people treat my like I'm some world-class athlete...lol...OH, and I'm definitely NOT shy about trying to run fast...that's just silly...

I subscribe to the NYT and I was really surprised to see this trash. It makes me wonder what else in the Times is also garbage. If I remember correctly, I think there was some mention about how a runner decided to change her attitude toward racing and within 2 weeks ran much faster. I've been pounding out the mileage for 49 years and all for nothing. All I needed was the right attitude. Mmmmm.

Exactly.

the older woman get the less men are interested in them. then woman become more interested in things like self improvement.

sounds like they are just pushing for more women (both young, middle-aged and old) to run in general and in road races in particular for obvious commercial reasons... a lot of media, specialized and as NYT show not specialized, is echoing that the second running boom will feature women's running as the main event... as another poster said, Lifestyle journalism only needs a kernel of truth...marketing does the rest... still getting more people to run doesn't rub me the wrong way...

girl runner wrote:

This is such a goofy article... If they really want to prove their hypothesis...

I don't think you (and others) are reading the article in the spirit it was intended. This is not a journal article attempting a scientific investigation. It has no hypothesis.

The phenomenon that it points out -- that the top female finishers at local road races are often from upper age groups -- is one that is familiar to anyone who runs a lot of these races. It's certainly not a universal truth, and no one imagines that there's some hithero unknown physiological factor that causes women to get faster with every year past the age of 30. It's more of a societal/sociological phenomenon, and the various factors Kolata trots out speak to this.

Personally, I thought it was an interesting article about something I've noticed in my own experience at road races. I was glad to see some discussion about the running world, and I'd hate to think that we shouldn't have any discussion of running topics in the press if there aren't any peer-reviewed studies of the subject.

And a last note to "girl runner": as a young collegiate runner, you may be under the impression that every road race you show up to is won by a young collegiate runner. But try to take the imaginative leap of figuring what those races would have been like if you weren't there!