Interested to hear when you think getting old started to affect your running.
I'm in my early 30s and feel like I get a lot more niggly injuries than when I was in my teens & 20s. I don't know if this is age related or just coincidence. I definitely can't sprint like I used to though.
I'm 45 and still waiting for a material slowdown - I ran around 10:15 regularly for two miles in HS and I can still do around 10:40. But if I raced as much as I did in HS I bet I could get back down near HS times.
But the question on body change - I've found that since I turned 40 I have changed almost every year. I was pretty much the same runner for 25 yrs, but the last 5 yrs...every year seems different. Different races go well, different workouts, different injuries, different motivations, etc..
harder to coach myself, but at least I am not in a rut.
40. This was after 15 years of racing.
One year I was running in the mid to high 32's, for 10k, the next I was having problems breaking 34. Training was not interrupted or changed.
started running when I was 25, started slowing at at 38 for sure, happened with an injury, and once over it just never got faster. My peak year was in the 12 months covering age 32-33.
Around 30, I started battling injuries on a regular basis. I was still trying to train like I did in college with no concession for additional rest or recovery. Almost every year, I had an injury that caused me to miss significant training time and races. Then at 35 I got osteoarthritis in my knee, and my running was over for good.
Top end speed declines starting around 34-35. You ability to recover from hard efforts declines around 40, but as long as you train smart, you will not see much of a decline in race times from 5k-marathon until you hit 45. The hammer drops at 50. I know guys who were solid low 2:40 marathoners in their mid 40s who have to bust butt just to break 3 hrs in their 50s.
I started running in my 40s, at the age 47/48, I got down to 220(track) - 800, 1710-5000, 3601-10000, and 1:21 - 1/2....after age 51 1/2 (now 53) injury after injury even with a well thought out workout plan injuries continue to plague me. Had a couple good training runs last summer though (aveage 645 for 5miles) before breaking down again. The weight gain hasnt helped....anyway, glad to be alive.
Precious Roy wrote:
Top end speed declines starting around 34-35. You ability to recover from hard efforts declines around 40, but as long as you train smart, you will not see much of a decline in race times from 5k-marathon until you hit 45. The hammer drops at 50. I know guys who were solid low 2:40 marathoners in their mid 40s who have to bust butt just to break 3 hrs in their 50s.
I think (hope) this is too much of a generalization. I'm on a team with many good masters guys, and there is just no pattern I can discern. Some guys are just as fast at 57 as they were in their 40s. Others slowed much earlier. I don't see a rule of thumb.
I think the key is injury prevention - taking 2-3 months off could be a career killer in your 40s/50s. If you slide too far down the slope you can't climb back up. plus you can lose some mental fight.
As I mentioned, my running was permanently ended by osteoarthritis at age 35. That's one of the few injuries that truly spells "lights out" for a runner. Articular cartilage doesn't repair - ever. It sucks.
Personally, I've witnessed some masters maintain a high level of competitiveness with little slowdown into their mid 40s. Most really start to slow down between 45 and 50, and then they fall off a cliff after 50. I've known runners who were still in the low 2:40s for the marathon in their mid 40s who couldn't break 3:00 just a couple of years later.
I am 76. I started to run and race year round at age 22. I felt the beginnings of slowing down at about age 38. After 41, I kept running but lost the interest racing seriously. I have felt that the rate of slowing down accelerated as I aged. At present, I only walk but I hope to jog again.
35-36. After that I tried just as hard, but there were certain times that were no longer attainable. The injuries come more easily and hang around longer. Now I'm 43 and breaking 40 for 10K again is starting to look unrealistic.
Ditto. I was fine until 47. Then mysteriously I started getting injured, and then falling out of shape with inconsistent training. I was running 60-80 miles a week no problem, now I'd be lucky to run 40 without having to take a few days off for some tweak of an injury to my hip, knee or foot joints, which I had never had a problem with in my life. Probably wear-and-tear arthritis, but amazing at how quickly it struck.
I suspect those who avoid marathons have a longer life at speed.
People consider marathons to be normal running behavior - they aren't - they are very damaging to runners - esp older runners.
The lifestyle of a highly competitive distance runner is simply not sustainable for a lifetime (with a few outliers excluded). It comes to an end for most of us sooner or later. I trained and raced hard from junior high through my mid 30s. Then osteoarthritis took me down for good. I'd love to be a 20 mile a week hobby jogger, but even returning to that is highly doubtful. I joined a gym and now I ride a stationary bike every day to try to fight middle aged weight gain. I miss running terribly, but remind myself that I was lucky to get over 20 years to enjoy it.
Treasure your running and racing while you have it. In most cases, it does not last a lifetime.
Mid40's but it wasnt so much the slowing, as the injury rate. Prior to that I was in early 40's and running within a reasonable distance of my college times (given my level of training vs then + age.)
Consistency is the lifeblood of a distance runner so when you lose a week here, maybe 3-6 wks there.. pretty soon you are sunk.
I think part of it depends on lifetime mileage. Someone who's been hammering away at it since their teen years is likely to see a slowdown a lot sooner than adult-onset runners. Many of the best masters runners seem to be people who started (or re-started) running in their mid to late 30s.
I suspect that you only have so many years of highly competitive running in you, unless you're one of the happy exceptions.
When did I start slowing down? The very minute your mother told me to take it slow.
There are several different 'slow-down' elements.
1. You have less time to train
2. You are tired of training so much and cut back
3. You get injured more for two reasons: a) older; and b) accumulated overuse injuries etc.
4. Your body does not let you train as much
5. The body cannot perform as well
The general notion of limit is 5 but all of these can be factors, and some of them become non-factors (e.g., 1 and 2) if you make the decisions to train.
When the physical elements (3-5) kick in differ substantially, especially the aggregate of the three. One way you see this is that the distribution curve gets much thinner at the top, although the bump at each 'age-level' (e.g., 40) shows you more what the true limitations are as people make different choices on 1 and 2, and by going hard for a couple of years and easier for a couple (e.g., 40, 41, then easier 43-44) you give your body a break.
terroir wrote:
I suspect those who avoid marathons have a longer life at speed.
People consider marathons to be normal running behavior - they aren't - they are very damaging to runners - esp older runners.
Agreed on marathons - I ran 10 of them in my 20s and 30s, all sub 2:50 (not great, but not jogger level either). Now approaching 40 and my running went downhill fast about 5 years ago. If I could do it all over again, I might just run 1 marathon just to check it off my list, then stick with 5ks and 10ks. Hindsight is 20/20.
Cripple wrote:
terroir wrote:I suspect those who avoid marathons have a longer life at speed.
People consider marathons to be normal running behavior - they aren't - they are very damaging to runners - esp older runners.
Agreed on marathons - I ran 10 of them in my 20s and 30s, all sub 2:50 (not great, but not jogger level either). Now approaching 40 and my running went downhill fast about 5 years ago. If I could do it all over again, I might just run 1 marathon just to check it off my list, then stick with 5ks and 10ks. Hindsight is 20/20.
I would recommend that every real runner run fast for as long as you can. yeah, maybe you want to stick your toe in the marathon water but dont stay there. If you can race well at 5k-1/2 do that.
Just doing more for the sake of more is wrong headed.