Here's the challenge: on your birthday do a continuous run whose length in miles equals one-tenth your age (ex. on your 35th birthday, you do a 3.5 mile run).
Obviously this becomes more of a challenge as you age. Predict the birthday that you first would be unable to meet this challenge.
what
Well, I'm in my 60s now and having no trouble meeting your challenge. But the upper end of my runs now are in the low 7 mile range, so I'm guessing somewhere around 70 I may not be able yo do it. I expect to still be running then, but perhaps not that far.
The question would be more interesting if it wasn't only one-tenth your age.
262 years and 109.5 days old
I am 38 and would have no interest in running if I couldn't go that proposal.
It might be interesting to think of it as 1/4 or 1/2 age. A time based thing might be better.
Huh? Most runners can run a marathon. The time might not be fast or pretty but they can run it. Therefore almost every non-injured runner could do this run regardless of age if they are in dact a healthy and active runner.
You think most 70 year odds can run a marathon nonstop? You're nuts.
Olde Farte wrote:
Well, I'm in my 60s now and having no trouble meeting your challenge. But the upper end of my runs now are in the low 7 mile range, so I'm guessing somewhere around 70 I may not be able yo do it. I expect to still be running then, but perhaps not that far.
Why put limits on yourself? As long as you continue to run I bet you can maintain your mileage. Perhaps even go longer. If that's something you would want to do.
I have a friend that has been doing this since he was an athlete in college (started at 20). He is now 32.
The only difference is he is a not a titty-baby and runs 1 mile for every year. This year he'll run 33 miles on his birthday.
He says after 50 he'll start running 1 less (49 miles on his 51 birthday).
He lives in Southeast Texas and his birthday is in August. Anyone who has ever trained in the southeastern part of the country during the summer months knows how miserable it is to do a long run in August.
If you really want to make this a challenge, at least do it with 400 repeats with a minute rest. One 400 for every year.
He also only typically runs 1 day a year (his birthday).
The fact that your friend plans to reduce the length of his runs after 50 hits right to the heart of this interesting challenge. The longer you live, the tougher the challenge.
I'm guessing most runners would be fading in their 60s.
pretty sure he was joking
Try this one -- what is the oldest a person can be and run 400 in as many seconds as they are years old? (over 80?) How about the youngest age to run 400 in that many seconds? (55?)
Different thought exercise: I'm 62 and can run 6.2 hours. Let's make this a new standard for school and college graduation and for certain Federal benefits. Every 18 should be able to run 1.8 hours.
funny
I think this depends on whether you keep running for all of those decades. A lot of people will give up running, for one reason or another, after a couple or three decades. So for those people, the challenge birthday could be as early as 40 or 50.
Assuming one maintains some sort of running regimen into their social security years, I can certainly see meeting the challenge well into the 60s and maybe early 70s.
For me, I'm going with 65. Here's hoping.
I will give this a go if/when I turn 90, hopefully will keep it going until I am 100.
No guesswork required. On my 51st birthday I couldn't run 3 steps. Back at it, thankfully.
A prof working in the same department where I was a lab tech for a minute had been doing his age in miles every birthday since he was 30. The year I was there was the first year he didn't do it--he was 63, and instead of running 63 miles, he biked 126 and ran 31.5.