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

Not so sure about your "pliability" theory and other fancy words, but I can give you a real life case study.

The #1 guy on our CC masters' team did not run a competitive step until his late 30s and is now an injury-free sub 15 min 5k and sub 4:00 1500 master. Other than a few nicks, aches and pains that come with training hard, he is good to go every week, every race.

Our #2 guy was a sub 9:00 3200 high schooler and sub 25 min college runner, has run and competed just about every year of his life and when healthy is a low 15 min 5K master. He is rarely healthy though and misses approx. 1/3 of our races. Amazingly, the guy can be out for a month and look completely unfit, but then throw on a singlet and blast a sub 16. A true freak of nature.

I (#3) took about 20 years off before tossing my hat back into masters racing and have had a decent amount of injury-free success. Still very durable and I have to think the 20 years away plays a big role.

Most of the other runners on the team struggle with injuries more often than not and just about all of them have never taken long stretches of time off. All of us who run competitively as masters recognize the value of "fresh legs" that have not been beaten down over the years. But alternatively, just about every runner worth his or her salt has run and raced their entire lives because they love it, are addicted and won't stop until they are face down in the dirt!

Bob Sacamano the fake one wrote:

Kept running 55-60mpw until I was 58..just a couple of years ago. At 54 my mom got in a bad car accident and I assumed a stressful care-taking role. Shortly thereafter, my brother imploded with a mental illness so this added to the care-taking duties.

Yes, for many, life gets in the way. Even if you never get seriously injured or burned out, life happens, be it a job, marriage, kids, family obligations, ect. I'm sincerely sorry for your ill loved ones.

Thanks very much Bob.

Age 15. A few ups and downs with my involvement. Around 60K lifetime miles.

With the caveat that we're all just guessing here...

I think many older competitive runners FEEL like they've beaten their bodies down, but what they're really feeling is just the very natural effect of aging. What's different about them is that they are among the few human beings on the planet who have ever felt what it's like to be truly fit while in your athletic prime. By comparison, someone who picks up running later in life can be fitter than they've ever been before, which means that they have a very different psychological relationship with their fitness level. They actually feel like they've gotten younger. But they have no idea what they missed.

I also think there's no question that some runners develop specific chronic injuries that hold them back later. I don't think that's the same thing as the body "inevitably wearing out," like a tire that can only go so many miles. One piece of the injury puzzle, however, is likely that older runners are trying to recreate the training that they did when they were younger. But aging means that non only is your fitness ceiling lower, but your capacity to recover from training is lower too. It's a double-whammy.

Actually you are wrong more than right. To begin, an apple does not equal a bowl of Lucky Charms. Blaming carbohydrates is simplistic at best.

Animal protein and fats are surprisingly big insulin triggers.

Adding meat to almost any meal you will increase blood sugar spikes, not lower them. The

saturated animal fats (including dairy) lead to lipotoxicity, which figures prominently in the development of diabetes.

AGE are a function of elevations in blood sugar, primarily but other

factors are worth mentioning including the cooking of foods and low antioxidant diet.

Antioxidants are found primarily in plant foods, not animal products.

Whatever the truth may be, I think a lot of interesting points have been brought up here, especially what attributes people who have been successful at a high level continuously from H.S. through post-collegiate, and well into masters, all without significant interruptions, have done in order to keep it going.

I think anyone hopping on the "serious runner train" at any age, and wishing to ride it as far as it can go, can learn something from this. Some of the talk about approaches of guys like Bernard Lagat (strategies targeted specifically at keeping the legs fresh), and Meb (augmenting with low-impact aerobic exercise), and some of the others (adjusting the relative percentages of fast vs. slow running, volumes, etc., in certain ways that enhance longevity) are giving us the knowledge of how to go about achieving this.

And Ed Whitlock!.

Masters guy in the BAA 5K (during the weekend of the Boston Marathon) beat me to the finish line. He ran low 14:50s. Made me feel slow.

You are wrong on many levels. Animal products don't have antioxidants because they are not oxidative in the first place. Complimenting animal products with fresh vegetables is more than enough to cover all antixidant scenarios. A ketogenic diet, coupled with intermittent fasting (all my runs are at least 12 hours fasted) are the best ways to avoid glycolytic damage, not ingestion of grains, sugars and starches which are turned into glucose and which gum up your entire metabolism with oxidative species causing systemic inflammation and degradation. Diabetes is a disease of glucose-mediated inflammation, not caused by healthy whole saturated fats from healthy animals. The systemic degeneration with age is linked with insulin resistance, which most runners have in some form by age 50.https://soundcloud.com/nootrobox/behind-the-100-mile-marathon-w

dsrunner wrote:

Actually you are wrong more than right. To begin, an apple does not equal a bowl of Lucky Charms. Blaming carbohydrates is simplistic at best.

Animal protein and fats are surprisingly big insulin triggers.

Adding meat to almost any meal you will increase blood sugar spikes, not lower them. The

saturated animal fats (including dairy) lead to lipotoxicity, which figures prominently in the development of diabetes.

AGE are a function of elevations in blood sugar, primarily but other

factors are worth mentioning including the cooking of foods and low antioxidant diet.

Antioxidants are found primarily in plant foods, not animal products.

Just wow... wrote:

I shouldn't give a crap, but comments like this are what sour these internet discussions.

I have a theory too wrote:

Oh, nice move.

Point to an unrelated study, but wave your hands saying "Here's something unrelated that has absolutely nothing to do with running, but it means the same thing, take my word for it".

Then stick to supporting your premise. What 'sours' the internet is the crapload of misinformation it contains, especially when most, if not all, of it is deliberate.

I am a life long runner (66). At times a high mileage as well as high intensity runner. From my experience weight gain is the greatest performance inhibitor. To increase longevity rest, weight training, core training, and cross training become areas worth emphasizing. That said, we are all an experiment of one.

Igy

If you were able to find a group of runners who had run "heavy" mileage over a long period that were now having difficulty being competitive, my first question to them would be: what, if any, speed/plyometric/explosive work have you been doing?

A very high percentage of the high mileage runners I know neglect speed/plyometric work. There's a pervasive misconception that there are no benefits from speed/plyometrics if you don't race shorter distances.

So, to get a fuller picture, the question needs to be asked, not only what have you been doing over the years, but what have you been neglecting over the years?

CalCoast?

pr100 wrote:

Haile broke the world marathon record aged 35 and ran 2:06 low aged 37, after consistent high mileage starting in childhood. And of course, many people believe he's older than his official age.

How many miles do you think it takes?

Yeah but he could only run a 28 flat 10K and 1:01 half marathon at age 40.

I can't imagine being that slow at that age.

lipstick on a pig wrote:

So far, no one has addressed how leg speed velocity plays into all this.

The loss of leg speed velocity is probably the biggest reason why you slow down as you get older.

I have a theory too wrote:

Just wow... wrote:

I shouldn't give a crap, but comments like this are what sour these internet discussions.

Then stick to supporting your premise. What 'sours' the internet is the crapload of misinformation it contains, especially when most, if not all, of it is deliberate.

What misinformation? I said that I was giving a hypothesis. Do you understand that means I don't know the answer, it's just a thought that would need an experiment to determine if it is correct or not? Any other information I gave was backed up with references. The diabetic reference, as I said, was just given to show that experiments can be done to test such hypotheses. I hope that helps!

Probably both your leg speed and stride length. Its the extra poundage and loss of motivation in a vicious cycle. Then you don't do high intensity anymore which is probably the biggest contributor. Finally not to be a party pooper but age is a consistent background slide you just hope you are a lucky one that slows gracefully. No one ever grows more hair on their head, you just want to be one of the lucky ones that loses it much slower.

My experience matches this (and I'm only 42). Never a 'massive' mileage runner as I was better at the middle distances, but I have had some periods of very intense training, and have essentially been running nonstop since I was 13. My legs are now shot as far as running goes, and my biomechanics have gone haywire. If I do run now its just a slog, and my recovery is so poor that its impossible to string any training together.

However, although I do seem burnt out as far as running goes, I can bike or lift weights as well as ever with no problems at all. I can ride for 2-3 hours on the hills and be fully recovered the next day, and I've had huge improvement in the gym after a few years off weight training.

well,. wrote:

The loss of leg speed velocity is probably the biggest reason why you slow down as you get older.

That and VO2max & MHR start dropping after age 40 (some studies show about 1 beat every 2 yrs or so). Things get much worse after 50 where the efficiency of absorbing nutrients starts to decline and cell repair turnover starts to slow (you know those types of injuries where the young bucks heal in a couple of days whereas it can take weeks for us old timers 😕).

The aging process is real for runners...that's why you don't have any 50 year olds making the "A" standard for the Olympics.😁