Older Runners: When Did You Notice You Were Finally Aging?

Soon to be 50 here. I haven't gained weight (6', 150) and rarely drink more than one beer per sitting but I've really noticed over the last year that I can't maintain the mileage and intensity I once could. Where I used to log 70-85 miles a week with 2 workouts during peak blocks, now I'm more a 55-70 with 1 to 2 workouts- mostly due to running less on recovery days and more days off. I also need to take a big recovery week every 3rd to 4th week(50% less mileage) or I get run down. Working 50 hours a week and having a teenager and 6 year old takes a lot out of me too.

37-38.

No reason to kid yourself.

57. But I started at 47.

Looking back there were several different pivot points during my 40s, the biggest being right before I turned 49 when my fitness fell off a cliff for no good reason. Average pace for runs suddenly cratered...gained about 10 pounds...tried to fight it but just simply couldn't.

It was the mirror image of being younger - I'd have plateaus for a really really long time then times & fitness would suddenly improve for seemingly no good reason...ride on another plateau for awhile..then another improvement...rinse and repeat. Same thing on the way down, sadly.

When I sat on the toilet and my balls went into the drink.

My left hand used to be my best friend.

Now it's ice in a styrofoam cup.

Late 50s now and it all started with a partial Achilles tear 3 months after my 50 birthday. Since then a plethora of injuries; strains, sprains, torn ligaments stress fractures & OA of the ankle...all in the name of running. Not much weight gain (a few pounds over my HS football playing weight). And very slow healing from these from injuries despite a very healthy diet - what took a few days when I was a young buck takes 2 weeks and what took a couple of weeks to heal can take months now!

I've come to the conclusion that to run competitively in your middle-age you have to be built for running and have a lot of good luck. If you're not built for running you can get away with it when you're younger but it'll eventually catch up and knock the snot out of you when you're older. Those fast old farts on the Grand Masters thread who train & race like they're 30 yrs old are a rarity, and built very small & lean.

I would say anyone can be lean and have a low bmi if they really want to. Alas most people give in to the desire to be satisfied w food more than being at a running weight, if that's what you really wanted to do. Somoene being naturally small doesn't mean someone else can't be small through watching what they eat. Just takes more work.

I would disagree with the whole weight premise as being a primary factor with athletic injuries. The emerging science suggests that's more genetically related.

I'm mid-50s, low BMI (i.e., a "runners build") and started having chronic injuries way back in my early 30s. Now in my middle-age they've only gotten worse and I'm basically running on borrowed time. In my younger competitive days, I've noticed a fair number of runners I was competing against who also had low BMIs with very lean, thin body types who, surprisingly, were also having chronic injuries (that's all they complained about after races. Lol). Conversely, I noticed bigger, larger, muscular sprinter-type builds that seemed never to be injured. Genetics at play here.

In fact, many of the competitive middle-age runners that I associate with who demonstrate low injury histories appear to have very good genetics. However, some have told me that are using TRT to help with recovery & injury prevention. So, with the explosion of anti-aging therapy (TRT & HGH) with middle-age America, that might in part also explain why some middle-agers seem to be injury free and can train like they did back in HS/college (imagine that. Lol).

I disagree. I've seen Whitlock and other great grand Master runners. You can't be heavy and run well over 50.

I've seen 50+ guys do incredible things, but 50 is the age most runners fall off the cliff.

i only started running at about 52 or 53, and just turned 60. I noticed that at about 58 the PRs were just not coming anymore.

There's a guy on my running club who started really struggling by about 60 or 61, and it's been kind of downhill (worse) for him ever since.

That said, i would say it's possible to hold up really well, and i consider myself in that group. I am hitting mid 40s to 50 miles per week now, and don't suffer from injuries. I will say that i attribute this to spending almost as much time on conditioning as i do on running. And now, when i focus on marathon training, i lay off of any speed work that is faster than a 10k/HM pace. It is my belief that what will kill a 50+ y.o. runner is doing too much mileage with speed work, and not building the conditioning necessary to support it.

I am in that group with a light, lean build, and watch my weight.

But in answer to your question, what used to be fairly easy in my mid-fifties is just about unattainable in my late fifties.

observer of runners wrote:

I disagree. I've seen Whitlock and other great grand Master runners. You can't be heavy and run well over 50.

C'mon man! Whitlock = superb genetics! (and nothing but skin & bones). How many guys in their 70s & 80s are running the kind of times he ran? Very, very few is the answer. All the 70 & 80 year old guys in the Masters running club that I belong to are barely holding on. A lot are injured for most of the year and end up race walking our monthly club races. OA has set in with a lot of these guys including one of the faster 70 yr olds in the region who just had a knee replacement. These cats are always seeing a chiropractic or physical therapist yearly.

Most of these guys are also built similar to Whitlock and are still getting hurt! (I'm shorter than these guys and have 25-30 lbs on them and they're getting hurt as often as I am!). And the ones that can run fairly consistent without too many injuries (small percentage) keep the race distances low in the 5k/10k range - not those crazy marathon distances that Whitlock was doing regularly...and at warp speed nonetheless!!!

Started in the 40s, early to mid 50s about what I expected. mid 60s and slowing way down. More than that, mortality is looming large like a giant black hole with no way out and you sure aren't going to outrun it.

Data: In my mid 40s my 100m time was around 15s, here at 65 it is around 20s. F**k! At that is pretty close to what I usually see, 25 to 33 percent slower across the performance board and it ain't coming back, you just try to slow the slowing down.

Kerplunk wrote:

When I sat on the toilet and my balls went into the drink.

Priceless!!!!

Depends who you ask. The conventional thinking is that our metabolism slow as we age. True, but why? Reduced testosterone is the usual suspect. I don't doubt that, lets not forget forget is that this is part of our NORMAL aging process.

We get older (our testo levels decreases) + we get older muscle mass decreases + amount of fat increases =undesirable BMR and a decrease in your ability to burn more calories. The problem with the latter is this: people do not reduce their caloric intake and keep plunging in the same amount of calories as if their metabolism was able to burn fat at the same rate as before. Reason why they say: " I have gained weight and I am eating the same ". Congrats you just hit the nail on the head! You will have to modify a bit your eating habits.

Yes, all these are contributing factors that make you slower with age.

My recommendation is to try to maintain muscle mass, keep your body fat levels low which should get you to a better BMR that will help you burn more calories. Throw in more weight and strength training (it will help you reduce the risk of injury as you "build" or keep muscle mass), modify your caloric intake...and keep running. I would not cut on the mileage provided the joints permit it. Oh! Painful joints! I forgot that one, yes, about that...bad news...some of us eventually will develop arthritis.

Good luck!

Thanks for all the great replies.

Honestly, it just feels like I'm a bit off kilter, missing something. (I still think my newly-found inability to metabolize alcohol is really strange though.)

I started taking a multivitamin. I added a bit of weight training (which I always do in the winter), mainly body weight & dumb bells. Cut most of the alcohol out of my diet too. I do eat cleaner than most people. Maybe a cheat day with a gas station sandwich here & there.

As I get older, the cold really affects me too. I used to be pretty tough to running in the cold (including wearing shorts in some pretty low temperatures). Now, I'll back away from the door so easily at the thought of running outside.

I haven't experienced any real injuries to speak of [knock of wood]. I wonder if my willingness to go to the chiropractor at the first sign of something helps. Lots of ab & hip strengthening exercises probably helps too.

(I found single leg squats to be really important to my running health. If I don't do them, my back will tighten-up to make me walk like an old man...which means tons of stretching.)

The really sudden--almost overnight--weight gain shocked me! I'm now cutting even more calories from my diet & increasing my running frequency (as the temperatures increase). I think just cutting out the beer to once or twice a week is going to be huge.

observer of runners wrote:

I disagree. I've seen Whitlock and other great grand Master runners. You can't be heavy and run well over 50.

You can't be fat, but you can be muscular. If you look at photos of the top guys age 45+, most are a little more muscular than your typical late 20s elite. I assume this is because they started with a more muscular build, and as loss of muscle mass becomes a factor in middle age, they're losing from a better starting point. The top guys in their 50s at something like club cross nationals are built more like Chris Solinsky than Dathan Ritzenhein.

Whitlock was an obvious outlier in so many ways.

This.

I started at 47, PR’d at 54, stayed on a plateau of sub3 marathons for a while and then started slipping at 57-58. The cliff seems to come at about that age for most — as reflected in race results, which show very few sub3 times 55-60 and almost none after. At 62 now I can still train pretty hard but the pace keeps slowing down.

Winter weight gain is entirely normal across the board, from 15 year olds to 75 year olds. I coach the same kids in both cross country and winter track, and even though they're putting in similar volume, a lot of them are a good five-six pounds heavier in the winter season. Our bodies respond to cold by storing fat.

Best things you can do to fight those effects, if you're willing to put in the effort: 1) take a Vitamin D supplement; 2) make sure you get in a good sweat daily (sometimes hard to do when it's cold out, but possible); 3) reduce total fat intake for the season. Cutting out alcohol will only help, but I doubt the caloric cut will make much of a difference. Focus instead on removing excess dietary fat, while continuing to consume the healthy fats that are still necessary.