Breaking PRs after 50

Please provide examples wrote:

pastmaster wrote:

I was doing that up to age 45 and then got lazy. Yes, it's possible to set PRs at 50 I'm sure, and good ones too. But you have to be super motivated. Ignore the naysayers, they are talking about themselves.

OK you set a PR at 45, at what distance/surface and how many years between 18 and 44 did you clock a time at the event?

PS if you weren't already competing at 18 don't bother replying as your data sucks.

The World Over 50 Record is 2:19:29 by Titus Mamabolo of South Africa in 1991. Mamabolo had been a fast runner on the track who retired in the mid-1970s and came back about 10 years later.

The American Over 50 Record (All Conditions) is 2:24:08 (Mbarak Hussein in 2015). He had a lifetime PR of 2:08:10.

The American Over 50 Record (Record Eligible Course) is 2:29:11 by Norm Green in 1984. Norm also ran a 2:25:52 on a non-record eligible course. I think these are his PRs because my understanding is that he quit competition as a college student in the 1950s and came back 30 years later.

In other words, a low 2:30s marathon for a 50 year old would be pretty remarkable.

I'm 49 and had two really bad races so far this year with good mileage but a cold each time, so I have definitely had the thought that it's not going to happen for me any more, but given some workouts earlier in the year, I believe still that with the right kind of training and training partners again, which I've lacked for the most part the past few years, I can still pr at multiple distances in the next couple years. I was injured until my late thirties and so missed out on the classic pr ages but pr'd many times since.

Take a distance like the mile or 5000m. I still believe that I could pr there because I haven't really done specific training for either, especially the mile, having concentrated on high mileage and not nearly enough speed. In the half, I've arguably been in shape to get my pr easily several times in my mid to late forties but got sick or injured. And in the marathon, I didn't maximize my ability four years ago when I pr'd , because I stupidly didn't train enough in my marathon shoes, and raced a hard race only six days out, so I had sore calves in the marathon. But I'll admit that as your body loses muscle and your max heart rate goes down, it's going to be awfully difficult to break pr's set in your 20s, 30s, or even 40s unless you've just started running seriously.

The only way to break lifetime pr’s at 50 is if you didn’t run high school or open.

Otherwise it’s just BS blather.

So stop.

I bet there are a lot of marathoners in their 50s who could set a PR for 27 miles.

Yes, you can set a lifetime PR in your fifties if:

A: you were not a serious runner in your younger years

B: run a distance you have never run before

We are talking about people who carried on running. That's what takes its toll. Doing a bit, stopping for THIRTY YEARS then pr'ing? gimme a break.

When you've pounded the block for decade after decade and then set prs in your 50s please get back to us.

If someone was a quality runner in their youth I would find it very hard to believe. Now if you had gotten injured and gave up the sport maybe. At 50 I have still been able to do 23 proper pull-ups, bench press 200lbs and my only PB after 50 is deadlift which I didn't do before i turned 50 which is 280. I will shoot for 16:45 5k and 9:30 3k in the next several months but oh so far from my personal best but good goals i guess!

Damn...you're dropping down pretty rapidly in just 2 yrs for mid-40s (wait to you hit 50 and you might not be able to break 19 like I couldn't after breaking 18 a year earlier!).

The truth about turning 50....... wrote:

I set my 12 hour run pr when I was 52.

When I was 50, I almost set my 5k pr from high school. I only missed it by 3 minutes.

Well done on the 12hr. OP, find obscure distances/events which you've never run and you can break PRs. Have you raced 100m? 24 hours?

Only if you were very undertrained through your 20s, 30s and 40s can you break PRs after 50. Maybe you ran one bad marathon etc. If you started running in your 30s, were a hobby jogger running twice a week for 20 years, yes you can run PRs after 50.

Please provide examples wrote:

pastmaster wrote:

I was doing that up to age 45 and then got lazy. Yes, it's possible to set PRs at 50 I'm sure, and good ones too. But you have to be super motivated. Ignore the naysayers, they are talking about themselves.

OK you set a PR at 45, at what distance/surface and how many years between 18 and 44 did you clock a time at the event?

PS if you weren't already competing at 18 don't bother replying as your data sucks.

3000 m in 8.53 ran 6 1/2 laps on my own meters and 800 meters on the track. I also won a 5000 in a decent time (for me) 15.38 2 hours after the 800.

I always ran but didn't race seriously from age 16 to age 33. I raced and ran a lot from age 33 to 48 but age 45 was my best year with 9 wins out of about 15 races. After that I got lazy and didn't train enough to improve.

I'm 55 now and I can still bike uphil at the same pace as when I was bike racing in my 20s, but I'm not so taken with the idea of cross training as other posters here. Running is running, biking is biking. To race well after 50 I would have had to maintain the same training as I did at 45. I didn't because I wasn't motivated. No injuries, no health problems, just not enough training made me slower.