Bad Wigins wrote:
LateRunnerPhil wrote:
Here a list of the fastest 5k times and the age in brackets at which they ran it:
Everything drops off by mid-20's. What makes you think that has any more to do with vo2max than flexibility? besides which vo2max is weight-dependent and people gain weight in their 20's - though some don't.
Here's another hypothesis: too many years on the track makes a runner lopsided and destroys their biomechanics.
Some events have more to do with VO2MAX, where the drop-off is most severe than others. Mostly events very close at velocity at VO2MAX, which are mile-5k. You see old people destroy younger ones with higher VO2MAX in Ironman's and marathons.
Older runners become more efficient, so they operate at a higher % of their VO2MAX, even if the max is lower. This doesn't help much in a 3k for example, where everyone is running at roughly 100% VO2MAX.
It's not uncommon for someone to start running in their 30's (Steve Way, Priscilla Welch, Jack Forster, etc...) and become world-class marathoners. However, in a mile or 5k it's impossible, they simply don't have the VO2MAX anymore they could have had. That's why Steve Way often questions how fast he could have been in a 3k or something had he started doing sports earlier in his life.
I agree with you that flexibility might even drop earlier than VO2MAX (gymnasts peak around 15-19), but in running isn't nearly important as VO2MAX.