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Aging and Performance Print E-mail

In February, the bloggers at The Science of Sport (www.sportsscientists.com/) started a multi-part series on Exercise and Aging.  The immediate impetus for the series was recent news that a 60-year-old Japanese runner had run 2:36:30, setting a new single-age world record for the marathon.  This set the authors to pondering what it is that allows one Japanese 60-year old to run a 2:36 marathon or Canadian Ed Whitlock to run sub-3 hour marathons at ages 72, 73 & 74 while the rest of us struggle to keep running, much less break 3 hours.

In Part 1 of the series, the authors look at some case histories of world record holders.  The following table oversimplifies the slowdown in world record times that occurs with each age decade.

Decline 2.5% 8.3% 13.5% 14%
Decade 30 - 40 40 - 50 50 - 60 60 - 70

Those of us nearing retirement age who have been runners for several decades know all too well that the decline in our performance has accelerated as we have gotten older.  In our 40’s on a good day we could still run with the younger folks in the Open categories.  Sometime in our 50’s we realized that those days were gone.Another interesting finding from looking at single-age world records… the authors found at least six cases where an athlete holds three or four records for consecutive years and then suddenly disappears.  Those who held records at 25 or 30 do not hold records for older age groups; those who held records at 40 do not set records at 60.  The authors conclude that the ability to sustain great performances is limited.  At the very highest level, the window is often only a few years during which the runner is able to reach a peak that enables a world record to be set.  This isn’t an effect of aging; rather too many other factors intervene… nagging injuries, accumulated fatigue, lost motivation, life changes, etc.  Of these, motivation may be the most significant factor.  The grind and discipline required from training can be too demanding to sustain.

Career Patterns
Barry Erickson and I were discussing the Aging and Performance series (www.sportsscientists.com/) during the Around the Bay Run.  Picking up on the finding that the very fastest runners are only on top for a few years, we got to talking the shape of our own “running careers.”  While we both started running in our 30’s and have never stopped running, our competitive careers followed different patterns.

Plateau.  Barry’s career followed what I would guess is a fairly typical plateau pattern:  start running, get fit, reach a high personal level of performance and compete at that level of performance for perhaps 5-10 years.  This period of high performance eventually ends due to injury or life changes or loss of motivation, etc.  The runner then either switches to another sport like cycling, continues running non-competitively or stops running entirely.

Multiple Comebacks.  My own career is characterized by multiple comebacks.  I switched to running after 4 years of bike racing and quickly reached a personal high level of performance.   After about 3 years of training too hard and racing too frequently, I was cooked.  Three years later, the hunger had returned; I got fit and was competitive for another 3-4 years before my motivation again lagged.   Since then I’ve had a couple more comebacks lasting 2-3 years, each ended by some combination of loss of motivation, nagging injuries or life changes (job changes, moves, children, becoming a race director.).Over the years I have been personally frustrated that I haven’t been able to stick with the grind and stay race fit for more than a few years at a time.  In hindsight, there may have been a disguised blessing in that the off years gave my body a chance to recover so I could train and race hard during each comeback.

Other Patterns.  Did you race at a high level in high school or college and then come back to the sport 30 years later?  Have you managed to train and race at a high level for years and don’t expect to stop anytime soon?  What’s been the pattern of your running career?  Send me a mail note and I’ll add your example to the online version of this post.

 

Age Graded Scoring of Multiple Comebacks

I got curious and pulled out some marathon times from some of my multiple comebacks.  It turns out that with my primary racing focus being on ultras since 1981, I’ve actually only run a few hard marathons while race fit.  The table below lists the memorable ones I could easily find in my old training diaries.  The Age-Performance % is from the WMA Age-Grading Calculator at: http://www.howardgrubb.co.uk/athletics/wmalookup06.html   

 Age    Marathon Time   Age-Performance % 
31 2:50:08 73.4%
43 2:58:03 73.7%
56 3:19:28 73.9%

I find it interesting how close each of these fast marathons is in Age-Performance %.  At least for this runner, the times validate the predictive power of the WMA Age-Graded Scoring Calculator.  I also looked at some of my best ultras over the last 25 years.  Those races tended to scored two or three percentage points higher than my best marathons (e.g., 76.7% for a 100K in 8:11:33 at age 44 and 75.5% for 100K in 9:15:57 at age 56).  This isn’t surprising because since 1981 I’ve been more motivated to train for and run the ultras. 

Sticking my neck out a bit, if I can get fit and thin like I was in 2001, these data suggest it won’t be unrealistic to shoot for a 3:39 marathon at age 65 next year.  
 
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