When does a marathon runner usually peak?

[dave rockness]

I noticed the winner of the women's marathon was a 38-year-old.  Is she just a freak of nature or is it possible for a person to reach a peak in their late 30's early 40's (assuming they are advanced runners).  Also, for a person who does not begin the discipline of running until later in life (late 20's to early 40's), is this an overall advantage or disadvantage (obviously less development and experience, yet perhaps less "wear and tear")? 

[Sasha Pachev]

It is not a freak of nature. Carlos Lopez set the world record at the age of 37. I've met numerous runners that did not PR until turning masters age. There are two main reasons the myth of age still persists:

* people get tired of running competitively and do not train as seriously anymore as they get older
* poor health habits result in premature aging

Now here is a a curve ball to trip the myth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlene_Ottey

At the age of 44 she made the Olympic semil-final in 100 meter dash, and was only 0.03 off from making the final. Her time was 11.21. Her life time PR is 10.88. At the age of 48 she ran 11.83. Now we are talking TOP END SPEED digression of somebody who used to be FAST , not the marathon speed!

A good site to get an idea of what a senior athlete can do:

http://www.mastersathletics.net/

[Bonnie]

I am sorry Sasha, but laziness or unwillingness to compete just does not cut it as the main reason reason that runners are slower as they age. Physiologically, you lose muscle mass as you age proven by many studies; additionally, the risk of injury is much greater, especially for those who have been running for many years (see Noake, Daniels, and just about every running book out there).  Dean has been running competitively for over 30 years (in high school, in college, and afterward).  At 49 he simply can't train the same way he could at 29 - and it is simply not because he doesn't want to train hard, he does, running is like brushing his teeth every day for him.  Because he has run competitively for so long his health habits are actually quite good, so that just doesn't cut it either.  He can still run well (he was 2nd masters in the Big Sur 1/2 last year with a 1:19) but he can't touch the times he could run when he was in peak shape (low to mid 15's for 5K).

I am not saying that people can't run well as they age -- but IN GENERAL (on average if you will) they simply can't compete with folks that are younger.  This is especially true for mid-to-late 40's and beyond.  Attributing this lack of ability to laziness (in training or competing) or not taking care of oneself just is not fair.

The ability to "PR" when you are older is the exception not the rule - especially for competitive runners.

[Jon Allen]

I once saw an in depth analysis of the average age of marathon world record holders (past and present) and Olympian marathoners.  Avg age was 26-28, I think, though not an even bell curve- there were a lot more on the high end (older) then the low end (younger).  I think they concluded the average elite runner peaks in their late 20's, though there are many who perform very well into their low-to-mid 30's.  They also found it differed by country of origin by a few years.  There are a few who do well up till mid-40's.  Endurance athletes generally age more gracefully (performance wise) than sprinters, etc.  This especially true for runners who started running relatively late and have fewer miles on their bodies.

Bonnie is correct, though, that you do slow as you age- no one would claim that an 80 year old is slower just because of poor health habits and lack of training.  So somewhere between 25-80, you start to slow down.  From what I see, injury, longer recovery times, loss of muscle mass, loss of speed, loss of aerobic capacity, etc. all contribute.

Sure, there are a few individuals who continue to perform well like Sasha pointed out, but if the peak for the elites is 20's-low 30's, then I'm sure the general population is similar.

[Paul Petersen]

Noakes has some analysis of this in Lore of Running, as I recall. Looking at all Olympic Champions, and other champions, your average elite runner in his/her late 20s.

Obviously there are plenty of masters and sub-masters runners that still win big events, and still perform at a very high level well into their 40s. I think we can look at people such as the women's Olympic marathon champ, Dara Torres (41 yr old swimmer), and others as examples and inspirations to keep healthy and keep the fire alive. Locally, we can look to the Simonaitis' for this.

That said, everyone hits a breaking point where performance plummets. For many elites, they become crippled by injuries sometime in their late 30s (or earlier). Other just decline for no good reason other than age. Sasha's sprinter example is perfect: Merlene Ottey was competitive on the world stage at age 44. Just 4 years later, she had declined by over 0.6 seconds. In the 100m, that is HUGE. Still fast, yes, but no longer competitive at the Olympic level.

[dave rockness]

I find this all very interesting...thank you for the informational insights!

[Sasha Pachev]

Bonnie:

I would agree with you that it would be difficult to beat a high quality "youth" PR set between the ages of 20 and 45 at the age of 80 :-) After all God did not give us immortal bodies, and at some unspecified but somewhat predicable point they will age and die so we can return to His presence and receive new resurrected bodies that  are immortal. They will age no more and will not be subject to the ailments of our current existence.

However, one reason we have a mortal body on the earth is to learn how to make it last. As we fight the inevitable aging process our spirit grows and becomes more prepared for its future mission. Thinks of it as a form of hill training.

My point, nevertheless, still remains. Because the majority of the population have extremely poor health habits, the aging curve discovered in scientific studies is skewed towards the negative. If you want to know what you can expect from aging you should pay more attention to the few examples of those who really honestly and very consistently tried to age slower whose life you know very well than a study that picked who they could and possibly did not thoroughly survey that thoroughly.