Training and Racing: Getting Better With Age By Tom Kaufman One of the great things about our sport is that you can continue to challenge yourself regardless of your age. Indeed, as we get older, one of
the biggest challenges is to stay healthy enough to continue to train and race as much as we wish. Adapting to the inevitable changes in leg speed, muscular strength and flexibility as we age is paramount if we want to continue to enjoy our running. Accepting these changes can be much more difficult.  This year I moved into a new age group; in fact, a
new decade. This was a change that I had been eagerly anticipating. While I enjoy head to head competition, it gets tough when the guys you are racing are 5, 10 or even 20 or 25 years younger than you are. I would find myself comparing times with runners and skiers one or two years older than me, just to see how I would do when I got there. The move up in age groups puts me in the enviable position of being the youngest person in "my" race.
It's a funny thing about age. The young high school runners that I coach can't wait to get older. In their situations, age brings added strength, speed and an increased tolerance for work. I watch these young athletes and marvel at their growing abilities. Yet these boys watch masters runners and at times they marvel at the older athletes' staying power, stamina and continued competitiveness. Sure, the older runners can't hit
the 400 meter interval times they once could, but years of training has left many of the masters with an improved ability to handle consistent volume and day to day training. In absolute terms, aging does not enhance our running abilities beyond our late 20s. We begin to lose muscle mass and flexibility as we enter our 30s. This loss is slow at first, but accelerates as we get older. The
loss in lean tissue (muscle) goes hand in hand with a decrease in VO2 max, our ability to utilize oxygen during aerobic exercise. Compounding this situation is the usual increase in body fat associated with aging. More fat, less muscle, reduced flexibility and a decreased ability to utilize oxygen paints a pretty bleak picture. Yet many of us have our best running and racing years in our 40s, 50s and even 60s and beyond.
Many factors contribute to successful running and racing. As we get older, we just have to be smarter about our routines. Some runners first discover the sport after age 40. While these athletes may not have the power they had 20 years earlier, they also are at the bottom of their own running curve. My father, now deceased, ran his fastest marathon at age 50 in the Paavo Nurmi Marathon on an 80 degree day. His 2:58:20 would be an admirable achievement at any age. That it came as a 50
year old was even more remarkable. However, my father was only in his seventh year of running at the time, having smoked until his early 40s.
Running regularly has a cumulative effect on our fitness levels. Runners who begin to train when they are older can reasonably expect to have some of their best results five to 10 years down the road. Yes, they may not run the times they would have had they begun in their 20s, but they
will see improvement as they age simply because their overall fitness levels are getting better.
But what of the rest of us? Personally, I am entering my 36th year of running and competing. I long ago stopped getting faster. Many of you reading this column are likely in the same situation; your fastest and strongest days are behind you. Yet you continue to run with a passion because you love it. Most of the masters runners continue to train
because of the pleasure they derive from the activity. The feeling of moving along the road or trail powered only by your essence; your heart, lungs, muscles and mind is empowering.
Psychologists have spoken for years about the release of the pleasure producing endorphins that come after 20 40 minutes of running. Yet the committed older runner has long since stopped being concerned with endorphins. We run because it is part of who we are. We run because it
is something we have always done and something we hope we will always do. We run because it has become a part of our lifestyle and a part of our life. Masters runners don't identify themselves as runners, because they don't need to. We know who we are, we know why we run, and that's as much as we need. Let others describe us as "that crazed runner person" (as a friend of my wife recently did when introducing me to someone). We don't need the label anymore. It's
simple; we run because we love it.
The difficulty arises when we can't run. Injuries become more frequent as we age and take longer to heal. The difficulty arises when we can't complete a race as quickly as we once could and we can't accept it. The difficulty arises when we realize that we are getting older and are unwilling to adjust our expectations. The cause of these difficulties, as well as the solution, is time. We need to give ourselves more time: more
time to recover from hard racing and training efforts, more time to stretch to prevent injuries, more time to finish our races and workouts, more time to savor our accomplishments.
Age group competition is the answer for some. We line up and race, not only with the youngsters, but with others in the same situations as ourselves. We have to work our training around job and family responsibilities. Yet the thrill of racing provides for some the incentive to
complete speed sessions, long runs, hill workouts and tempo runs.
We just need to train with a discerning eye. It becomes more important than ever to know when to go hard and when to back off. Getting older won't prevent us from training hard; we just need a bit more time between high intensity workouts. Recovery days are critical.
Likewise, a regular flexibility routine becomes of greater necessity as we move up in the age brackets. We need to find a system that works for
us. We may not have time to go to a yoga class twice a week (unless we want to give up a run on those days), but we must make time to stretch regularly. The cumulative effect of years and miles will tighten and shorten our muscles. Regular flexibility work will help to fend off those injury bugs that threaten to interrupt our pursuit of the sport we love.
One of the hardest things for me to accept is the fact that I can't run as
fast as I could 10 years ago. I don't feel any different in a race or a workout; I am just slower. I know this is inevitable, but I have tried to take steps to retard the process. Regular speed sessions are critical if you want to try to maintain as much leg speed as possible. Twenty five years ago I could get away with racing and avoiding any specific speed work. Not so any longer. Speed sessions can take place on a track, the
road or a trail. There is not space to lay out an entire regimen of speed oriented workouts. Suffice it to say that you have to run fast. Regular up tempo training will enable you to handle faster race paces and retard the loss of speed resulting from age. The key is allowing adequate warmup, cool down and recovery time.
Older runners should plan their workouts to allow as much time for warmup as they do for the actual speed session. The warmup must
include a gradual build up in speed as well as simple slow running. The runner who does not build their running speed during their warmup is courting injury. A warmup that works well will include two to three miles of easy running, followed by 10 minutes of stretching, and finishing with one mile that incorporates six to eight 100 meter strides of gradually increasing speed.
If tragedy strikes and an injury does occur, the older runner needs to
expect that recovery will take a bit longer than it used to. Common sense, ice and a degree of patience will be excellent rehab tools. Remember that training is cumulative. You may lose a bit of an edge while rehabbing an injury, but 20 years of training will not be lost in two weeks.
In 36 years of running I have covered a lot of ground (some of it over and over and over again). I'm not sure that I will be able to run for
another 36 years but I, like you, plan to stay at it for as long as I can. I can't wait to see what this new age group holds. Hopefully we will all be joyously pounding out our miles for a long time to come. Good running to you.
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