runners approaching 60 - what has your decline looked like?

Almost all masters distance runners that race competitively, tend to overtrain in terms of volume and undertrain in terms of keeping explosiveness and speed. The runners who have declined the least, are the ones willing to sacrife some volume, so they can get in plyometrics, drills speed work and strength training.

Aa one gets older, recovery becomes a problem. One has to accept that. If one tries to do the same volume and intensity as in our twenties, we are going to get injured or too tired all the time to run well. Unfortunately for most it's the intensity and explosive training that goes.

One has to almost train like the average high schooler, mind you, not the high mileage high schooler. It is perfectly possible to run well on 40 miles a week. Many high schoolers do it all the time with even as little as 25 miles a week. As I have aged, i find that I do not lose aerobic ability as easily as my explosiveness.

One little trick is to really do periodization in earnest, where one runs higher mileage at certain times of the year, but lower mileage with more speed work, drills and strength work, most of the year. But as you workout, always remember that your body does not get better significanlty as you do the work, it's when you rest and recover after the hard work, that the magic happens. Good luck

With respect to their athletic greatness, that sounds like speculation.

In my own case, my HRmax at ~ 35 to 40 was ~ 156. Now at nearly 57 it's ~ 156. No drop in my case.

My resting HR, on the other hand, has changed, increasing with age from a little below 30 to a little over 40. That made a sudden jump upward right around the time my performances fell off the cliff at ~ 45 to 46.

Age 17 4:33 Mile (Senior High School)

Age 40 4:58 Mile (All-comers meet just trying to see if I could still break 5)

Age 58 5:06 Mile 2019 Kalakaua Merrie Mile

Age 60 5:27 Mile 2021 Kalakaua Merrie Mile

Never got that fast, but have managed to hang onto what I had.

156 is an extraordinarily low MHR at 35 to 40. I am 42, and my MHR is around 180, maybe high 170s, which I think is typical. RHR is around 40 and has been as long as I've tracked it. I think what KudzuRunner was saying makes a lot of sense. Perhaps your MHR in your thirties may have been higher than you think?

My parents are on Strava. My mom is probably the source of running talent in our family and walks very briskly (13-14 mpm at nearly age 80) around her very hilly neighborhood every day. But her heartrate doesn't really exceed 130 or so. 220-age is certainly imperfect but the general rule of losing 1 bpm per year is probably roughly accurate.

That seems like a precipitous falloff if you haven't gained weight or gotten hurt. But maybe what stands out most is how fast you were at 50!

My decline:

4:18 mile @ 17

30-year hiatus from competition

4:52 @ 38

15-year parenting hiatus

23:00 @ 53

20:00 @ 54

19:55 @ 55

19:30 @ 56

20:30 @ 57 so far

There have been stretches when I've been 3 or 4 minutes off my best times of the year, but they've always been clearly linked to injury. Most recently a torn labrum felt like it had ended my running career, but it seems to have mostly worked itself out after about 6 months of doing almost nothing. I haven't ruled out breaking 19:00 altogether, but we'll have to see if the hip can take more miles first.

Good luck, old-timers!

If it wasn't obvious, I've moved up in distance in my 50s :)

Well, maybe the best thing for a young runner is high force and a light skeleton. And your low force production on a sturdy skeleton may keep you bulletproof

50: 2:18/5:14 800/mile
60: 2:31/5:55

Nope, I knew it then with very high confidence. I have not tested it as rigorously lately but I’ve seen 154-156 during very intense exercise recently.

Rules of thumb for resting and max HR are just that and I’ve always been a bit of an outlier on both counts. The lack of decline in HRmax has surprised me a bit, I’ll admit. And my own personal experience doesn’t prove or disprove a rule, I’m just sharing a data point, is all.

2.13 marathon at age 32.

2.30 at age 62.

I wonder what he knows that you aging warriors don't.

alcoholic 😹

Now age 55

estimates:

5k times

18: 16:15 lifetime PR

25: 17:30

35: 17:15

45: 17:15

55: 18:20

I'm definitely slowing down. But my age graded scores have been rising over time, so I have to be pleased with that. I seem to be holding onto speed better than many.

17 38:23 10K
29: 42:50 10K
38: 32:00 5K (got way out of shape 10K likely would have been 65 minutes plus)
40: 42:09 10K
41: 41:10 10K
42: 38:58 10K
44: 36:14 10K

I was thinking about him when I read this thread. Whatever the reason may be, he is clearly not aging the way everyone else here is. I also read that he runs more miles now than he did when he was younger. He goes as high as 120 for his marathon training.

completely irrelevant to a thread about runners "approaching 60"

you've got a long way to go

So how does that make you run faster?

It depends on how you define approaching. I ran my first 10K at age 9 I am far closer to 60 than I am to 9 or when I ran track in high school.

Approaching M64 now. 5'6.5", 137-139 lbs

22-27 y.o. 15:0х 5к (not in competitions/races, but just solo trials because my sport was orienteering)

42 17:58

Up to 60 was running 15-20 mpw and gained some 30 lbs vs 40 y.o. myself. Learned about "age groups” and was interested to see where I was. Was negatively surprised that was not able to maintain the 4:30 min/km pace and made 5k at 23:1х. After that started training more consistently staying in the range of 30-35 mpw. The results started improving:
60 23:1x
61 19:56
62 19:29
63 18:53

64 ??
Like for many here, injuries are the main limiting factor. Cardiovascular systems is “ahead of legs”.