Beginnings, Part 2

Masters Running: A Guide to Running and Staying Fit After 40
by Hal Higdon

(Page 2 of 2)

AGING GRACEFULLY

If we did not slow as we aged, there would be no reason for a masters movement. If Sir Roger Bannister still were able to run 4-minute miles in his seventies as he had in his twenties, why establish a separate competitive group in that or any other age category? The fact that the world record for the mile has dropped nearly 20 seconds in the half-century since Bannister first broke the 4-minute barrier begs the question. Runners do get slower as they age. Throwers no longer can throw as far. Jumpers fail to jump as high. The citius, altius, fortius motto of the Olympic Games turns backward on us as we move from our thirties into our forties and fifties, then into our sixties and seventies and beyond. No more is it possible to seek the Olympian goal of faster, higher, stronger. And you don't have to be politically incorrect to note that women move in different orbits than men, their performances almost universally 11 percent slower in events as diverse as the 100 meters and the marathon. As masters statisticians have proved, that's true of women of all ages.

The secret of success in masters competition is to age more slowly than the other competitors in your age division.

Motivation certainly plays an important part. Sociology also intrudes, because not everybody possesses the wherewithal or the time to train diligently several hours a day. But often we are what we make ourselves. Certainly that was true for me, somewhat of a late bloomer in the world of athletics. Only in my mid-twenties did I begin to realize my potential as a track athlete. A switch to the roads near age 30 failed partly because I did not yet understand what training worked best to run 26 miles 385 yards. Neither did many of my competitors in that era before magazines such as Runner's World appeared to serve as both conduits of information and promoters of a growing sport. In a sense, many runners my age were part of a lost generation until the masters movement arrived to offer us motivation to train harder and overcome the failures of our youth. Certainly that was true for the women of my generation, including my female classmates at Carleton, who had relatively few sports activities. The cross-country course on campus passed the large sports field, where women played field hockey in the fall, but after that if you were a woman and wanted some exercise, you had to hope someone asked you to dance. At the first World Masters Championships in Toronto in 1975, only a few women daring enough to admit they were older than 35 appeared. Even today, 3 decades later, women masters competitors lag in numbers behind the men, particularly in the age groups beyond 55.

8 WEEKS TO YOUR FIRST 5-K

In recent years, the 5-K has emerged as America's favorite road racing distance, both for masters and younger runners. One reason is that the 5-K is easily accessible to people just like you, who want to participate in an organized event. Even marathoners like to run 5-Ks as a test of their speed and fitness. If you're not used to metric measurements, 5-K stands for 5 kilometers, or 5000 meters, or 3.1 miles. Following is an 8-week program from my Beginning Runner's Guide, for your third phase of conditioning, culminating with a 5-K race. After running a 5-K, many runners race no more-or enter organized races only sporadically, maybe once a year. Others run more often, because they enjoy organized competition, even if they have no desire to run fast. Many noncompetitive runners like the carnival atmosphere of races and the camaraderie displayed by other middle-of-the-pack runners. Running races and earning more T-shirts becomes part of their social lives. You can race as often or as little as you like. And you might want to shift from the road to the track and enter a 5000-meter race in a masters track meet. The choice is up to you.

Week Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun 1 Rest or Jog/run 1.5-mi run Rest or Jog/run 1.5-mi run Rest 1.5-mi run 60-min walk 2 Rest or Jog/run 1.75-mi run Rest or Jog/run 1.5-mi run Rest 1.75-mi run 60-min walk 3 Rest or Jog/run 2-mi run Rest or Jog/run 1.5-mi run Rest 2-mi run 60-min walk 4 Rest or Jog/run 2.25-mi run Rest or Jog/run 1.5-mi run Rest 2.25-mi run 60-min walk 5 Rest or Jog/run 2.5-mi run Rest or Jog/run 2-mi run Rest 2.5-mi run 60-min walk 6 Rest or Jog/run 2.75 run Rest or Jog/run 2-mi run Rest 2.75-mi run 60-min walk 7 Rest or Jog/run 3-mi run Rest or Jog/run 2-mi run Rest 2.75-mi run 60-min walk 8 Rest or Jog/run 3-mi run Rest or Jog/run 2-mi run Rest or jog/run Rest 5-K race

Yet some of my best performances occurred in my mid- to upper forties as motivation and training knowledge merged to allow me to ignore the ravages of time. I ran my second fastest marathon at age 49 while winning a world title in my (M45) age group.

Still, I fully realized that my triumph was temporary. You can fool neither Mother Nature nor Father Time. As I moved into my fifties, I retained the ability to finish first in an occasional local race, but I could no longer stay close in major road races and track meets, unless those events were limited to masters runners. As age caused my times to slow, my motivation diminished somewhat, too. I had been willing to run 100 miles a week to win world titles in my forties, but by my fifties and sixties such effort seemed excessive for someone with a busy life away from running. Priorities change. Also, as I aged and my times inevitably slowed, I realized that more and harder training was not always the answer. It was no longer possible for me to match early-career workouts.

I also had to recognize that decline was an inevitable fact of life. Although no categories existed for masters athletes in the ancient Olympic Games, the Greek philosopher Plato understood that we slowed as we aged. Plato wrote: "Though indeed we may pretend that a person lives and is the same from birth until death, in actual fact he never is exactly in the same condition with the same properties, since everything in him is in a constant state of decay and renewal-his hair, his flesh, his warmth, his blood, and, in short, his whole body; and not only his body, but his soul, his habits, manners and customs, his opinions, wants and desires . . . all are in a constant state of flux, waxing and waning all the time."

THE DECLINE

In Fitness after Forty (a book published in 1977 as the masters movement was just getting under way), I described how the human body both developed and deteriorated, beginning with the ovum that begins growing within a mother's womb. In the first few weeks, muscles and connective tissues materialize in the mesoderm; the skin and nervous system develop in the ectoderm; the gastrointestinal tract forms in the endoderm. All through childhood to and after puberty, boys and girls develop into men and women.

"Age 26 is the point-theoretical at least-when the human body has reached its prime," I wrote, "the time at which athletes reach their peak. This point starts the decline, a steady deterioration of the body systems, which eventually results in so-called old age, and death. The slope of the decline is difficult to recognize at first, but it soon turns more steeply downward. It takes a quarter-century for the body to develop its fullest potential, and it takes approximately two more quarter-centuries (according to current actuarial tables) for that body to deteriorate to a point where it no longer functions."

Those words were written when I was 46, when my best performances were behind me. I was suffering from, and confessing to, the inevitable decline that all masters runners must face if we wish to continue in our sport.

At some point, improvement will continue only if you learn how to run smarter.

"Everyone must slow down sometime," states Joe Henderson, coauthor of Masters Running and Racing, "and even if masters runners are still racing as fast as ever, they're probably recovering more slowly."

Aware of this, I am somewhat more sanguine about my thoughts on decline writing in my seventies than I was writing in my forties. I've learned from experiencing the changes that occur with so-called old age. Yes, we decline, but we decline as masters athletes at a much, much slower rate than we would without the benefits of exercise and good nutritional habits.

"The body continues to develop through life," suggested Jay Berkelheimer, M.D., a pediatrician with the University of Chicago Hospitals. "Although you reach some point in time when all systems start to degenerate, it is arbitrary when that occurs. It probably occurs between 25 and 30 years of life, but there also must be a period when you can maintain your physical capabilities, and that could extend for a long time."

ESSENTIALS OF SUCCESS

If you want to become a masters runner, here are the essentials for success. 1. Start to train. You can't become a masters runner unless you begin. Set a goal for success. Get out and start running today. 2. Train more. Almost every training program, whether for the 5-K or the marathon, is based on gradually but consistently increasing the level of stress over a period of weeks and months. Train harder, and you'll run faster. 3. Train smarter. Running more and more miles each day in training will only take you so far. You also need to learn how to structure and maximize your training to achieve results. 4. Learn when to rest. This is particularly important for masters runners. Taking a day off now and then, or switching to different exercises, will allow you to minimize injuries and thus continue your success.

Athletes in different sports seem to mature at different ages, but this may be for sociological reasons as much as physiological reasons. "Swimmers mature very early," I wrote in Fitness after Forty, "reaching top levels in their early teens. Yet few of them continue to improve beyond their late teens. Sprinters in track achieve peak performances at age 22; milers at age 25; middle-distance runners at age 27; and longdistance runners at age 29. Only rare athletes succeed in Olympic competition into their thirties."

As I aged and my times inevitably slowed, I realized that more and harder training was not always the answer.

Those words have come back to haunt me, because during the 3 decades since they were written, more and more sprinters have continued to compete at the topmost level of their sport past age 22. Olympic champion Carl Lewis continued to win gold medals into his thirties. Jamaican Merlene Ottey barely lost a step from her sprint speed all through her thirties and ran a remarkable 11.22 for 100 meters at age 43.

A simple explanation exists for this sudden shift in peak performance: money! Beginning in the early 1980s, the organizations that governed the sports of track and field and road running began to allow once-amateur athletes to accept prize money for their victories. (Prior to that time, any money that passed from race directors to athletes was done "under the table.") Motivated by the opportunity to make a living through their athletic ability, runners began to push back the age barriers by training with both greater intensity and intelligence for longer periods of time. This allowed them to prolong the period when they could achieve peak performance, flattening the bell-shaped curve of athletic development and decline.

Nor was improvement limited to Olympic athletes. More "ordinary" athletes found themselves capable of extraordinary achievements. David L. Costill, Ph.D., former director of the Human Performance Laboratory at Ball State University, had middling success as a swimmer while in college at Ohio University, placing 13th in the 200 individual medley at the 1958 National AAU Championships with a time of 2:23.3. While making his mark as a scientist in his twenties and thirties, Dr. Costill ran marathons for competition and recreation. He ran a personal record time of 3:16:32 at age 46, far from the Olympic standard, but good enough to qualify him for the Boston Marathon. Returning to swim competition as a master, Dr. Costill not only bettered his collegiate time with a 2:16.4, but he eventually also won 24 National Masters Championships in a half-dozen different events.

"Our concepts of aging and athletes are going to change," Thomas Bassler, M.D., had predicted in 1977. I quoted Dr. Bassler, a Los Angeles area physician who was president of the American Medical Joggers Association, when I wrote Fitness after Forty. He continued: "We may find out that the peak in performance may be around 29, but the slope afterward is not as steep as we think it may be."

© 2005 by Hal Higdon. All rights reserved. No Part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any other information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

About the Author

Hal Higdon is the author of Run Fast, Marathon, and Fitness After Forty. In one of his wins, he set a world record that a quarter of a century later remains the American masters record.