Getting older, getting slower, but still hanging in there.

*TRR Coach Mike Urbanski running strong at age 77.*

When I was 36 years old, I ran my marathon PR of 2:32.8, and aging as a runner was far from my mind. Now, forty-one years later, even though I have never stopped training and racing, breaking 4 hours is an accomplishment.

The Realities of Aging as a Runner: Acknowledgment, Acceptance, Action

When I started coaching high school distance runners forty years ago, my fastest athletes could not keep up with me. When I retired from coaching high school last year, I couldn’t keep up with my slowest runners. ( I finally bought a bike!)

The slow but steady decline in my speed and strength, particularly when I reached my 50s, was hard to swallow. As a coach, I knew the science and what happens to the body as we age. Intellectually, I understood what was happening. The emotional and psychological effects were a whole other story.

It’s taken me a long time to come to terms with becoming an older runner. Now having weathered it, I can pass along a few tips to runners who are past their PR time of life. (Of course, if you just started running as a 50 or 60 year old, you probably have some PRs ahead of you, but your experience will eventually be the same as those of us who have been running since our teen or young adult years).

Tips for Dealing with the Psychological and Emotional Impacts of the Decline:

The self-talk mantra. “There aren’t too many 77-year-olds out here today working as hard as I am.”
Appreciating the good feelings. Consciously acknowledge how good it feels after that first mile, as the body warms up and any aches and pains go away.
Racing. Stoking the ever-present competitive fires and working to place in my age group helps me maintain motivation even as I slow down. And then celebrating if my time in this year’s race was not much slower than last year’s.
Encouraging other runners when training or racing. When I am doing a tempo or fartlek workout – working pretty hard – and someone blows by me, sometimes I’d like to say “I used to be able to kick your butt” but I end up saying “Looking strong!” Just like expressing gratitude makes you feel better, telling another running that he/she is looking good, raises your spirit.
Relishing the satisfaction that comes from doing something hard. Finishing a race or a workout, I am still flooded with the same feelings of total exhaustion and accomplishment that I had 60 years ago. Those feelings never change, even as an aging runner, and being aware of them is always a mental boost.

Of course, the psychological stress of aging is a result of the physiological changes that occur in our bodies.

Physiological Changes Impacting Aging as a Runner

It’s common knowledge what happens as we get older: (these are just a handful of the most noticeable changes)

Declining “aerobic horsepower”. VO2max declines about 10 percent per decade after age 30. Our maximum heart rate begins to drop about one beat per minute each year.
Aging muscles become less adept at using oxygen.
Loss of muscle mass and strength begins happening around the age of 40, speeding up particularly after 65. Fast twitch muscles seem to deteriorate faster than slow twitch.
We begin to lose some flexibility and experience a loss of range of motion. When muscles are tight, we limit our power base and running efficiency.

Three generations of Urbanski men after running a Turkey Trot together. Proof that aging as a runner doesn't mean no racing! — *Three generations of Urbanski men after running a Turkey Trot together. Proof that aging as a runner doesn’t mean no racing!*

Tips for Slowing Down the Effects of Aging as a Runner

So, can we slow down this inevitable process? Definitely. Here are some well-researched ways to do that:

To slow down the VO2max decline, do at least one fast workout a week. Train hard at your 2 mile or 5K race pace. Try to get your heart rate up to 90% of its maximum.
Race more! Young, competitive athletes usually need to race less, but aging runners get more benefit from racing at shorter distances more frequently. Shorter races are great opportunities to get in your higher intensity running, helping preserve your fast twitch muscle fibers and muscle efficiency. The “use it or lose it” paradigm applies here.
Strength training is critical. Lift weights or do a regimen of body weight exercises at least twice a week. This is essential to mitigate the age-related loss muscle mass and strength. Mix in some high intensity workouts that elevate your heart rate and challenge your cardiovascular system.
Stretch! Do yoga, balance exercises, use a foam roller every day to work your lower body in particular.
Run less! I thought I would never say this, but add some cross training a couple of times a week. As well as recovering from your runs, this gives you a great opportunity to work different muscles. My training plan currently includes running, cycling, strength training, yoga, and a stair stepper. (I obviously do more than one type of workout on some days). This cross training has made me stronger, faster, and more recovered for my runs.
Recover more! Remember, often “less is more”- especially when it comes to mileage for an aging runner. Adequate recovery is critical. Some smart watches can monitor your workout intensity and let you know when to back off if you’re like me and sometimes still think that “more is better”.

Final Thoughts

We can’t hold off the aging process and the inevitable changes in our bodies. But, we can slow it down, and stay in great shape – both physically and mentally – if we are smart and consistent with our training. Aging gracefully as a runner just takes some acceptance, adjustment, and perseverance.

Mike Urbanski is a coach with Team RunRun. To learn more about him, check out his coach profile.

by Team RunRun coach Tammy Cumo

You’re as old as you feel, right? Maybe. But the physiological aspects of aging, unfortunately, are more than just a state of mind. Do not despair though, not only can you (and should you!) remain active, but, this guide to masters’ running will show how, with a few tweaks and a bit more patience with your body, you can still actively train and chase goals into your golden years.

Rewind time for a minute.

As a younger athlete, you may have felt invincible. Who says you cannot increase mileage by more than 10% at a time? Why can’t runners just run? Too much too fast too soon—come on! Throwing caution to the wind may not have gotten you in trouble in your twenties, but as a masters athlete, those risks are far more likely to end up in injury or otherwise just be harmful to performance.

Here are Team RunRun Coach Tammy Cumo’s 4 pillars for running happy and healthy into your 40s and beyond:

1. Strength training

One of the biggest issues masters runners need to comprehend is that there is a reduced margin for error. Winging it is no longer a viable option. To that end, strength training should be non-negotiable as a masters runner.

One of the most striking effects of age is the involuntary loss of muscle mass, strength, and function. Muscle mass decreases approximately 3–8% per decade after the age of 30. This rate of decline is even higher after the age of 60. Among other hormonal and metabolic impacts, loss of muscle loss leads to reduced running economy.

However, we can counteract that muscle loss via heavy strength training, allowing you to maintain a similar running economy and endurance performance into your later years, which is why this is first in our guide to masters’ running. In addition to maintaining muscle mass, strength and function, weight training is essential for bone health and injury prevention, something especially important for masters women.

If you have a fancy gym membership, great. But if you don’t, no worries as there are many affordable ways to perform strength training, including using dumbbells, resistance bands, or your body weight. That said, as you progress, you’ll need some heavier weights to get the full benefit of your training.

Strength training tips:

Warm up with some dynamic stretching or light cardio exercise.
Pick weights that are challenging, but that you can complete 10-15 reps to start.
Work your way up from one set to three sets, and increase the weight or resistance as you adapt.
Be consistent. You don’t need to spend hours on strength training but getting into a regular routine at least twice a week will make a big difference.
Keeping the hard days hard, and easy days easy. This may mean strength training after your running workout.
When choosing exercises, focus on large muscle groups to get the biggest bang for your buck. Machine exercises may initially help you with the movement pattern and make sure you are engaging the right muscles, but it is also important to add in standing exercises that challenge your stability and balance.
Focus on the lower body and core, but don’t neglect your upper body either, since your arm swing also powers each stride.

*Runners doing strength training. PC: Dave Albo*

2. High intensity training

In addition to strength training, there is evidence that bouts of higher intensity exercise are especially beneficial for masters athletes. One reason is the link between high intensity exercise and the body’s secretion of human growth hormone (hGH). A 2005 review article by physiologists William Kraemer and Nicholas Ratamess examined almost two hundred scientific studies to uncover the relationship between exercise and hormone levels in the blood, and found four major factors: workload, intensity, duration, muscle mass. Other studies have shown that an exercise intensity above lactate threshold and for a minimum of 10 minutes appears to elicit the greatest stimulus to the secretion of hGH, with effects lasting for up to 24 hours.

Why is hGH important?

Human growth hormone (hGH) is a naturally occurring substance in the body that aids in building and maintaining muscle, among other things. It is so potent that athletes –albeit illegally– dope with synthetic hGH to further increase their muscle mass. However, through high intensity exercise, you can encourage your body to produce more naturally, reducing some of the deleterious effects of aging.

*A word of caution, however, if you are not accustomed to high intensity training, you cannot jump right into it. Work with your coach or a trainer to progress your training to a level that your body can tolerate this type of stress.

3. Protein

Add protein to your diet.

Everyone needs protein, but as you age, your body requires more protein to maintain your muscles, and even more if you are adding in or increasing your strength training. Protein powders and supplements are fine as just that, supplements, but most of your intake should be from lean meat, poultry, fish, eggs, low-fat dairy, lentils, beans and other whole food sources. Most athletes, and most people for that matter, take in far less protein than they should. I encourage you to work with a registered dietician that can tailor your specific needs according to your history and lifestyle. Nutrition as a whole is a critical component to performance and recovery at any age!

4. Recovery

As you age, your body likely will need more time to recover from those harder workouts. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do them, but it does mean you need to plan smarter. These small tweaks, in addition to the points outlined throughout this guide to masters’ running, can make a big difference with how you perform and how you feel while performing.

Recovery considerations for masters runners:

Longer rest time between intervals.
- Maybe you previously ran mile repeats with 2 minutes rest between, as you age you might bump that up to 3 or 4 minutes.
- Alternatively, swap out jogging recovery for walking or standing.
More days between hard effort workouts.
- Instead of a traditional 7-day microcycle with perhaps 2 full easy/ off days between workouts/ long runs, consider a 10- or even 14-day cycle where you have 3 or 4 full easy/ off days between to accommodate more recovery.
Pay attention to your nutrition, hydration, sleep, and self-care.
- Soft-tissue release with tools like foam rollers, mobility balls, and compression bands, as well as regular stretching often are skipped for lack of time or patience. But these become critical components to allowing your body to move without restriction, and keeping you on the roads or trails..

Running as a masters athlete can be a healthy and fulfilling way to remain active in your later years. If you are already doing all of the things mentioned in this guide to masters’ running, that’s great! If not, there’s no better time than the present to build in these good habits so that you can remain positive, and know that you can achieve your running and athletic goals at any age!

Tammy Cumo is an Albany-based running coach with Team RunRun. She specializes in working with runners on the roads from the 5k up to the marathon, and with a personal training background, Tammy can offer insight into what strength training, mobility and stretching can help to nab that elusive PR.

Aging as a Runner – Tips for Dealing with the Inevitable