Faster, further, older: yes, you can improve running with age
With more time to train, and a stronger commitment, older athletes are breaking their personal records later in life – and the science backs their efforts.
To run, if you get serious about it, is to engage in a years-long endeavour to see how far, how fast you can go.
Naturally, eventually, for most of us it ends up being an exercise in humility, as the depredations of age creep up, the inevitable injuries take their toll, and the chase for the personal best – or these days personal record – becomes an exercise in futility.
But the decline in performance as we age is likely not as steep as most of us assume, and especially for those of us who come to running later in life, the quest to push speeds faster and finishing times lower can extend years beyond the barriers we might assume to be in place.
Karen Blay, a 62-year-old runner and Athletics Australia-accredited running coach from Wollongong, is a case in point.
Blay was a runner as a teenager, focused at the time on disciplines such as sprinting, hurdling and long-jumping, which developed into longer distances in her 20s and middle-distance running in her 30s.
“I dabbled in a couple of half marathons but did that off middle-distance training,’’ Blay says.
“And then I had a period in my 40s where I had an auto-immune disorder which stopped me from competing for about 10 years.
“Then I started to get back into it in my 50s and found that over the longer distances in particular, everything from 5km up, I’ve run the fastest times I’ve ever run as a 55-plus-year-old.
“In fact, I ran a 3:04 marathon at 60, and 38:50 for a 10km.
“You just assume that you’re going to keep getting slower but it’s not necessarily the case, depending on what you’re prepared to do and what your body allows you to do.’’
To put Blay’s 3:04 marathon time in context, the three-hour mark for the women’s marathon in the 60-64 year age bracket was only broken in 2019 by Japan’s Mariko Yugeta, who herself was posting personal bests in her 60s culminating with a 2:52:01 run at Tokyo in April 2021.
This compares with a 3:09:21 marathon Yugeta ran at the Tokyo International Women’s Marathon in 1982, aged 24.
And Yugeta, now 66, is still going strong, finishing in 3:09:29 at the Osaka International Women’s Marathon in January this year.
Blay says a key component of being able to post ever-improving times over the longer distances in recent years has been the time to fit in more training, both on the track and in the gym.
“I think there’s a number of things, I think when you’re older and you’re not so constrained by work, family life – your kids are older and you’ve got more time that’s your time – for me I was able to run more,’’ she says.
“I used to run four days a week and I thought that was a lot, but then I upped it to five, then six, then seven days a week, just more volume without really doing any more speed work and my times just naturally got quicker.
“If you’ve got the time to just ‘run easy’ more, and consistently stay at a high level over a period of time, it’s a natural progression.’’
This progression took about four years for Blay, and she also focuses on running-specific strength work to avoid injury and improve her overall running ability.
“People say ‘how does your body manage that, I’d just break down’, but I think it was having the time and less life stress to be able to build that extra volume,’’ she says.
Blay said consistency was the key, rather than aiming to go “from couch to marathon”, but instead training in blocks and gradually building up.
Managing injuries, or doing what you can to minimise them, was also vital, with overuse issues such as tendon pain a big area of concern for runners.
“Strength training is the one thing that you’ve just got to keep doing,’’ Blay says.
“With most people they get an injury and do the rehab work and once it feels better they stop.
“It’s hard because you just want to run more, but you’ve got to find a way to fit it in.’’
In terms of goals, focusing on age-group times rather than all-out personal records is also a way to stay motivated, she said.
Blay set herself the target of breaking all of the Australian Masters records last year in the 60-64 age group, and broke all of the records from the 800m up to the marathon, excluding the half marathon.
Blay is not alone in posting increasingly fast times beyond the age of 40, when it’s generally accepted that most of us start to slow down.
The top-placed male runner in the 45-49 age group in the 2024 Melbourne marathon improved his time for the past three years in a row, as did the top runner in the 50-54 age bracket, finishing in 2:39:14.
The reality for most of us, however, is that we will slow down as we age.
Yale University professor of economics Ray C. Fair has studied the rates at which our performance declines and published numerous papers, including a calculator that can be used to predict your best times into the future – and even what you could have achieved in the past – based on your personal records.
Professor Fair’s research uses world records across age groups, and finds that until we hit about 70 years of age, the rate of decline is not all that severe, although running performance suffers more than that for rowing and swimming.
“The decline rates are modest into the older ages. The age at which there is a 50 per cent decline from age 30 (performance levels) ranges from 70 to 89,’’ a paper Professor Fair published in 2024 says.
“Ten-year decline rates from age 40 to about the mid-60s are about 10 per cent for running and 5 per cent for swimming and rowing.’’
To put it another way, “the decline is about 1 per cent per year for running between age 40 and the mid-60s’’.
“For swimming and rowing it is about a half a per cent per year,” he says.
“In many cases the age at which the decline is 50 per cent from age 30 is greater than 80.
“These results suggest that on physical grounds there is no compelling reason for retirement at age 65 for healthy and fit individuals.
“They also suggest that exercise need not be cut back much as people age, even into the older ages.’’
Elite runner and co-founder of running club RunAsOne Riley Cocks says a key issue for older runners should be maintaining muscle mass.
“As we age we naturally begin to lose muscle mass, compromising strength and performance,’’ Cocks says.
“Strength training is important for all runners but arguably even more so for an older runner to ensure that their muscles are strong enough to maintain running performance.’’
Cocks suggests two to three strength sessions per week are essential for older runners, and added that the capacity to recover after a tough session also changes as we age.
“Without adequate recovery time injuries can appear, derailing progress,’’ he says.
“To avoid injuries, masters runners have to be particularly diligent with spacing out their training intensity.
“A younger runner might train hard up to three times in a seven-day cycle and benefit from this, whereas an older runner is better off maintaining consistency and frequency but perhaps only training hard one to two times in a seven-day cycle, or even looking at their training from a 10-day cycle to get the same three specific sessions in with more recovery time spaced in between.’’
Cocks says masters runners tend to be naturally more mature and therefore better at structuring their training so that repeatability and consistency can be maintained.
Runners involved with Adelaide-based RunAsOne, which also counts two-time Olympian Isobel Batt-Doyle as a co-founder, range from 11 years old up to 75, with more than 500 members largely in Adelaide, but also regionally, interstate and overseas.
Cocks agrees with Blay’s observation that changing lifestyles can make training more often more achievable.
“I see a lot of runners in this ‘older/experienced’ age bracket who have the experience of knowing they can’t do everything at once in life, who have made the conscious decision to focus on pursuing their running and fitness-related goals,’’ he says.
“Perhaps they regret letting this go at a younger age or had no option and now have the financial freedom to work a little less, as well as older children who can transport or look after themselves more.’’
He says being creative about the goals you set is also a great way to stay motivated.
“Age group wins, age group records, new distances, off-road running and maintaining performance via age-graded measures are all good ways to test oneself.
“Combining travel and running events is a great way to stay passionate and healthy whilst exploring new places and bringing the family along for the ride.
“One of Australia’s best ever distance runners and now world masters record holder Steve Moneghetti once said to our group of RunAsOne runners that he is just racing the pack or people he is around, whether that is 10 minutes slower than his personal best or 20 minutes, he enjoys racing those around his current level.’’
More Coverage
