Don’t take an offense to the terms slow, old, or fat. These are all relative individualized words based on how you feel.
The working title for my book “Go for 25”, now available on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B094YFRJ7G, was FatOld. I would have named the site fatoldrunner.com. But, somebody already owned the domain name.
Most runners are critical of themselves. As a result, we are never as young, fast, muscular, or good-looking as we desire.
If only I could get rid of those pesky five-pound love handles, I know I can run faster.
If only I didn’t wake up with, fill in the appropriate pain location, I know I can run faster.
I heard that 65 is the new 45. This theory comes from medical improvements and the anticipation that we will live 20 years longer than our parents. I hope my parents didn’t feel the way I feel now when they were 45. Unfortunately, though, they were 45 years old between 1964 and 1967. There were not a lot of adult recreational sports available at that time. So, there is no way to make physical comparisons.
My grandparents lived into their 70s, except for one via an accident in his 30s. I had a great grandparent that lived until 93. If that means I’ll be around for another 88 years, I’d better start saving some more money. Donations are gladly accepted 🙂
Our generation does have recreational opportunities and leisure time that prior generations did not have. Even more so for women in competitive sports buoyed by Title IX passed in 1972.
One byproduct of the Coldwell Banker Elite Grand Prix race series is our 28 years of results data. This data is from annual editions of the same races from year to year. As a result, we can see the effects of aging in runners who have performed in multiple decades.
We have nine runners who finished enough races in 1994 and 2019 or later; all are male. The average annual increase in finish times is 1.5%. The only outliers were Matt Boyd with a .4% increase, Terry McLaughlin with a 3.1% increase, and Joe Greene with a 2.1% increase. Matt is in his early 50s, and Joe is almost 80. Since his back problems, Terry has been walking more races in recent years.
Of all nine runners, their best times were in 1995 or 1996, except for Joe Greene in 1999.
I’m one of those nine. My best Grand Prix running year was 1996 with an equivalent 5km time of 19:59, which grew to 27:19 by 2020. That is about a 1.5% decline per year.
Looking at our data from 1996 and of the 126 people who finished at least five races, our average age was 40, with one person 60 years or older and 62 people younger than 40. That year our average equivalent 5 km time was 22:47 (21:33 for males and 25:32 for females).
The same data from 2019 and the 78 people who finished at least five races, our average age was 50 with 21 people 60 years or older and 18 people younger than 40. In addition, that year, our average equivalent 5 km time was 26:36 (24:19 for males and 29:48 for females).
So, over 24 years, our average chronic runner is ten years older, and the average performance has declined by .7% per year.
I’ve gone from faster than average to slower. I’ve put on 25 years.
I feel slow and old. My feelings are my reality and not my perception of others in front and behind me. I’m ok being slow and old.
Based on our data and those runners over 40 years old, you are improving if your times are not declining by 1.5% per year. So whatever you feel about yourself, keep plugging away; the activity is good for you.
If you feel like a slow old runner and would like to do a guest posting on my blog, email me your stories. Recently, I read a Facebook posting of a couple of club members in a mile race on Memorial Day. Part of the posting said, “we didn’t do badly for a couple of old marathoners.”
I have the unique perspective of having run FARC events in two different eras: 1996-2002 and 2014 to present, with an 11-year gap in between. In all areas where I’ve run (and competed), going back to the late 1980s, there is a natural “churn” to the participation. People move in and out; individual interest waxes and wanes; and life circumstances or injuries/healing bring people into or take them out of running clubs.
Like everyone else (except Matt Boyd), I’ve slowed down a lot from those early FARC years. For example, I was still occasionally breaking 17 minutes for the 5K in the 1990s, including a 16:55 at the Potter Homes’ Turkey Trot in Fredericksburg on November 23, 1997. Today, I’m lucky to break 20 minutes in a nice, flat 5K. Rounding a bit, that’s an overall decline for me of about 3 minutes (180 seconds) per 5K per 25 years, or about sevent-tenths of a percent per year. It never gets any easier.
Although there are a few runners who have been around through both of my FARC tenures – Matt Boyd, David Lovegrove, Bob Brammer, and Vic Culp come to mind – most of the faces (and races) are relatively new. History dictates that people will move away, stop running, or lose interest in competing, along with a variety of other factors.
To me, one of the most fascinating aspects of Vic’s Grand Prix statistics is looking through the lists of “Complete Race Streaks” and “Miles and Hours Completed Clubs,” along with “Total Points Scored.” Who doesn’t like a streak? Think about Lou Gehrig and Cal Ripken, Jr., playing in 2,632 and 2,130 consecutive Major League Baseball games, respectively, and how much media attention was devoted to Ripken’s dogged pursuit of Gehrig’s cherished record.
Within FARC, only four people have competed in as many as 75 consecutive Grand Prix events: Nancy Cooper, 178 from 1995-2013; Ralph Arquiette, 135 from 1999-2012; Vic Culp, 124 from 1994-2007; and Bob Brammer, 75 from 1999-2007. Impressively, Brammer has four streaks on the all-time list, all with 35 or more consecutive finishes. Sometimes, I’ll look at the list and wonder why the streaks ended. For myself, I’ve had long streaks broken by moving away (36 events from 1998-2002) and an uncle’s funeral (45 events from 2015-2018).
Whatever our reasons, we show up at FARC events – some to compete, some to socialize, some to get in shape, or a combination of all three. There are probably lots of other reasons not listed here. Regardless, we’re out there, taking a moment away from the rest of our lives to participate in these FARC Grand Prix events. Each individual FARC event is like a snapshot of life in that moment; in time, the results fade to memories and statistics, so that each one of us can look at a race number or pull up a webpage and remember who we were, what we were, where we were, and how we performed at that particular moment in time, against a group of similarly minded but often transient individuals.