My guess is the only people doing that are folks that did their first IM after 50 (obviously a PB) or did their first at close to 50 and the next not long after turning 50.

There's just no way anyone is churning out a faster time at 50+ than they did in their 20s, 30s, or young 40s. Barring some kind of disaster at the race when they were younger or being a walking/talking pharmacological experiment.

I'll be 54 next month. Zero chance I'm setting a PB at this age. ZERO.

Father Time is and will always be undefeated.

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

I'll let you know after IMTX on April 27th!
However, this will only be my 3rd 140.6 with the 1st age 40 (12hr 54min) the second age 45 (11hr 56min) and this third will be at age 50.
I prefer the shorter distances but do race 70.3 every year. I do the full distance when I age up more as a personal challenge than as a race, but I am trying to improve my time.
The past couple of years my training has been all about consistency, with most days having 3 sessions, swim in the morning, run at lunch, bike in the evening, although when work and life means I miss a session I don't sweat it. My training now as compared to when I was 40 is much better/consistent and greater volume but I know father time is coming for my legs at some point, so I'm just trying to stave him off for as long as I can.

Peak human endurance performance would be around age 30-40. Dan Plews has recently done his targeted IM PB under 8h, at age 41. Whether you classify him as almost PRO or best AG - it doesn't matter. But he was clear in his post-race interviews, that it was his last chance in life to break 8h.

Could somebody make a PB after 50? Sure. This is:

• when starting with triathlon at e.g. age 48 or
• when done his first IM distance after 50 or
• when training below 10h/week for the last 10 years and suddenly gave up work and dedicated >15h/week for training or
• when eventually got diagnosed with whatever illness (s)he been suffering from for year and finally received working medication or
• when always raced with 120psi tubulars and then switched to 30mm wide tire hookless tubeless setup etc.

There'll always be exceptions and special cases.

At 50 I was near my half Ironman times from when I was 20 or 30. Mainly because I knew how to swim at 50 and my bike gear was better. My runs were around 10 min slower. Now at 58, my swim is around the same, bike is around 2-5 min slower and run is 25 min slower than when was 30. Time catches all of us. I can't compare Ironmans because I am not doing them.

I did my first 70.3 at age 35 and carried on doing 70.3s pretty much every year after that until I set a PB last year (at age 48). I'm on the exact same bike, with the same race set-up (wheels etc.), doing the same volume of training (8-10 hours most weeks, some up to 12). So I know it's possible to set a PB at nearly 50 over a half-ironman... I'm curious to know if there is anyone out there who perhaps started Ironman racing in their late 30s/early 40s and then continued to improve their times into their 50s. I realise there's not much chance of a PB if they started Ironman racing in their 20s, but I think there must be some people who come to the sport later in life (perhaps around 40) and still find ways to improve at 50.

Did my first a month before my 49th birthday (11:27ish). Did one every year after that for another ten years (all on the same course). My fastest was six years later at age 55 (11:06). Now age 64 and have not done one since 2017. Like GMAN said, only gonna happen if you started late (or they cancel the swim).

Well I'll be a good case study for you as I've raced the same 70.3 since 2013 (5hr 56m) (every year except 2019) and this past November I PB'd that event (4hrs 57m). But my training hours and volume have steadily increased over the years.

I did my best race at 50, Arizona 2011, this was my 13th Ironman, I had many years of training and racing but never could crack the code. The factor this year was Whistler Canada, the actual race crushed me, but I took some serious fitness into Arizona. Everything clicked for me, swim, bike and run. I had a few great races after 2011, a few podium finishes, but to many elite athletes showed up at those races to get a Kona spot. I really didn't feel my ability change until Arizona 2018 around 54.

Hold my beer; I set my IM PB of 9h11 age 49, I will be 51 this year and would love to lose those 11mins

If I chose a super fast course, like Barcelona or Emilia Romana, have a perfect day, get really lucky..... and train bloody hard, I still think I can do it

49 to 51 isn't that much of a difference.

If you went 9:11 at 39, you wouldn't come close to that at 51.

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

That's awesome! How have you adapted your training to keep improving as you get older?

I am 46 and haven't done a full IM yet. I probably will someday and that very well could be after I turn 50.

I got into Triathlons about 10 years ago. There was a guy at work that started an Endurance and Multisport group in the company and I was doing Marathons so I thought it was be good to join to connect with like minded people at work, get some moral support, and possible some cooperate sponsorship. The guy who stared the group was 46 years old at the time and about 6 months after I joined the group he punched his ticket to Kona. I was about the only person in the group who wasn't doing triathlons so I got sucked in and signed up for a Triathlon so I could relate to the group better.

Preparing for my first triathlon I spent a lot of time picking the brains of the 46-year old group founder who was training for Kona. He said that at age 46 he was the fastest he had been in his life. I didn't know how that was possible. I did sub17-minute 5K's when I was 16-years-old but from age 26-36 years old my goal was to try to get under 18-minutes flat and I missed it by narrow margins over and over and over again. Being frustrated with not being able to improve my 5K I went longer to half marathons and full marathons to try something new. I specialized in the half marathon for 6 years and was pretty happy with my 1hr 23 min. PR but at age 36 didn't think I would ever see a PR in the half marathon again. I tried the triathlon for the same reason that I moved to the longer running events. I had tapped out my potential and wasn't ever going to see faster times so I wanted to try something different where I could make new goals and set new PR.

Well...fast forward to age 46 and I now have the same story to tell as the guy that mentored me into triathlons a decade ago. In the past 2-1/2 years I have set lifetime PR's at every distance I have raced over a 5K. I have broke my 10k, 15K, 10 mile, half marathon, marathon PR's and although time isn't quite the same in multisport races I have PR's in every distance triathlon I have races in that time. Old half marathon PR, 1hr 23 minutes. New Half Marathon PR, 1hr 17minutes. Last 5K time 17:13 (way under the 18:00 that I couldn't beat for 10 years and getting closer to the 16:48 lifetime PR that I set in high school). So some people do peak later in life. I didn't do any triathlons in my younger days. I started at 37 years old and have progressed in triathlons over the past decade. My running coach in college told me it takes about three years to peak in endurance sports. I guess with three disciplines it takes three time longer to peak. I don't know what type of times I might have hit if I got into the sport 20 years earlier, but if Triathlon had gone like running has I would have been slower in my 30's than I am in my late 40's.

Both my mentor and I started triathlon later on (late 30's early 40's). Multisport training made me a much faster runner than pure running did. I am sure there are tons of people on ST that have discovered those same type of benefits from multisport training. You can be fast after 50. You probably can even PR after 50 if you didn't get into the sport until your late 30's to early 40's.

Or people who started around 40 but didn't train/diet properly until they were closer to 50..... Not that I would know about that....... :)

Just to give some context when I was 25, I opened the front end of several open marathons sub 1:20 (generally 1:19xx). By 44, my open half marathon was 1:21. I could not even get close to my "jogging time from age 25". I did my half IM PB at 40 (4:14), but I never really raced a fast course at 25 (4:23 on 1990 gear, tech and training). My 56 year old PB on the same course I went 4:14 at 40 was 4:54). The 56 year old day was a lot slower on the bike due to wind, but also a 4km longer course (so 6.5 min there). The run alone was 23 minutes slower though, and granted transitions were longer (like 3 min longer) but 40 min slower is 40 min. Wind and a longer course only explains 10 min on 40. The rest is slowing down and at 58, I went 5:18 on the same course that I went 4:54 two years earlier (granted even a suckier day on the bike that was 12 min slower, swim was not wetsuit and 3 min slower and froze in a cold rain on the bike). I still THINK I can take it back under 5 hrs on a good day on that course this year at 59, but I gotta do it....times from the treadmill and the trainer and pool suggest it is possible, but that's cherry picking my good days in training....have to put them together in real life on a single day

All you guys talking about getting faster over 50 started late. You just did not race hard when you were 20-29 (or 30-34). Look at Lionel...he can't match his 20-29 times these days. Guys like Jan Frodeno are exceptional in their early 40's but they have to pick and choose battles. As is Cam Brown. That guy is insanely fast in his 50's, but he has the standard age degrading over his Kona podiums from his mid 20's.

If you started late 30's, got faster in 40's and think you'll be a stud in the 50's, you just may but eventually you become the guy with 25 years of miles in the legs who slows down. Enough miles in the legs and we all get slower. Some people start at 17 and hit that slowdown at 35 (example Alistair Brownlee). Some of you start at 35 and hit it at 50 - 52.

The fun part here is seeing who slows down less, but the funny things is the studs that beat me by 20 minutes when were were 25, beat me by 20 min now closing in on 60 !!! Just straight out age degradation from when we were younger (provided we stayed in decent shape...the guys who got waaaaay out of shape have zero chance...their age degradation is a disaster)

I think I'll be faster at 50. Have two different Ironman times in the 9:40s and I think I can get close to 9 hours on a fast course. That's my plan at least. That being said, the bike has always been around 5:10-5:30 and I think I'll lose most of that time getting close to 4:40 on the bike. Running is my strength so I absolutely think I'll set a PR after I turn 50.

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http://www.sfuelsgolonger.com

That was an complete knee jerk reaction you sent out ;-) Hard to understand others' situation when we assume things. jkjk, I often enjoy your very well thought out responses (but not this one as much)

I set my PR at age 50. 10:47 at IMMD (my 13th IM). I know it's a fast course but my prior PB was 11:5x at Placid in 2013. The reason I was able to do it was 2 fold
1. I got a coach and my consistency went from completing 80% of workouts to 95%. He showed me that my FTPmy wasn't as great as I wished it was (which caused me to not hit the targets for most of my rides).
2. I had more time to train. My peak 6 weeks I hit 14-16 hours whereas in the past I peaked at 11-12 hours.

I think my current ability means I didn't come close to my potential in my 20s or 30s. Also my legs don't have quite the same wear and tear as the fast people who have slowed down a ton by their early 50s.

I started tris in 1997 and have never been able to make the jump from HIM (PB was 4:59 in 2017, now it's 4:58 last year) to IM as I just didn't have the time to train. I had enough training to do well for 127.5 miles then my race would fall apart. In my early years I was quite busy working internal medicine resident (1997) which only got busier as a critical care doc and father of 2. Tris are a hobby so it was never going to play first fiddle to my career and family. It wasn't until my dtr starting driving in 2020 that I started training in earnest. When we became empty nesters was when my IM times became aligned with my HIM times as I could finally train.

I think my story is not all that uncommon as many of my friends have begun to train more as they became empty nesters.

Nailed in Paul.

I'll honestly say I really expect to PB aged 50 next March. And not because I'm training harder/smarter now than I was when I was 30. I got into triathlon in 2004, Sprint, Oly, HIM that year, and then did my First IM 11:52 in Austria 2005. Also did my first marathon in April 2005, 4h16 in London after getting crazy cramp just after 21km which I went through feeling awesome in 1h58. 1h44 was my HIM a month before, so should have been fine for a sub 4h. I trained consistently with a coach from December to July for that race, and whilst this was pre powermeters and GPS I was recording big hours throughout. Helped a lot by 2 hours of cycle commuting each day which is why I knocked out a very very easy 5h15ish bike on a UKP600 TCR Aero with Shimano spoked wheels.

2019 I ran my Half marathon PB in 1:36.

Fast forward to 2020 my last IM, and I had set a HIM PB at the end of my main training block (no taper) of 4:41, had longrun 33km in training in 2h30, and was very much looking at a IM race plan that put me through the finish with a 10:XX. In reality, I put my back out 10 days before, got through on painkillers, but completely lost my nutrition plan on the bike, started the run at about 6h25, and just snuck in under the 12h after a lurching walk/stagger from 3km in that left my pelvis wrecked for last 4 years.

So yes, I am 100% locked into beating my 11:4X IM PB in 2025 aged 50. But that's as a result of being more experienced and having the years of endurance racing behind me. I've had bad injuries that have led to ankle surgery losing me 6 years (3x2 year) in that interim, and bad luck that offset the amazing first race where I nailed every target/element of the 'plan' from gun to finish line. So I consider that whilst my 'potential' will have reduced since I was 30, then I'll be racing way closer to that potential than in past years where I was 'cruising to a finish medal'.

Yes, I got my full IM PR at 58. The reason is quite simple. I retired, and was able to train as much as I wanted. Despite being in the sport for over 40 years, it was never a priority over family and work. It makes a huge difference when kids are grown and gone, every day is Saturday, and there are no alarm clocks.

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Athlinks / Strava

Next year I am racing 60-64. I have this grandiose hallucination of breaking 5 at the half IM on the fast course at Demi Esprit (where I mentioned going 4:14 in 2006 and 4:54 in 2021....and 5;18 in 2023 on a bad weather no wetsuit day). I want to believe I can do it, the key is not hurting my back this year. If I can do that, I think I can sustain my cardio another year with lots of high volume high intensity swimming which I think is the secret to keeping high aerobic fitness as we age. I swim around 80km per month and every session has way higher intensity than I can sustain on the bike (and running i barely break a sweat because I run so slow these days)....so hoping i can be "that guy who matches a time at 60 from when he was 55". I will need a perfect day and stop putting chips and ice cream in my mouth though.

Depends how much you'd done before you started. I hadn't swam, biked or run since the early 1980s. I improved slowly, then quickly when I had Rich Strauss as a coach. IM Arizona was a battle after throwing up in the swim. Get a good coach.


2000 IM California 14:14 age 44
2002 Roth Challenge 13:27 47
2003 IM Florida 12.18 48
2005 IM Arizona 13.07 49
2006 IM Florida 11.32 51

Should I complete IMAZ this November, it will be a personal best for me as it will be my first (and likely last) attempt at IM. Bucket list item.

I've been racing since my mid twenties and was able to do pretty much comparable times until my late 40s. The big drop offs have come since I was 55 - I'm 58 now and I can't get anywhere near my previous times. I mainly run now and each year my times get slower and my body takes longer to recover from any big effort.

It is all a out not being too good when young.

12:30 and 12:40 from cph and frankfurt as 25/27 year old.

Sub 12 should be easy at 50 with more training, less alchohol etc.

If you have been somehow "seriously" training in you 30's and 40's, that's not going to happen, regardless how you are now dedicated about your training, nutrition, recovery and equipment. If you have an history of "recreational" athlete, then you have chances to improve your results in your 50's. For example, my father, despite having always been "active", started structured running training in his early 50's and set his marathon PB (3.14) at 60y/o. He also made the podium in his AG a few times at Powerman Zofingen duathlon, possibly some help from genetics there also, then.