From my personal experience I think it depends on when you start. I'm 36 and have gotten faster every year for the four years I've done tris. I think I have the potential to keep getting faster for quite a while. Someone once told me an athlete has 10 years of top speed in them and as long as they start by 35 they'll get faster for 10 years. So if you start when you're 25 you'll hit your top speed by 35 and not get any faster, as long as you're training to your full potential. So, I'm hoping to get faster for at least 5-6 more years.

We'll see

Depends when you started and what condition you were in then. I'm 53 and considerably faster now than I was in my first season five years ago. I've been faster every year, albiet the gains are miniscule last year compared to my second year over my first. I figure I'll level off in another year or two.

I know a couple of guys who have been top AG'ers/elites and have been doing this for 20 yrs. They're both lamenting over the fact that they're getting a little slower every year now despite a strong training regime.

The good thing about tri is that you're slotted by AG. So as you get slower and older, so is your competition.

I think one of the big attractions of tri is that the slowdown curve is pretty mild. From what I understand you absolute physical capabilities degrade somewhere in your early thirties. Fortunately? most of us were not maxed out in training, experience, etc to max out our abilities. For most everyone except ex pros I think we can keep improving well into our 40s.

My personel experience is no swimming until age 35 or so, some running from 15 to 16 years old. Bike racing from about 22 to 35 yaers old. Picked up tris at about age 35. 1st IM 3 years later. Currently age 40. My goal since age 40 is to be faster than I was before age 40. My 1/2 marathon PR was set just after turning 40 and I barely missed my 10km PR earlier. I suspect I am faster at tris, but I didn't do any races to compare this year (only tris were very hilly). This year (age 41) I expect to do more tris and think that I will break some PRs. The tough PRs will be my marathon (age 39, 5km (age 38) and 40 km bike (age 37?).



Styrrell

Tom, 10 years makes sense. I started when I was 19 in tris (13 years old in track) and hit full stride in tris ~ 30. I'm not a lot slower now, around 5 min on Olympic, 3-4 min on half, 10-15 min on Ironman.

I'm 43. At Ironman distance I am mmuch faster than I was 20 years ago. 2 hours faster on a good day.

At sprint and Oly distance I am an absolute slug. -Can't get out of my own way.

I think at 43 my most realistic goal is to be as fast as I was at my fastest- 1986. I could easily run 5:15's and average 25 mph for 40km. I could swim 1500 meters in 22:00 give or take.

Now, it is a struggle to do a 6:30 mile, I can average 23 mph and it takes me 26:00 for 1500 meters on a good day.

I am old and weak. But I am smart and dashing. And, unlike other men, I DO put my pants on both legs at the same time.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

I think the 5 years to top speed is pretty accurate if you are at a journeyman level at the sport in the beginning. It probably takes a swimmer a lot longer if they start from the Rockfish level. Runners improve pretty quick in 3-5 years over age 21 starting point. Cyclists are around 5 years in my rule of thumb.

There are so many variables to predict things. Like available training time, weight loss, injury, the type of work you do. I think the real key is to not get hurt and enjoy yourself al on the way. G

*Assuming you were at your peak in your late 20's* (and that is a BIG assumption), the literature seems to say that performance begins to decrease as you come into your early thirties. However, by continuing to train properly (or rather, not allow yourself to become significantly detrained), the performance decrease seems to happen at roughly 1/10th the rate it otherwise would.

To be perfectly by the book, most athletes hit their aerobic peak in the late teens, however, it is clear that there are performance gains between ages 20 and 30. If you read Astrand's stuff, he attributes this to improved technique, better strategy, experience, etc. my point is that it isn't all about the numbers.

The fact is, though, most of us are not racing at our full potential. We don't have the time to train as much as we ought to, and our other responsibilities keep us from being as consistent as we need to be and be in our best form. So, most of us probably can improve much later in life because we still have untapped reserve. At least, that is what I like to tell myself :^)



For what it's worth,

Phil

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Dr. Philip Skiba
Scientific Training for Endurance Athletes now available on Amazon!

Follow these links to an age group commision triathlon study of finish times taken from national and world championships for age groupers found at the USAT website.

http://www.bradsport.com/agegroupcommission/men.htm

http://www.bradsport.com/agegroupcommission/women.htm

I would have to agree with the other posters. I'm 43 and have PR's at all distances in the past 2 years.

However, this year was the first year I noticed feeling older. I'm more sore, more frequently. It takes longer to recover. And my fitness goes away quickly if I lay off.

I started running at 30 then took up tri at 35. I had a strong marathon running background when I started tris. I did my 1st IM at age 39 (1990). Finished in 10:55. From '90 thru '00 I did 9 more IMs all under 11 hours. With a PB of 10:19 at age 49. I was 3 months shy of my 50th b-day. Then I had emergency surgery for a ruptured aorta in Jan '01. Since then I have done 5 IMs. All my times have been about 1 hour slower then before the surgery. The biggest problem I have had since turning 50 and the surgery is weight. I have been about 10 lbs heavier which has really hurt my performance. Hopefully I can get the weight off this coming year. But what I really want to say is you can get faster up in to your 50's. I know I gained alot of experience over the years. Especially at IM distance. Young kids love to go out fast and don't know have to pace themselves.

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18x Ironman, 3x Hawaii
US Army (Ret.), Vietnam Vet ('71-'72)

I think you can improve for 10 years or so after starting serious training in any sport.. IIRC Amby Burfoot asked around his running acquaintance (a considerable acquaintance in his case) and found this was the number for runners. Runners starting after age 50 or so didn't see the improvement over 10 years, but it held in the 20-50 starting range. It held for me from age 14 to lifetime PRs at 25. It's possible I could have improved further, but my life changed so training hard became difficult..

Then again, it's likely no-one has reached their potential in all 3 sports. That's what's good about tri.. My times have dropped steadily from 39 to 44, most of the improvements have come in transitions and on the bike. But I'm not near my potential, because of training time limitations.. so I expect to improve as long as I can steadily increase my training times, up to the point where injuries start.

Using this handy-dandy little calculator,
http://www.howardgrubb.co.uk/athletics/wavalookup.html
I see my PR for 5k at age 25 scored a 81.94%. The same percentile rating for age 44 is just over a minute slower, at 16:56. At 50, another minute, 17:44. Not much slowdown.. so theoretically we shouldn't be slowing down much. Changing the other factors - training time, training strategy and tactics, tapering, etc - can still play a big part in performance for the middle-aged. Says he hopefully.

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"It is a good feeling for old men who have begun to fear failure, any sort of failure, to set a schedule for exercise and stick to it. If an aging man can run a distance of three miles, for instance, he knows that whatever his other failures may be, he is not completely wasted away." Romain Gary, SI interview

Tom, you're just hot. Admit it. How can anyone say otherwise?!

If I ever see you, I will pounce, and you'll know it's me.

meow, kc

Doug, in my case, my bike times are generally as fast or faster than they were are age 20, 25, 30, or 35. My run times have gotten a bit slower due to some chronic lower leg injuries. For example, in marathons, I was always a sub 3 guy, sometimes sub 2:50, but often around 2:55, now I'm more of a 3:05 guy. My swim times have become slower, but that is mainly cause I only swim once a week from April to Sep. I swim (in general) zero times per week from Oct to Mar when I focus on XC skiing. My XC ski times have actually improved due to better technque, but that is not triathlon.

Overall, my slightly slower tri times at age 39 vs age 30 are a result of slower swim (due to lack of swim focus), faster bike (due to increased bike focus) and slower runs (due to chronic injury and perhaps 5lbs of additional weight). In general, I think the engine is just as efficient as it used to be, but the wheels are not as strong :-)

Dev

I'm not a triathlete. I'm an avid roadie. I started reading this forum to learn about tri bikes for time trial purposes.

But I saw your question and may have some insight. I read an article by Dr. Max Testa who's a renowned sports doc who's worked with lots of pro cyclists and teams. He explains that it's not so much a function of age as it is a function of how many years you've trained at a serious level. It takes the body quite a number of years of training to reach the point that the cardiovascular system can no longer continue to develop. Specifically, (if I recall correctly) he said training develops an ever-growing network of capillaries that deliver oxygen to the muscles and carry away wastes (lactic acid?). After 10 years, capillary development is maxed out.

So it doesn't matter so much when you start. It matters how long you've been at it.

This is consistent with my personal experience. I got into cycling and started training heavily at age 37. Two years ago, at age 47, I was flying. I even got really torn up in a bad head-on with a teenage driver talking on a cell phone who turned in front of me. Eight months later I set a personal best on a mountainous century ride.

But since then it's been a bit downhill and it kinda seems there's nothing I can do about it. I've maxed out the capillaries and now age advances while capillary development does not.

But I'm not a doctor and I don't mean to play one in this forum. This is just my best recollection from an article I read several years ago.

One aside you endurance athletes might find interesting. Dr. Testa hates weight training for endurance athletes. He says it builds muscle without building the capillary system to deliver the oxygen those muscles need, or to carry away the lactic acid. Athletes who overtrain with weights feel the burn much earlier than athletes who don't. He encourages "on the bike" weight training ... essentially, a variety of different kinds of intervals that build muscle while also building the aerobic system.

FWIW,

Bob C.

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Bob C.

The "science" on any matter can never be settled until every possible variable is taken into account.