CV Guy,

you should ask your friend why he is still in the sport even though he knows he is getting slower with age.

Having been in this sport for 20 years, I am well into the downward spiral in regard to race times. I still find it a challenge to try to get the most out of myself that I possibly can. You still find ways to be competitive, whether it was on the National level 20 years ago, or on an age group level today. One of the great things about triathlon is that it comprises three seperate events. Personally, I never did develop my swimming. Now that my running is slowing down in major proportions, I have taken more to working on my swim. It's not getting faster, but I am swimming as fast now as I was 15 years ago, and I see room for improvement. Also, even though my days of PR's are mostly gone, I never developed my game at the Ironman distance and feel that is still the one area that I might be able to get a PR if the bad knee holds up for the distance. Ultimately, very few of us are in this sport because we are getting faster or setting PR's (I think). I'm still in this bottom line because I love the life, enjoy the people and just pure enjoy the sense of going out and training day in and day out. 20 years ago I loved to race and if at that time I could have raced at the same level that I was at the time without training, I would have. But now I care less about the racing and enjoy the training more. Not that I would ever willingly give up racing, but I care less about the racing now than I did 20 years ago.

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Mike Plumb, TriPower MultiSports
Professional Running, Cycling and Multisport Coaching, F.I.S.T. Certified
http://www.tripower.org

older triathletes need to get off the course. when i'm trying to 'race' i don't need some old fart or some tnt loser getting in my way. this sport has no room for older people to hold on to what they had or trying to remake themselves. this is a sport for racers only. screw old posers.

sound fimiliar?

my thought is why fade away? if you reach the point where you start slowing down just ditch the clock. push yourself as hard as you can every race and enjoy the feeling you get. to push yourself as hard as you can in an endurance event is always very spiritual. just enjoy the glow.

also this way of racing allows you to train a little less and take up new hobbies. surfing, ball room dancing, smuggling, ultimate fighting masters division...

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customerjon @gmail.com is where information happens.

Like Mike P., I have been involved with triathlon for a very long time - 20+ years. Although I have not raced at all for the last 5 years - work, family commitments and a bad back have conspired to make training very irregular. I have recently been drawn back to races while supporting my girlfriend as she competes. What has impressed me is A) the total numbers at these events and B) the numbers of new faces. In the past 10 years, I would say that there has been close to 100% turnover.

Many of the top people that I competed directly with 20 years ago are no longer in the sport. There are a handful still in it, but they are the exception and not the rule. I would say that people like CerveloGuy are more the norm now - coming into the sport at a later age and as Dan's article points out, are able to increase performance significantly. I am impressed as heck by these folks, some like Gordo Bryn have gone from completely non athletic to world-class at the Ironman distance in 5 - 6 years! That is outstanding! My self, I think that I am on the reverse trajectory. I came to Triathlon with a back-ground as a top runner and in my early 20's and have felt that I have been getting slower and slower every year. My "Best" years in triathlon were back in my late 20's and early 30's. later on I would not be concerned so much with times as being competitive in a given race, or against people that I had been competitive with over time, or just setting my own personal goals and going for those and not caring about anything else. Now, I am just happy to get out the door and feel the wind on my face and the breath moving in and out of my lungs when time and my back permit.

What I find odd and scary is that more people are running, more peole are getting into triathlon and more peole are making fitness an important part of their lives than ever before, but as a whole our North American population is getting fatter and more sedantary.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

my my hey hey, better to burn out than to fade away, as Neil Young so trenchantly observed..

every year a little older fatter and slower. But in my competitive years, I was a runner, never took either swimming or biking seriously. I took up triathlon again because I was, like your acquaintance, frustrated and unhappy about running so very much slower than before. Now I'm attempting to train for biking and getting results, so my overall times are still dropping: faster now at 43 than I was at 25, even over the sprint distances.

However my run times don't bear contemplating. I'm attempting to hold back the years, ran a 19:30 5k last year, was planning attempts at sub-40 10k for this year, but one injury or another keeps sabotaging my plans. Last year a bad back, this year overcompensating for a neuroma I've had for 15 years resulted in a torn calf muscle, bah.

The other trick I have up my sleeve is that I'm training at a minimalist level. The plan is when the last kid leaves for college, I'll be 57, and can start real training for IM in the 60+ AG..

Though some of the old guys are still damn fast. Locally, we have Wayne, who at age 70 last year was fast enough to be beating 75% of the 30-34 men, and who won his division at age group worlds in Cancun by something like a half hour.

It's also fun to watch him doing the odd relay with his son and grandson, and they'll pick up hardware there.

Wayne McSheehy is one of the truly amazing athletes in any age division. I have had to compete with him in a lot of triathlons before the AG was only 5 years apart.
By the way, my swim is better and my bike is much better at age 66 than it was in the early triathlon years of '79-'86. Cannot get the run back because every time I ramp up the run training, an injury happens.

Bob Sigerson

I got started in triathlon when I was 24 and I am now 42. I had some of my best races when I was 29 and had taken the summer off from work and school and trained about double what I had the previous year.

Now I train about 1/2 the volume of what I did when i was 29 and yet I am still almost as fast. In fact, when I was 39, I set a new 5K run split PB in a sprint race. I am still swimming about the same as when I was in my 20's. Where I seem to have trouble "keeping up" is on the bike. I am consistently about 1mph slower than when I was 29. But when I compare my recent racing with the years in my 20's and early 30's when I trained about the same volume, I'm probably racing about the same.

So I am continuing on, but not just for fun and fitness. I am out there still trying to race my former self. At some point, I will not have a chance to improve or set a new PB. I plan to be out there still giving it everything I've got still searching for the ultimate race where everything falls into place and you suprise everyone including yourself.

list of guys not to screw with at next race

1. wayne

man i hope i can be like that. he reminds me of a old retired chief at a base i was at. he was 65 and still compitive power lifting. squatted 423 one day.

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customerjon @gmail.com is where information happens.

I almost think this year I moved from the BOP to MOP ( third year at this). I am very happy with my progress as a 51 year old guy. I think a coach will is my next step, as a coach I stink. I just got home from lake Placid. I couldn't stay for the race but saw friends getting ready. I am so pumped up. I would almost put up the $ 400. for the IM. I met Frank And Goat Boy at the PC booth

.........OK, I won't chime in on the "glory years", that's already been covered by others. What I want to know is how do explain guys like Kevin Moats, Hansgeorg Faessler, Norimitsu Shiromoto, Bruce Buchanan, Greg Taylor, Kalli Nottrodt, or any number of ageless multiple decade Hawaii podium finishers? Moats for example has done 32 IM's and probably won his AG 75% of the time over a 20 year period! Same for Shiromoto and some of the others. Unbelievable durability and consistency. Everybody seems to hold Joe Bonness up as the godlike creature of durability. Well, I agree he's amazing, but what did he do in the 80's? The above mentioned list were all over the place then.

I used to use the excuse that your peak efforts come about 7-8 years into a serious training program regardless of the age at which you start. That was the case for me. But these guys seem to defy the odds.

Oh yeah, I forgot about PNF, Missy, etc.

On something of a tangent, they showed the media 50M race from swimming worlds during ESPN coverage last night.

Winner: A fortysomething American tv commentator with the name Ambrose "Rowdy" Gaines in an impressive 25 seconds. Great to see him back in the pool after all these years and his stroke is still smooth as silk. Barely looked like he was trying hard.