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M40 slower than M45 (and M50)?
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I have made the experience in all my last five races (includes Challenge half-distance, 70.3 and local Olympic distances) that age group M45 (and sometimes even M50) winners are faster than M40. I looked for reference at Kona, IM Frankfurt and Challenge Roth. Kona and Frankfurt have faster M40 winners, but the difference and up to 10th place does not differ that much. Challenge Roth has a faster M45 podium than M40. And recent German AG sprint Nationals had a M40 winner being slower than M45 and M50.

Is there a pattern? Probably not the avg. athlete - I looked at Coach Cox. However, is a top M45 athlete typically faster than a top M40 athlete? I mean the triathlete that wins his age group (or finishes on podium) at a local Olympic distance and the "local" 70.3?

If so, what makes a difference? More time (kids old enough, so there is time to get back to long bicycle rides?), more money for better equipment and training (coach?), getting wiser and being more focused? Or was my observation just pure accident?

I am wondering because I am M40 and wonder if I should expect to become faster once I will turn 45!? ;-)
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Re: M40 slower than M45 (and M50)? [motorcity] [ In reply to ]
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The difference is that most of the best athletes in 35-39 race as pros.

And no, that is not a pattern that holds for Kona etc. Just look at the top spots in AG overall.
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Re: M40 slower than M45 (and M50)? [Schnellinger] [ In reply to ]
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I did an Olympic Tri a couple of weeks back, as M50-54. Delighted to finish 5th M overall.

Ahead was 1 M50-54 and 1 M55-59. The three of us had beaten every M40-44 and M45-49.

Smallish race, thus probably an outlier. But I do think certainly age 50 and above there are a few pointy end athletes who, due to early retirement/family circumstances are training almost full time which may explain why the expected age deterioration is not evident.
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Re: M40 slower than M45 (and M50)? [Schnellinger] [ In reply to ]
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Schnellinger wrote:
The difference is that most of the best athletes in 35-39 race as pros.

And no, that is not a pattern that holds for Kona etc. Just look at the top spots in AG overall.

I understand that Kona AG winners are faster in M40, compared to 45 or even 50. But maybe Kona is the exception?

And I am not talking about anything that goes towards a Pro level or includes former Pros who show up at age 45. Looking at the local races I have been participating in, I am just comparing the fast M40 age groupers vs. fast M45/M50 age groupers. No ex-Pros in any of those races and its M45/50 divisions.
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Re: M40 slower than M45 (and M50)? [TRO Saracen] [ In reply to ]
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TRO Saracen wrote:
Smallish race, thus probably an outlier.

Well, but confirms everything that I have been observing. You are one of those who make me feel bad winning M40 but still being slower than M50 ;-)
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Re: M40 slower than M45 (and M50)? [motorcity] [ In reply to ]
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5 year AG too much dilution. Should be usatf set up...

Under 40
40+ masters
50+ grand Master's
60+ super grandmaster
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Re: M40 slower than M45 (and M50)? [motorcity] [ In reply to ]
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Can someone explain to me how the hell all you old dudes are so much faster than the young guns?

Local Olympic I do every year to support my town. 9/10 the people who win overall are 45+, except for this year when I won. People were surprised to see a kid (I'm 21) win.

Am I not going to go to Kona until I get grey hair?

Gone with the wind

Instagram: palmtreestriathlon
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Re: M40 slower than M45 (and M50)? [palmtrees] [ In reply to ]
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palmtrees wrote:
Can someone explain to me how the hell all you old dudes are so much faster than the young guns?

Local Olympic I do every year to support my town. 9/10 the people who win overall are 45+, except for this year when I won. People were surprised to see a kid (I'm 21) win.

Am I not going to go to Kona until I get grey hair?


It's because of several reasons that M40 and even 45+ 50+ tend to outperform the younger AGs:

1. As mentioned, the true speedsters in the <M40 group typically race pro/elite in big races, and often don't show up in the AG standings. If it's a true national-class field counting pros-elites with the AGers, the top younger folks will definitely beat the top older folks as expected.

2. It takes time to learn to swim/bike/run to capacity. I think it takes about 5-7 years for even a 'serious' AGer to really get it all together, so probably longer for the early dabblers. I've def beaten the large majority of <30 AGers in triathlon that I race in local events, and the ones that beat me tend to be going fast enough that they're going to be racing elite the following year, and it's not because I'm so great, but because as a M45er, I don't get killed in one of the S/B/R disciplines like most of the youngsters do (most of them either can't swim at all, or swim so well from competitive swimming that they run/bike poorly.)

3. Kids and job responsibilities absolutely kill the 'normal' AGers under 45 years of age. I've been experiencing this firsthand as a triathlete from age 30 to my mid40s now. At 35-40, my young kid required tons of attention and time, pretty much sucking up nearly all of my time. And my job required more time as well, as that's the peak time for job advancement and learning new skills to solidify a better position. Once I turned 40-45 and my kid was 5-9 yrs old, things got a lot better timewise every year. Now my kid is approaching teenager years, and it's frankly shocking to me how much time I have on the weekend to at least do stuff on my own in the house - as great as I love spending time with my kid, I'm literally dreaming of the day that she's old enough as a teenager that I can actually leave the house and do an outdoor bike ride for 3-4 hrs in the middle of the day. I'd say my time availability to train now at age 45ish is literally 3-4x what it was when I was 37, mainly due to the kid and less so but also my job. It's becoming really, really clear to me why in my local 5k, I've won the M30-35, M35-40, M40-45 AGs nearly every year, but I've been beaten by different M50 guys nearly every year - there is just soooo much more time to train as the kids are teenagers+.

4. Last note - don't hope to wait until you're an oldster to do some great training! As coach Matt Dixon says, be your best self NOW. This doesn't mean you're going to sacrifice family and life to shoot for some KQ pipe dream, but to make the most of what time and resources you realistically have available NOW. The reason being - once you're over 40, weird but significant health issues absolutely start limiting you. A big one is early arthritis - a little niggle in your knee suddenly becomes a complete limiter for running fast or long. Other health issues become more and more frequent. So don't take your health for granted - triathlon training is one of the first things to go once a health limiter pops up, so enjoy it NOW.
Last edited by: lightheir: Aug 13, 19 9:47
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Re: M40 slower than M45 (and M50)? [palmtrees] [ In reply to ]
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palmtrees wrote:
Can someone explain to me how the hell all you old dudes are so much faster than the young guns?

Local Olympic I do every year to support my town. 9/10 the people who win overall are 45+, except for this year when I won. People were surprised to see a kid (I'm 21) win.

Am I not going to go to Kona until I get grey hair?
I was doing other things... didn't even know what a triathlon was until I was an old dude. I was fast and had good cardio but was playing team sports when I was younger. For instance we'd run a timed mile before basketball practice sometimes and I'd run it in the low 4's. I really had no idea that was good.

For me triathlon is a good fit for my personality.. I still love breaking a sweat and competing.
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Re: M40 slower than M45 (and M50)? [motorcity] [ In reply to ]
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I actually do not think that this is generally true. I've seen it occasionally, but far less than half of races. Also, the larger the race, the less likely it is to happen.

I just looked up results for the last couple years of the Boulder 70.3 and 40-44 is faster than 45-54 in both years (and 35-39 is a bit faster than 40-44) - although in 2018 50-54 was faster than 45-49, in large part because of a former elite marathoner in the 50-54 category that ran a 1:21 to come in at 4:27.

-------------
Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
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Re: M40 slower than M45 (and M50)? [motorcity] [ In reply to ]
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Starting a family and just getting in to triathlon at about 30ish means that most AGers aren't starting to get competitive against the field until about 35-39. I was totally impressed at the local OLY I did in April, there were a lot of 30ish and under faster racers, so there is hope. In the offroad races, several of the fastest guys in the country are all over 45, but they were also fast before that, it's just that I believe that triathlon was bigger when they got started and thus were selected from a larger pool of interested individuals.

In my case, it took me 3-4 years to get decent against the field, then had a kid, so my 35-39 years took a bit of a hit. Now at almost 41 and my daughter is close to 5, I'm doing pretty good for available time. Squeaking back in to a pretty decent placing for the overall, but around here, only a few of them are in the 45+ age groups, but there's a 59 year old still placing top ten at the local and very competitive Xterra. I didn't see that at the local OLY tri I did back in April.
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Re: M40 slower than M45 (and M50)? [motorcity] [ In reply to ]
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I may catch flak for this, but I'm going to mention the elephant in the room. Why do the oldsters do better?
  • Yes, empty nesters generally have more time to train. But they NEED more time to train. If an oldster doesn't train with intensity year round, he/she loses a lot of speed. And the older they become, the less likely it is that the speed ever, EVER returns. So, the older an athlete becomes, to be competitive they MUST train more. The 50+ people are essentially forced to train more if they want to keep playing the game. They're in a race against time.
  • Younger athletes train less than they could both because they're busy and because they don't have to. I know plenty of younger athletes who win their AG at local triathlons and who only train for the 30 to 45 days leading up to the race. I see it every single year for our local triathlon. The roads are packed the 45 days prior to the race with runners and cyclists that you never see any other time of the year. In an area sprint triathlon a couple years ago, the 20-25 AG winner had never ever run a full 5k before. The race win was his first time to run the distance!
  • The two items above could also indicate that the oldsters just want it more. They take it more seriously.
  • I also suspect the prevalence of 45- and 50-year olds outperforming 40-year olds is inversely proportional to the likelihood of them being drug tested at the race. For some reason, masters athletes are a lot slower when they know they will be asked for a sample. Must be performance anxiety, or something.

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Re: M40 slower than M45 (and M50)? [motorcity] [ In reply to ]
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M45 has had an extra 5 years to hone their skill than M40
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Re: M40 slower than M45 (and M50)? [synthetic] [ In reply to ]
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synthetic wrote:
5 year AG too much dilution. Should be usatf set up...

Under 40
40+ masters
50+ grand Master's
60+ super grandmaster

A few years ago someone posted AG results based on age and the first 2 years took a significant amount of wins. Add 5 more to that and its going to turn some away. The physiological differences between a 40 year old and a 49 year old are huge, and the same applies to the 50's and 60's.
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Re: M40 slower than M45 (and M50)? [FlashBazbo] [ In reply to ]
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So in response to FlashBazbo: You basically just defined triathletes as either steroid junkies or candy ass snowflakes incapable of training hard year round. Nice!
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Re: M40 slower than M45 (and M50)? [motorcity] [ In reply to ]
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You made me look back as I'm now 45-49 and slower than 40-44 but:

The last 3 races I've done.

Winner 30
4'th - 56
5;th - 53
8'th - 47
14'th - 40

Winner - 46
3'rd - 52
7'th - 15
9'th - 59
No 40-44 in top 20

Winner 34
3'rd - 17
7'th - 39
9'th - 46
14'th - 25
15'th 22
17'th - 50

No 40-44 in top 20.

Seems a bit odd as I was never outside of the top 20 (usually top 10) in the 40-44 age group.

Cold be the 40-44 doesn't play triathlon anymore.
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Re: M40 slower than M45 (and M50)? [jimmytheeagle] [ In reply to ]
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jimmytheeagle wrote:
So in response to FlashBazbo: You basically just defined triathletes as either steroid junkies or candy ass snowflakes incapable of training hard year round. Nice!

No, I didn’t. Not at all.
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Re: M40 slower than M45 (and M50)? [B.McMaster] [ In reply to ]
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OK, everyone seems to be buying into the idea that what the OP says is in fact true, but let's put at least a tiny bit valid effort into looking at this - Here is the average USAT score for the men who were given All-American status in 2018 - so the top 220-260 guys in each age group.

M35-39: 97.2
M40-44: 94.9
M45-49: 93.1
M50-54: 91.9

So at least from M35-39 on, as top US male amateur triathletes get older, on average they get slower. Therefore this whole discussion seems moot.

-------------
Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
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Re: M40 slower than M45 (and M50)? [furiousferret] [ In reply to ]
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furiousferret wrote:
synthetic wrote:
5 year AG too much dilution. Should be usatf set up...

Under 40
40+ masters
50+ grand Master's
60+ super grandmaster

A few years ago someone posted AG results based on age and the first 2 years took a significant amount of wins. Add 5 more to that and its going to turn some away. The physiological differences between a 40 year old and a 49 year old are huge, and the same applies to the 50's and 60's.

Yea well the joke is wait till you age up
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Re: M40 slower than M45 (and M50)? [palmtrees] [ In reply to ]
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palmtrees wrote:
Can someone explain to me how the hell all you old dudes are so much faster than the young guns?


Bc we're not racing like a bunch of just got kicked, overly sensitive testicles whining about the water being cold or the wind blowing or it's raining or my goggles are leaking. We show up, do our job (which is to whip your ass) and head to the bar to have 3 pints while you finish your run. We also enjoy beating the F out of the young kids. Truth be told, sometimes we even taunt you guys as we do it. "Hey good job you're almost to the finish line..no wait that's me, you're only on lap 1 of the run, sucks to be you". (I can't decide if this entire paragraph should be in pink or not.) I say all this in half jest half seriousness.

In all seriousness now:

I remember reading something from USAT when I was in the M40-44. That was the most competitive AG in the country with more overall wins in USAT races than any other AG.

Now those dudes are in the M45-49. And we're still beating the snot out of you young punks. We're like Clint eastwood in Grand Torino in this scene

It's so much fun to use old age and treachery against youth, enthusiasm & inexperience.

Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
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Last edited by: desert dude: Aug 13, 19 14:03
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Re: M40 slower than M45 (and M50)? [motorcity] [ In reply to ]
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Last race I was in, small local race, too 5 included a 60 year old and a 62 year old
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Re: M40 slower than M45 (and M50)? [motorcity] [ In reply to ]
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motorcity wrote:

If so, what makes a difference?

Old guys have more money for dope.....
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Re: M40 slower than M45 (and M50)? [motorcity] [ In reply to ]
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I think is just a dearth of fast 20-somethings in the AG ranks (statistically speaking). When I was racing in the 90's, the podium was always 20 and early 30-somethings. Some of those guys are still podiuming in their 50s; they are not as fast as they were in their 20s, but no fast 20 somethings are showing up.

ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
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Re: M40 slower than M45 (and M50)? [palmtrees] [ In reply to ]
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palmtrees wrote:
Can someone explain to me how the hell all you old dudes are so much faster than the young guns?

Local Olympic I do every year to support my town. 9/10 the people who win overall are 45+, except for this year when I won. People were surprised to see a kid (I'm 21) win.

Am I not going to go to Kona until I get grey hair?

I'll try an answer to this too, even though I've shown that on average, it's not really true when you are comparing the top athletes of each AG.

But when we do beat the young guys, there are a few reasons. Lots of people are using local races as their data points. In local races in Colorado, I've placed 2nd overall in the races I've done this year and my coach/teammate has won them. I'm 42 and he's 43. A big part of the reason for this is that the really fast guys often do not show up for these races. I don't know why, they are tons of fun. They only want to do IM branded races.

At IM branded races, I'm often like 20th-28th overall amateur. So there are plenty of people beating me, but I beat plenty of 20-39 year-olds too. Good race execution is a huge part of this. I often beat people who are demonstrably faster than me at all of the three individual sports, but put it all into one race, and a guy who can run a 1:18 half marathon suddenly is running 1:38, whereas I can run maybe a 1:25-26 half mary and run a 1:30-31 in a HIM. I'm patient and relaxed in the race. I know exactly how I should feel at all points in the race. I mete out my effort very carefully and I don't do stupid hard 1-5 minute efforts on the bike, I don't brake on the turns (as often as others), I'm comfortable descending in my aerobars and when somebody passes me, I don't stress out about it and I let them go. Basically, I'm not a hot-headed teenager anymore, and I have a lot of experience in race execution.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
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Re: M40 slower than M45 (and M50)? [RowToTri] [ In reply to ]
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RowToTri wrote:
OK, everyone seems to be buying into the idea that what the OP says is in fact true, but let's put at least a tiny bit valid effort into looking at this - Here is the average USAT score for the men who were given All-American status in 2018 - so the top 220-260 guys in each age group.

M35-39: 97.2
M40-44: 94.9
M45-49: 93.1
M50-54: 91.9

So at least from M35-39 on, as top US male amateur triathletes get older, on average they get slower. Therefore this whole discussion seems moot.

Couldn't agree more that the younger the faster starting in the 20's....

I was trying to give the OP a thought - perhaps there are a lot less 40-44 than 45-49 and then you would see 45-49 beating 40-44 just based on the numbers at certain races.

As it turns out - there were slightly less 40-44 ranked in 2018 than 45-49 but not enough to make a difference.

Also looked back at the 3 races I pointed out and it was roughly the same participation between the 2.

So I guess its just some races have the faster 40-44 show up and others have the faster 45-49.

It only takes 1 or 2 to show the results we are looking at making it dumb luck to see the result.
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