What is everyone’s opinion on when the speed benefits that come from season after season training (“training age”) start to be negated by just plain getting older?
I am 28 years old and really only been in triathlon for 2 full seasons. I am your standard middle of the pack Olympic distance age grouper. My first Olympic distance ever on my local course yielded a time of 2.32.00, followed by a 2.16.00 on the same course the year later. The improvement is totally attributed to the coach I engaged, and I hope that with further years of hard work and dedication I can improve further.
Coming from a soccer background, where you are past your use-by-date at about 28, I am nervous that I have entered the sport too late and wont continue to improve even with hard work and dedication because I am “getting long in the tooth”. (Please no one be offended at this - I have no idea how old anyone else on the forum is and am not trying to be ageist.)
One day I would love to represent Australia at the World’s, but figure I need an extra 10mins of improvement to guarantee it. Can someone give me hope?
You should be able to improve physically well into your thirties. After that, you have to get smarter to be faster…that can happen, too! One thing for sure, once you plateau, you’re crazy to think you can do the same old things and see improvement…you’ve got to change something.
I’m 42 and I’m faster than I’ve ever been. Of course, I’ve never been fast and I didn’t really get into sports until my mid twenties. And I didn’t learn how to push myself until my mid thirties. I’m still improving though. I have this theory that because I started late and don’t have all that athletic baggage (old injuries), I haven’t yet seen my peak. (I know I am completely deluded, but a woman can dream can’t she?)
Then again, who cares. I am competitive, but I’m doing this for fun. Though I’m still stoked that I beat plenty of guys (I’m female) in your age group every race!!
I am 37 and have been competing in triathlons since 1990. Last summer I had a great year of training and set personal bests in both of the half IM races that I entered and an ironman pb by a pretty big chunk too. Unless you are very injury prone the benefits of putting in the time training far outweight the aging slowdown until you are well past 40 … at least this is what I’m counting on since 40 is getting pretty close for me:)
Just look at the times that “master’s” produce in time trials(40’s, 50’s, etc…). They are incredible times that are usually faster than most cat 1-2’s. I truly think that there is no such thing as “age” in a lot of sports.
at 28 and 2 years into the sport your at the point where even if you did no speedwork for the next season or two you would still get faster just because your still improving your engine.
I’m in my mid 40s and see very little difference from my mid 20s. I’ve been fortunate. I’m sure I can go just as fast or faster if I trained more. Maybe aging will catch up to me in my 50s but it certainly hasn’t caught up yet. Trust me, I’m certainly not smarter!
Work extra hard this year. Times running out fast for you. Life goes down hill after 29 ; )
Truthfully even sprint tri’s can improve for along time . They are an endurance race! Just a short endurance race. If you train correctly you can hold a high level longer. Even if the high level isn’t as high as when you were young. I have found that my times are as good or better. Just train smarter.
Of course this may only work for really good looking guys like myself : )
I started tri later in life and will be turning 53 this summer. I’ve been getting faster every year for the last five years. I don’t know for how much longer and expect to plateau sometime, but snce I’ve now been working on my running, I expect to be faster this year than last.
I just turned 40 and have never been faster on the bike or running. Now mind you, I have worked very hard at both of these for the past 4 years. I just had my first race this season 2 weeks ago (DUathlon) and had my fastest bike split ever at that course. Plus, I expect this year to be my fastest overall. BTW, I started triathlons in 1999. Age is just a number and that number is a big variable between humans. What really counts is your dedication and commitment to improving, no matter what your age. If you have that kind of mindset, you will find ways to get faster. At least I have. And I know plenty of masters who simply smoke on the bike, so it can and is being done. My advice is to surround yourself with blistering fast people in every discipline. And if you’re really committed to getting faster, you will come up to their level. And to quote a friend of mine – “Train hard or go home”.
I’m 38 and slower than when I was 28. Not by much, but slower by a bit. It is mainly on the running front. In non impact sports like swimming, biking and XC skiing, I am actually faster. I attribute it to being 5 lbs heavier and a few running injuries over time that has slowed down my run performances. Overall though, I have been able to set some PB’s recently, so the engine is still strong…the wheels are just a bit more suspect.
The way I see it, is that as I age up, the plan is to not get much faster, but to slow down less than the competition. The guys that were beating me when I was 28 are now much slower than me, cause they just did not train consistently and smart. They hammer like they are 28 and get injured constantly. Much better to jack up the volume, work on technique and spend more time sleeping !
I’m much slower in my 40’s than I was at my peak in my 20’s. But a lot of that is because I’m training far less.
Take a look at the age-graded time calculations for runners at http://www.personal.rdg.ac.uk/~snsgrubb/athletics/wavalookup.html
For example: 5k PR of 15:50 at 25, gets 81.94 points. The same point ranking for 43 is 16:49, a slowdown of just one minute. At age 38, it’s 16:13, just 23 seconds.
Background counts for a lot in this sport. You have at least 10 years of improvement I’d say…
A few weeks ago I recall watching CNN when they had this Physiologist on who had written a new book on chronological age vs “real age”. He opines that there is a real distinction and you can battle chronological age by your lifestyle. It was pretty interesting and conversely somebody with bad lifestyle habits is really older than their chronological age. It seems pretty intuitive if you look at the results of some master level athletes and the anecdotal evidence proffered above. It was good to see there is actual science behind it. His message was don’t get hung up on your chronological age since your “real age” is what matters.
I took up running in my mid-twenties, but my PRs in the 10K and half-marathon were not set until my forties–not long after I first took up triathlon, which I believe was no coincidence. I’m now 55 and considerably off my times for those distances. On the other hand, if I could get over the lingering effects of a hamstring injury I incurred in January, I think I could beat my marathon PR, which I set at age 35. In endurance sports, we peak a lot later than most people imagine.
In terms of physiology there will be some decline… the older studies showed that if a person trained then they would not loose Max Vo2 ability…
Almost all of the new research in the last years that I’ve read says that there will be declines… about 6% in people that train and 10% in those that don’t train… this appears to be seen in both cross-sectional and logitudinal studies…
These changes do seem to start about the mid-thirties.
BUT, race performance rarily depends upon max ability, but many other factors … i.e. nutrition, body comp, mental ability, health status, training programs…
So my thought is that yes, you should expect to lose some physiological ability (although in your case maybe not for another 10 years or so) but No you probably don’t have to live with slower race times…
just my thoughts
later - garyd
ps - there are some people though that refuse to belief that the decline is a natural aging process… they want to believe that it is all related to training ect…
