Getting back into shape at age 48

Triathlon Forum
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My last race was 70.3 worlds 2023. And to be honest, 2023 was not a super strong training year for me. Since then my average weekly volume is probably 4 hours a week until the last few weeks. I’ve kept up swimming twice a week and done maybe 1 or 2 other workouts a week - ride or run, nothing too tough. It was partly getting busy with work launching a new company, partially just needing a break after 13 years of racing and partially just dealing with life stress. But now I’m hoping to race this season without totally sucking. Work will still be demanding…

I’m worried that at 48 years old, the fitness will not just all come rushing back after a few months of training. Running seems to have suffered the most. I went out for a “long” run the other day and it felt pretty awful! Only ended up doing 7 miles. For 1 hour rides, power seems pretty OK, but when I go 2 or more my endurance is very poor. I’ve added regular strength training, which I never really used to do because of all the research showing that keeping and building muscle gets so much harder as you get older.

I have a coach and I am trying to focus on at least doing the most important parts of every workout he assigns, even if getting 100% of the time in feels too onerous sometimes. This is something he whole-heartedly endorses.

Any wisdom to share in successfully navigating this?

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Patience is the key. You just have to go through the motions of slowly building a workload tolerance and,barring injury,most of what you had will come back.

Your body doesn’t care about “the numbers” so don’t pit your bodies reality against your minds expectations and remember,how fit you are right now doesn’t matter,it is how fit you you are come race season that counts.

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I’m 50, returning from an extended break. Four things Ive focused on.

  1. Consistency - get to the point where you want to do the work out, not have to
  2. limiting expectations - gains come back fast but will plateau for a long time, that’s where the mistakes come and the sense that the training isn’t working.
  3. an extended outlook - I’m on a 500day plain. the only goals within the 500day block are to stay consistent, healthy, happy/have fun. Racing results wont mean much to me during this.
  4. Strength - I do two solid hard 5 x 5 strong lift sessions a week
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There’s your problem, right there - comparing You now, to You then

Once you throw that away, you will be fine

YMMV

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Yeah - this is something I know very well intellectually - train where you are not where you want to be. It’s advice I have often given to other people. But knowing it and actually tossing out your ego and doing it are two different things!

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One thing that feels a bit confusing to me now - chasing age group podiums does not feel motivating to me anymore. If I think about standing on a 45-49 70.3 podium, I feel… meh. However, I know that when I get into a race, I’m gonna want to beat people. I will push and try my best because I will be motivated to go faster than the other people. Seems like an odd contradiction.

What does feel motivating to me is doing hard stuff with my friends.

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This. The fitness will come back, but your mind is probably wanting your body to do things it just isn’t ready to do yet.

Trust the build process and realize maybe next season will be your time to shine and be competitive, and use this one to dust the cob webs off and rebuild slowly.

You can’t train when you’re injured, and injuries take a lot longer to heal now. Best to avoid them with sensible training.

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Not quite the same. Where you want to be and where you once were will probably never meet again…

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Don’t chase it, let that desire come back to you. Enjoy smoking your friends now

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Hahaha, I wont be smoking my friends right now…

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50 is the new 30. I’m not even joking. At age 50 today, lots of folks are doing stuff their parents at age 30 would have said ‘hell no - I’m too old!’.

Triathlon is still super friendly to 50 year olds, with a lot of AGers actually peaking around 47-51 years of age in overall ability, because they finally get good enough at all disciplines + experience + money for hardware upgrades. I fall in this category - have been running since middle school, and doing tri for the past 18 years but my fastest USAT scores have been now, at age 50-51. I do train a lot more than in my 35s due to more job security and aging up kids, but that’s part of the deal with why M50 remains quite competitive, even if the younger AGs have finally upped their game a lot.

At age 48, you do have to ramp things up slower, and for sure, avoid doing ‘stupid stuff’, you know, heroic stupid stuff that sounds epically fun and dumb to do when you’re 25-35 years old, like run a marathon when you’re woefully prepared just because, or try and run super fast in a road race when you don’t have the speed work and base to support it.

Best recommendation is to clear as much time as you can for REGULAR training, find a progressive plan (lots on Trainingpeaks, I’ve used 80/20 triathlon plans with great success) that works for your fitness level and goals that will train you over months. You should be rocking in no time, and if you can up the training hours, you’d probably put the beatdown on your younger self unless you were already really, really good back then.

And at age 45+, it’s time to commit to equipment speed gains - at this age, it’s now or never. Get fast carbon shoes for racing, get aero helmet, carbon wheels, and TT bike. Used gear works great if it fits. The bike frame is the least crucial of the parts, you can use the bike you have an trick it out with all the aero goodies, and you dont’ need to break the bank to do it.

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Thanks. Not sure I’ll be breaking PRs, except maybe swim. Yeah, there are a fair number of 50 yo that can beat this but in 70.3 my PR is 4:26 overall, 2:12 bike, 1:29 run, 30 swim (not all in the same race, and not counting my 27 swim from NOLA years back when it was short). It’s not crazy fast, but not sure I will be quite back there. Maybe. We’ll see. Don’t worry - I’m good on equipment :sweat_smile: I never dedicated crazy time for training. Varied from 8 to 12 hours a week. In season like 10-12. I don’t want to commit more time than that - too many things I want to do!

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That’s fast! Get back training you’ll be super fast! (Ok, maybe not 4:26 fast!)

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Best advice I’ve been given re: training for sport is “don’t stop.”
So at least you’ve a jumping-off point, albeit a modest one.
You dialed back your training between what’s usually the 1st and 2nd big age-related drop-off points (hey, it’s aging, not death) for most endurance athletes.
Maybe you’ll suffer for this, and likely not make up for lost time. And maybe not…

Once you’ve some hours behind you, you’ll need to get new baselines, right?
Maybe use those to decide if you want to stay at 70.3 or shift to OD.

There are no shortcuts… Do the time and enjoy it.

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my PR for the marathon was when I was 28 bu my pr for the 70.3 was when I was 54. I have had a few years of off and on training and racing lately due to surgeries but now at 70 hopefully have most of that behind me and can train/race again. What I would add to the discussion is that as you age running is the one part of triathlon that slows more than the others. It seems that with swimming and biking you can be right up there, but youth trumps when it comes to the run. Be patient with it and build slowly because it is where you really can get injured and with running you need consistency to build back. Don’t think I need a weekly long run starting back. Think I want to run x miles per week for a month and then maybe add another mile per day until you have a good base to work from. I started with 3 miles per run 4 times per week and I am now at 5 miles per run 4 x per week thru the winter months and not concerned with pace because of the snow, cold and ice. My goal is to be at 6/7 per run by April and then start adding variety like speed/distance. This from a guy who has run 140,000 lifetime miles. I would like to do a 70.3 later this year and podium AG. Having an end goal helps to measure my progress along the way.

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IMG_24531000×320 82.1 KB

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“It’s easier to stay in shape than to get back in shape”

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You didn’t mention anything about strength training, so if you have lifted/strength trained ever since just ignore me, but if not, I would like to echo what others have said before: strength, strength strength. Core, lower body, you name it.

I’m 47 and I am not coming off of a break, but since I started to strength train about 10-15 min per day my running feels so much better and I am much more durable…

Good luck & happy training

PS: Also, probably 98% of 40+ folks would say they are super fit by exercising 4h per week. Only here you look around and think you’re a slouch…..which you might be, but only within the 1-2% fittest people

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Thanks - I think I mentioned that I have started strength training. right now 45 minutes each friday - mobility, stability and strength, typically in that order. Most of my time training for triathlon I have not done strength training except for a couple of years in the middle… But I understand it is getting much more important for me now.

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Train with the fitness you have for the fitness you want. Not with the fitness you wish you had yet don’t.

Be consistent. With all the demands of life that weren’t there for the average 25-35yo, you have to make working out a priority at 45+. Instead of taking the day off bc shit hit the fan even a 15min run > no run.

worry about 2 sports now. Add in the 3rd. later. It’s easier to build fitness in 2 sports than 3.

Do little things that facilitate working out. Leave a bike on the trainer so you don’t have to set it up to ride zwift. If you have a treadmill do a short 10 min T run after every ride or a 15min easy run before every bike. Extending the overall session duration is a powerful training tool. 4 workouts of that can be 40-60min more per week at a very low recovery cost if you go easy. And you should go easy. No hard running .3-.4mph slower on the treadmill on these than you might normally run

As we age, especially on the run, we have more neurological decline and less elasticity in our muscles. This is not a prevalent on the bike because there is always some short hill to blast up. You need to reverse this with short fast :05-:06 efforts after a run. Just enough to start to get that back but not long enough to tear a hammie. The progress to strides, uphill strides, uphill reps all this before progressing to things like 400s/800s miles. Sure that sounds dumb as in why would I do a few 20m fast efforts but you have to condition the tendons to going fast. It sounds tedious as in it’ll take a few months before you get to intervals but it beats tearing a hammie. That will set you back much more than not doing intervals.

Did I mention hill reps - you can’t run enough as you get more miles under your legs. Great for improving economy. One of my 65yo athletes KQ’d on 4, yes you read that right, 4 interval sessions last year. But he did do hill reps 2-3x week all freaking year. He only ran 23 min faster than he had in the previous 4-5 seasons off the bike, not shabby for the 60+ AG. Plus hill reps are good for fixing over striding, recruiting more motor units etc

Speaking of motor units doing some lifting will help. Doesn’t have to be much, even a 20min session 2x week will help. You can do everything you need to and some of what you want to in 20 minutes in the gym.

Sleep - It’s the #1 training tool most triathletes, let me correct myself, most athletes underutilize. Alcohol is probably the #1 thing that should be utilized less especially since if you’re not day drinking (which is the best drinking) your drinking usually close to going to sleep, Alcohol can negatively impact sleep. Did I mention what your #1 underutilized training tool is?

Hope that helps. Walking you rdog more often and/or longer will never hurt, Your dog probably won’t complain as well. Off to go walk mine for 4km

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