Here’s some heartening news for older marathon runners: According to a new study out of Spain, the average 60-year-old runs marathons in about the same time as a sprightlier 18-year-old.
That’s the conclusion out of the University of Madrid, where researchers charted the relationship between marathon running times and the age of elite athletes and found that a U-shaped graph was the most adequate way to depict running performances.
The findings run counter to long-held beliefs that performance in long-distance running decreases progressively in linear fashion from the age of 25 onwards.
In their study, published in the journal Age, researchers showed that elite male athletes posted their best marathon race times at the age of 27.
The average elite female runner peaked at the age of 29.
In both sexes, runners were about four per cent slower for every year under their peak ages. After their peak age, athletes slowed down two per cent every year.
But come 55, performance times were seen to take a pretty steep drop, researchers noted, with a sharp decline seen in both men and women.
To conduct the study, researchers looked at the times of more than 45,000 runners who took part in the New York City Marathon in 2010 and 2011.
Authors included the top 10 runners in both male and female categories between the ages of 18 and 75.
And while the gender difference in marathon times remains at 20 per cent between men and women until the age of 55, the gap widens to more than 40 per cent at the age of 70.
While the latest research may dash a few hopes of pulling off a personal record at the age of 45, let Fauja Singh serve as inspiration.
As the world’s oldest marathon runner, Singh ran his first at the age of 89 and ran the Toronto Marathon in 5 hours and 40 minutes in 2003 at the age of 92.
