The autumn marathons are upon us and first we’ve seen Eliud Kipchoge set a world record time in Berlin and then Keninisa Bekele placing 5th in London in under 2hr06. What makes these runs so impressive is Kipchoge turns 38 next month and Bekele is already 40. These are not the sort of times or placings you expect men approaching their midlife crisis to achieve.
Kenenisa Bekele readies himself for the off …
Both, of course have a long history as elite runners with both of them winning gold medals at the 2003 World Championship in Paris. Kipchoge won the 5,000m; Bekele the 10,000m. Since then Kipchoge has become the world’s premier marathoner and Bekele set a world record in the 5,000m. In 2019 he ran the second fastest marathon in history behind Kipchoge.
Both runners are naturally better suited to distance running than the rest of us and at around 3:50 their mile times are some way down on what the best can achieve but it doesn’t make them slow compared to the rest of us. Less than 2,000 men have managed a sub-4 minute mile and basic speed is the foundation of Kipchoge and Bekele’s distance running success.
Two marathon world record holders (Kipchoge and Radcliffe) watch near London’s finish lline
The pace of their recent marathons comes in at 4:36/mile (or 2:52/km) for Kipchoge and 4:48/mile (2:59/km) for Bekele. Few of the runners I meet can even run 400m in a time under 1:12, let alone a mile.
This harks back to a point I often make about how people returning or taking up running at forty say they’re getting old and can’t expect to be as fast as they were when they were young. Technically they’re right, but realistically they’re just making excuses in case they aren’t.
There is no reason why a decently trained man or woman in their forties can’t be near the front of local races, winning their age category and running their best times. One of my good friends ran his first sub-3 marathon (2hr58) at age 38 then spent his forties training properly with a club and was running 2hr34 as he was about to hit fifty. Improvement is easily possible for almost all the runners I meet.
For the most part staying fast as you age is simply about dedication and getting the training right. If you’d like me to help you improve as a runner then do not hesitate to contact me.
I was in my early twenties when I made, what I now realise was, a very insightful observation. Where I worked the majority of people were older than me. (That’s not the insight). Of course when you’re young you have no judgement of how old other people are. Thirty seems wise and mature when you’re twenty and anyone over forty is ancient like your parents!
Now while I didn’t go around asking people their age you get a feel based on their seniority. There were the people who did the actual work, like myself, and we were all under thirty. The people who were middle management were usually in their thirties and the senior managers were over forty. Of course there were some workers in their forties who only made it to supervisor or team leader level or not even that far.
I’d get an idea of their age based on their family circumstances or how long they’d been working and the stories they told about when they were growing up. Whether it was supporting a football team that had success in the Sixties, their drinking stories from the Seventies or being single in the Eighties.
Despite this inability to accurately age people, what I noticed about the men who were under forty was they generally looked similar to people in their twenties. Yet the men who were over forty-five were overweight, grey or bald and wearing spectacles. Something happened to men between the age of forty and forty-five and it wasn’t flattering. This was the big insight!
This forty to forty-five change isn’t quite as prevalent today as it was thirty years ago. There’s certainly some artificial manipulation going on with hair dye, shaving the head completely bald rather than a combover and eye surgery or contact lenses instead of spectacles. But generally people look after themselves a little better and fifty has become the new forty! There are even people looking amazing in their sixties – think Tom Cruise.
I decided then I didn’t want this rapid ageing disaster to befall me and I would stay fit and healthy as best I could. The prevailing wisdom was that you can’t stop the ageing process but I’ve never been one for believing that and you did occasionally see people who looked much better than their years.
As I exited my thirties I found the occasional grey hair and a very gradually receding hairline, but it wasn’t until I turned forty-five that I saw a photo where my hair looked notably greyer. Even then I looked good for my age yet my reaction was to start learning what I could do to slow the decline. I bought a copy of Joe Friel’s “Fast After 50” as I wanted a headstart on what I should be doing when I hit them. That’s all summed up in my “The Ageing Runner” series of posts.
I’ve continued to decline a little more over the past five years. My eyesight is declining but I’m holding off on the specs and have tried various exercises to strengthen them. My hair is beginning to grey up on top where before it was just the temples. I still have a decent head of hair but my male pattern baldness is following the same trend as my uncle who is now seventy-two and looks exactly like I recall my grandad looking.
Now at fifty, I’m thinking ahead again. I don’t want to be one of those people who reaches their eighties and stoops, shuffles, struggles to get up and downstairs and has a variety of illnesses that keep flaring up. I’ve seen my parents, relatives and neighbours hitting this age and it’s saddening to see the decline kick in more strongly because they haven’t done any exercise beyond the housework, gardening and walking around town.
It doesn’t have to be the end, I keep telling them they could build more fitness. Over the past few years the BBC has aired programmes taking groups of sedentary seventy-somethings and improving their health and fitness by having them doing appropriate weightlifting and fitness exercises. This is good news for those who’ve left it until later but it’s much harder to build up when you’re faced with a big reclamation project rather than an ongoing maintenance task. If you get too far overweight or unfit, you may struggle to be able to get an exercise programme started plus you’ll have lived your fifties and sixties with many of the effects of ill-health – aches, pains, getting out of breath on stairs, fatigued and possibly feeling unhappy when you look in the mirror.
It might seem strange to be thinking thirty years into the future but doing so gives you a chance to identify and build good habits and if you take a month off, it really isn’t going to cause too much decline. On the other hand, it’s not uncommon for sedentary adults to put on 1-2 pounds of fat each year (and that’s a conservative amount for people who don’t exercise) which will leave them two to four stone heavier in thirty years’ time with all the problems that brings.
This is why I’ve been training for the 800m. I think it’s the best blend of aerobic exercise and speed you can do. To support it, I do press-ups, bicep curls and corework to keep my upper body toned and strong. The trick to slowing the ageing decline is to make sure you maximise using what you have got. The reason others get slow is they stop doing hard all-out exercise at all, get comfy and think going for a jog or walk is enough. It really isn’t.
This all began the better part of thirty years ago for me when I spotted the rapid decline between forty and forty-five. Reaching fifty, I’m pleased to consider myself about as fit and healthy as I can be at this age. It’s worth pointing that I haven’t been obsessive about this over that span. There have been periods where I didn’t exercise or ate badly but it was never too difficult to get back into shape because I was never too far away from my best!
If you missed part 1 you can find ithere, part 2 is here, part 3 is here, part 4 is here.
There’s no doubt that some decline occurs as we age but, in the past, it was thought to be purely a genetic thing. To still be racing well beyond fifty, if not forty, was something only those who were blessed and lucky could do. This myth has lasted well into the 21st century and is only beginning to be broken down in recent years. Often it’s used as an excuse or rationalisation by runners who either don’t know how to train, can’t be bothered to train or simply fear not being up the front.
The reality is decline, as experienced in the past, was more often a circumstantial thing. The people who went running usually competed for clubs. They started when they were young, had a high level of commitment and/or natural talent and continued on for some years. As their lives took on family responsibilities, they often found themselves racing slower and beginning to turn to the longer distance events.
Even twenty years ago training knowledge was less sophisticated. Plans, advice and methods were simpler than today’s but also often consisted of runners exhorting each other to “run hard” and “train hard” if they wanted to be fast. That’s a surefire recipe to having creaky knees and injuries.
Players of other sports went through the same process and once reaching their forties, some genetic loss began to kick in and once-committed sportsmen (and women) would hang up their football boots or running vests for a quieter life. As I grew up men and women in their fifties and sixties rarely looked as fit and healthy as many do today. Some of it is better preening but, there is often, also a better focus on staying fit through alternative means like cycling or going to the gym. Playing something like golf may keep you active but it won’t keep you fit because of the Primary Rule.
Primary Rule – Use it or lose it
The primary rule for the Aged Runner to remember is if you stop using it, you lose it. This is fundamentally the issue that causes most people to age poorly, put on weight, lose strength and stiffen up. They stop exercising as regularly or intensely as they once did. A sport like golf does little to push the muscles to their limitations, most of the time is spent walking which is easily achieved without too much extra exertion. Walking miles every day isn’t going to help you when your body is already efficient at it.
The more muscle your body has, the higher the “running costs” of living. Your body burns more calories simply by needing to keep that muscle alive. An athlete burns more calories sat on the sofa watching TV than the habitual couch potato who hasn’t toned their muscles up.
Many of the aches and pains older people suffer from are because the few muscles they do have are straining to do the simple tasks. A regime of getting stronger quickly gets rid of many minor aches and pains.
Your ageing body tempts you to stop doing difficult things and if you stop doing them, you decline quicker. Then it becomes a downward spiral as your body tempts you to do even less. You either “use it or lose it”.
Fit, healthy and running strong at fifty
Distance runners suffer a loss of top end speed because they rarely practice sprints or fast finishes. This is true of both young and old runners but becomes more noticeable with ageing. To access the faster speeds requires a dedicated programme of strides, hill sprints and short intervals to recruit and build the muscle. The occasional session is not enough to build up, it takes weeks of building session on session to maximise the gains.
Running is an activity which is very good at propelling the body forwards. While this keeps the lower body toned, what it doesn’t do is very much for the upper body (e.g. chest / shoulders / arms) unless you are a sprinter. The core muscles are worked if you have good running form. But with running being a straight ahead activity there’s also potential loss of strength for lateral movements (e.g. the types of movements that tennis, badminton or football players use regularly to sidestep or go left and right). These are all areas which will fall prey to the “use it or lose it” rule.
If your only sport is running, it is advisable to take up circuit, weight training or cross train to keep these other muscles active.
Secondary Rule – Recovery takes longer
The second rule for the Aged Runner is to understand that recovery takes longer. When you are young and full of hormones, you can train hard at least three times per week and recover from it. Sometimes more.
In middle and older age, you have to be sure the body has recovered enough before taking on the next workout. You’ll know you’re not getting enough recovery if you start feeling tired or getting aches or tightness setting in. The consequence of slower recovery is older runners cannot do as many workouts in a three month training period as younger ones. So the older runners have less speed or endurance when it comes to race day.
Another consequence of slower recovery is that injuries take longer to repair. If forced to take a break it can mean the athlete is no longer “using it” so potentially they are “losing it”. Once healthy, the temptation becomes to cram in training to try and rebuild quickly which is more likely to prolong the injury cycle. With a spiralling level of fitness, it’s easy to believe it’s purely an age-dictated decline rather than one which is in large part caused by impatience and bad habits.
Staying fast
Some decline is inevitable but it will be very gradual if you maintain good training habits. We saw in the Ageing Sprinter, there are men like Steve Peters or Charles Allie who at seventy years old are capable of running times that runners half their age do not achieve. The basis of all running events is strength which produces high cadences and long stride length which combine to produce high speeds. The people who are fastest over the shortest distances tend to be the fastest over longer distances.
Good training becomes about ensuring you do regular bouts of high intensity work like strides, hill sprints or short intervals to keep the fast-twitch muscle recruited. Having this muscle toned and active will also keep the fat off.
Ageing requires you to be patient and listen to your body, to understand how long it takes to recover. It is better to do one or two key workouts each week from a well-rested state than to do them badly in an under-recovered state.
You can’t be in denial about ageing taking some toll but, equally, simply throwing up your hands and accepting a big decline as inevitable is a mistake. Other people will be all too quick to tell you it’s age and encourage you to accept it but hopefully you now know better. If you’re to continue being fit, healthy and fast into older age, you have to find a realistic, common sense position somewhere between these extremes.
For the runners who’ve been to the pinnacle of the sport, of course the only direction is down. But for many runners who never achieved their potential at a younger age there is no reason to discount the possibility of improving as they get older. Even if they don’t improve, any decline can be minimised to allow them to keep running well into their seventies and beyond.
If you missed part 1 you can find ithere, part 2 is here, part 3 is here.
When we started Poole parkrun the attendance was well below two hundred runners each week which made it easy to get to know everybody. As the London Marathon rolled around in the April, I was excited to follow runners like Liz Yelling, who was aiming at an Olympic place, and Steve Way, who’d run three consecutive 2hr19s. But it wasn’t just the elites who caught my interest, I’d got to know runners of all abilities and using the online tracking kept an eye on a variety of people who’d be running from over four hours through to those attempting to run sub-3.
One of the success stories was Dave Cartwright, who ran a sub-2hr55 marathon on his way to being the fastest man in the 60-64 age group that day. Footage of him crossing the finish line was doubly amusing as he was shown on BBC TV patting model Nell McAndrew on the shoulder who, despite being over twenty years younger, had finished only just ahead of him. Now in his seventies, Dave is still running round Poole parkrun in under twenty-two minutes and completing Blackmore Vale half marathon in under 1hr40. These times are fantastic to most people and yet, they’re not close to the times of the best in his age group as we shall see.
Recently two V55s, Andrew Ridley and Duncan Cooper came 8th and 9th in a field of over seven hundred runners. Their times were 16:27 and 16:35 respectively. Andrew’s age-graded time equates to 95% but his efforts also give insight into how slow decline can be. He set his Poole parkrun PB of 16:15 having only just turned fifty, yet here he is seven years later running only twelve seconds slower. Barely two seconds decline per year. I know Andrew trains very hard to keep his speed intact for 800m racing.
Age group world records for 5000m
Time
Athlete
Date
Time
Athlete
Date
World Record
12:35
Joshua Cheptegei
14-Aug-20
14:07
Letesenbet Gidey
07-Oct-20
V35
12:54
Bernard Lagat
22-Jul-11
14:34
Edith Masai
02-Jun-06
V40
13:07
Bernard Lagat
20-Aug-16
15:05
Joanne Pavey
05-Jun-14
V45
14:24
Lucien Rault
19-Jun-82
15:56
Nicole Leveque
01-Jun-96
V50
14:53
Sean Wade
25-Mar-16
16:51
Gitte Karlshøj
23-Jun-09
V55
15:30
Keith Bateman
05-Jan-11
17:29
Silke Schmidt
27-Jun-15
V60
15:56
Yoshitsugu Iwanaga
14-Nov-20
17:59
Silke Schmidt
20-Sep-19
V65
16:39
Derek Turnbull
13-Mar-92
20:08
Kathryn Martin
28-Oct-16
V70
18:16
Ron Robertson
09-Jul-11
20:56
Angela Copson
25-Jun-17
V75
19:07
Ed Whitlock
23-Jul-06
23:31
Lavinia Petrie
28-Apr-19
V80
20:20
Jose Vicente Rioseco Lopez
04-Sep-21
25:40
Yoko Nakano
12-Sep-18
V85
24:04
Ed Whitlock
30-Jul-16
27:38
Yoko Nakano
23-Nov-21
V90
30:00
Yoshimitsu Miyauchi
20-Sep-14
—
V95
39:43
Antonio Nacca
04-May-19
—
Age group world records for the 10,000m
Time
Athlete
Date
Time
Athlete
Date
World Record
26:11
Joshua Cheptegei
07-Oct-20
29:01
Letesenbet Gidey
08-Jun-21
V35
26:51
Haile Gebrselassie
24-May-08
30:53
Joanne Pavey
03-Aug-12
V40
27:49
Bernard Lagat
01-May-16
31:25
Sinead Diver
28-Sep-19
V45
29:44
Kevin Castille
17-Mar-17
32:34
Evy Palm
04-Sep-88
V50
30:49
Sean Wade
01-Apr-16
35:06
Fiona Matheson
16-Oct-11
V55
31:52
Keith Bateman
26-Mar-11
36:47
Sally Gibbs
11-Nov-19
V60
33:40
Yoshitsugu Iwanaga
28-Nov-20
37:58
Mariko Yugeta
14-Nov-20
V65
34:42
Derek Turnbull
15-Mar-92
41:40
Angela Copson
05-Aug-12
V70
38:04
Ed Whitlock
09-Jul-01
44:25
Angela Copson
28-Jul-17
V75
39:25
Ed Whitlock
21-Jul-06
50:01
Melitta Czerwenka-Nagel
28-Aug-05
V80
42:40
Ed Whitlock
09-Jul-11
51:47
Yoko Nakano
06-May-18
V85
51:08
Ed Whitlock
12-Aug-16
1:26:15
Vladylena Kokina
21-Sep-14
V90
1:09:28
Gordon Porteous
17-Oct-04
—
Age group world records for the marathon
Time
Athlete
Date
Time
Athlete
Date
World Record
2:01:39
Eliud Kipchoge
16-Sep-18
2:14:04
Brigid Kosgei
13-Oct-19
V35
2:03:59
Haile Gebrselassie
28-Sep-08
2:19:19
Irina Mikitenko
28-Sep-08
V40
2:06:25
Ayad Lamdassem
24-Feb-22
2:19:52
Helalia Johannes
06-Dec-20
V45
2:14:23
Bernard Lagat
29-Feb-20
2:28:34
Catherine Bertone
23-Sep-17
V50
2:19:29
Titus Mamabolo
20-Jul-91
2:31:05
Tatyana Pozdnyakova
06-Mar-05
V55
2:25:56
Piet van Alphen
19-Apr-86
2:50:40
Jenny Hitchings
03-Nov-19
V60
2:30:02
Tommy Hughes
25-Oct-20
2:52:13
Mariko Yugeta
31-Jan-21
V65
2:41:57
Derek Turnbull
12-Apr-92
3:07:51
Kimi Ushiroda
15-Dec-19
V70
2:54:48
Ed Whitlock
26-Sep-04
3:24:48
Jeannie Rice
29-Sep-19
V75
3:04:54
Ed Whitlock
15-Apr-07
3:53:42
Yoko Nakano
23-Nov-12
V80
3:15:54
Ed Whitlock
16-Oct-11
4:11:45
Yoko Nakano
26-Feb-17
V85
3:56:38
Ed Whitlock
16-Oct-16
5:14:26
Betty Jean McHugh
09-Dec-12
V90
6:46:34
Ernest Van Leeuwen
06-Mar-05
8:53:08
Mavis Lindgren
28-Sep-97
Notes on Masters world records
All data was updated from Wikipedia in mid-June 2022. The aim is not to create a comprehensive set of records but to give readers an indication of what is possible. I will periodically update these when I can.
If you missed part 1 you can find ithere, part 2 is here.
Typically the 800m and 1,500m are the commonly run middle-distance races, but I’ve used the mile because it’s more relatable for most runners than the 1,500. This article also includes times for 3,000m which is on the cusp of being middle distance. For elite men, it takes around 7½ minutes and puts them on the edge of their aerobic limits whereas for women it’s almost a minute slower. But one reason why I’ve included them is to have three balanced articles containing records for three distances!
With all the women’s records from here onwards, many of the older age group times have good potential to be broken. Some of the over-ninety records don’t even exist. It was only in the 1980s that women began to compete at Olympics and World Championships in the longer distances and so many of the older age category records are held by women who started running later in life.
Katharine Switzer still running at Boston in her seventies
Of course there were women who ran distance before the eighties but they were fewer and far between. Katharine Switzer, who was the first woman to run the Boston marathon, was born in 1947 and opened the door for other women at the distance. In fact, many of the pioneers are younger and barely turning sixty at the time of writing.
The consequence of all this is the older age groups records have never been seriously trained for, or contested, by lifetime runners. To an extent this is also true of some of the older male records as few kept going past seventy but certainly with the women’s records we can expect some of their records to fall as the generation that started running distance in the late sixties are now hitting their seventies and the ones who followed them will have benefitted from increased participation and training.
Age group world records for 800m
Time
Athlete
Date
Time
Athlete
Date
World Record
1:40.9
David Rudisha
09-Aug-12
1:53.8
Jarmila Kratochvilova
26-Jul-83
V35
1:43.4
Johnny Gray
16-Aug-95
1:56.5
Lyubov Gurina
30-Jul-94
V40
1:48.1
Tony Whiteman
12-Jul-14
1:59.3
Yekaterina Podkopayeva
30-Jun-94
V45
1:49.9
Tony Whiteman
19-Aug-17
2:02.8
Yekaterina Podkopayeva
26-Jun-98
V50
1:58.6
Nolan Shaheed
13-May-00
2:12.5
Eva Trost
03-Aug-18
V55
2:02.9
Peter Oberliessen
07-May-16
2:19.6
Anne Gilshinan
08-Jun-19
V60
2:08.6
Nolan Shaheed
23-Apr-11
2:33.1
Lidia Zentner
14-Sep-13
V65
2:14.3
Earl Fee
18-Jul-95
2:39.6
Sabra Harvey
31-Oct-16
V70
2:20.5
Earl Fee
17-Jun-99
2:50.7
Sabra Harvey
19-Jul-19
V75
2:30.6
Jose Vicente Rioseco Lopez
18-Jun-16
3:07.3
Jeanne Daprano
23-Oct-11
V80
2:41.6
Jose Vicente Rioseco Lopez
30-Apr-21
3:25.8
Yolande Marchal
10-Oct-20
V85
3:06.7
David Carr
28-Jun-17
3:58.2
Yoko Nakano
23-Oct-21
V90
3:34.9
Earl Fee
22-Jun-19
5:01.3
Melitta Czerwenka-Nagel
30-Sep-20
V95
4:51.4
Antonio Nacca
09-Jun-19
9:30.5
Hollyce Kirkland
10-Jun-17
Age group world records for the mile
Time
Athlete
Date
Time
Athlete
Date
World Record
3:43
Hicham El Guerrouj
07-Jul-99
4:12
Sifan Hassan
12-Jul-19
V35
3:51
Bernard Lagat
06-Aug-11
4:17
Maricica Puica
21-Aug-85
V40
3:58
Bernard Lagat
25-Jul-15
4:24
Yekaterina Podkopayeva
09-Jun-93
V45
4:10
Davide Raineri
05-Sep-20
4:48
Yekaterina Podkopayeva
13-Sep-97
V50
4:20
Brad Barton
31-May-19
4:58
Nicole Weijling-Dissel
27-Aug-17
V55
4:35
Keith Bateman
18-Dec-10
5:08
Anne Gilshinan
07-Aug-19
V60
4:48
Håkan Eriksson
28-Aug-21
5:40
Lesley Chaplin Hinz
14-Jul-18
V65
4:56
Derek Turnbull
29-Feb-92
5:55
Angela Copson
19-Jul-15
V70
5:20
Joop Rüter
11-Jul-03
6:38
Sharon Gerl
06-May-18
V75
5:42
Ed Whitlock
28-Jul-06
6:58
Jeanne Daprano
21-Jul-12
V80
5:57
Jose Vicente Rioseco Lopez
18-Jul-21
7:35
Yolande Marchal
12-Oct-19
V85
6:40
Manuel Alonso Domingo
22-May-21
10:55
Blanche Cummings
20-Jun-15
V90
9:43
Gunnar Linde
17-Feb-19
12:49
Heather Lee
11-Jan-20
V95
11:56
Antonio Nacca
07-Apr-19
13:46
Colleen Millman
07-May-22
Age group world records for 3000m
Time
Athlete
Date
Time
Athlete
Date
World Record
7:21
Daniel Komen
01-Sep-96
8:06
Wang Junxia
13-Sep-93
V35
7:29
Bernard Lagat
29-Aug-10
8:28
Maricica Puica
07-Sep-85
V40
7:43
Bernard Lagat
14-Jul-15
9:03
Nuria Fernandez
24-Jun-17
V45
8:16
Vyacheslav Shabunin
17-Jul-15
9:17
Yekaterina Podkopayeva
22-Jun-97
V50
8:41
Christian Geffray
07-Jul-04
9:47
Gitte Karlshøj
19-May-09
V55
8:57
Keith Bateman
13-Nov-10
10:04
Silke Schmidt
10-Jul-15
V60
9:21
Yoshitsugu Iwanaga
26-Sep-20
10:29
Silke Schmidt
22-Aug-19
V65
9:47
Derek Turnbull
08-Feb-92
11:43
Kathryn Martin
03-Sep-17
V70
10:42
Siem Herlaar
02-Jul-99
12:13
Angela Copson
01-Sep-18
V75
11:10
Ed Whitlock
25-Jul-06
13:56
Yoko Nakano
21-Sep-12
V80
11:56
Jose Vicente Rioseco Lopez
04-Sep-21
14:27
Yoko Nakano
27-Oct-17
V85
14:13
Julian Bernal Medina
20-Feb-05
16:39
Yoko Nakano
23-Oct-21
V90
16:42
Yoshimitsu Miyauchi
19-Oct-14
—
V95
22:46
Antonio Nacca
16-Dec-18
—
Notes on Masters world records
All data was updated from Wikipedia in mid-June 2022. The aim is not to create a comprehensive set of records but to give readers an indication of what is possible. I will periodically update these when I can.
This series grew out of my attempts to write about Sports Psychology because it’s a topic which dominated my reading for a couple of decades. I wanted to impart the wisdom I’d learned along the way, but it’s a big topic ranging across all sorts of areas such as goal-setting, attributions, mental skills, relaxation and learning among many more; so being unsure of how to start writing it, I did the obvious thing and gave up for the time being!
During my research however, I looked up Dr Steve Peters to sharpen up on the details of his work. He’s famous for writing The Chimp Paradox; a best seller that brings together many of the ideas and methods he used while working as a sports psychologist for Great Britain Cycling to support their successful Olympic programme of the past two decades. Given his association with the cycling programme I was surprised to find out he’s been a highly successful Masters athlete in sprinting, to the extent that he won multiple gold medals at the World Masters Championships in the M50, M55 and M60 categories between 2005 and 2015.
Steve Peters competing in the British Masters
On the UK Athletics’ website, The Power of 10, there are records of his performances in the 100, 200 and 400 since 1996 when he was age forty-three up to pre-pandemic. It makes for interesting viewing to see the decline, or should I say lack of decline in his sprinting over that period. Even in his late sixties, he’s still running under 13s for 100m, under 26s for 200m and breaking a minute for 400m. There’s been a noticeable decline in the last couple of years which is more likely due to lack of competition or injury than age itself.
Would you have thought those times were possible for someone who was never an elite sprinter in the first place? At fifty I can’t even run the times he’s achieving in his late sixties. Not because it’s necessarily beyond me but because I’ve never trained specifically for them. How you train is a bigger determinant of your performance than your age.
Steve Peters is the World Champion for his age group, so he is obviously something of an outlier, but there are many former Olympians who are no longer competing who could be faster. Steve isn’t even the world record holder in his age categories. Below are tables of the age-graded world records for both men and women, updated in June 2022.
Age group world records for 100m
Time
Male
Date
Time
Female
Date
World Record
9.58
Usain Bolt
16-Aug-09
10.49
Florence Griffith Joyner
16-Jul-88
V35
9.87
Justin Gatlin
30-Jun-19
10.74
Merlene Ottey
07-Sep-96
V40
9.93
Kim Collins
29-May-16
11.09
Merlene Ottey
03-Aug-04
V45
10.72
Willie Gault
24-Jun-06
11.34
Merlene Ottey
12-Aug-06
V50
10.88
Willie Gault
07-May-11
11.67
Merlene Ottey
13-Jul-10
V55
11.3
Willie Gault
07-May-16
12.24
Julie Brims
13-Feb-21
V60
11.7
Ronald Taylor
04-Jun-94
13.63
Karla Del Grande
18-Jul-14
V65
12.31
Damien Leake
16-Jun-18
13.91
Karla Del Grande
11-Aug-18
V70
12.77
Bobby Whilden
06-Oct-05
14.73
Ingrid Meier
30-Jun-17
V75
13.25
Kenton Brown
03-Oct-20
15.03
Carol LaFayette-Boyd
04-Aug-18
V80
14.35
Payton Jordan
10-May-97
16.26
Kathy Bergen
06-Jun-21
V85
15.08
Hiroo Tanaka
25-Jun-17
18.49
Christa Bortignon
07-May-22
V90
16.86
Hiroo Tanaka
01-May-21
23.15
Mitsu Morita
06-Oct-13
V95
20.41
Frederico Fischer
30-Jun-12
30.16
Elena Pagu
28-Aug-21
Age group world records for 200m
Time
Male
Date
Time
Female
Date
World Record
19.19
Usain Bolt
20-Aug-09
21.34
Florence Griffith Joyner
29-Sep-88
V35
20.11
Linford Christie
25-Jun-95
21.93
Merlene Ottey
25-Aug-95
V40
20.64
Troy Douglas
09-Aug-03
22.72
Merlene Ottey
23-Aug-04
V45
21.8
Willie Gault
26-Apr-08
23.82
Merlene Ottey
27-Aug-06
V50
22.44
Willie Gault
07-May-11
24.33
Merlene Ottey
18-Jul-10
V55
23.24
Willie Gault
07-May-16
25.07
Julie Brims
07-Mar-21
V60
24.00
Ronald Taylor
10-Jun-94
28.11
Karla Del Grande
22-Oct-13
V65
24.65
Charles Allie
26-Jul-13
28.53
Karla Del Grande
05-Aug-18
V70
25.75
Charles Allie
21-Jun-18
31.3
Ingrid Meier
02-Jul-17
V75
27.73
Robert Lida
05-Aug-12
31.56
Carol LaFayette-Boyd
09-Sep-18
V80
29.54
Hijiya Hisamitsu
16-Sep-12
35.34
Kathy Bergen
06-Jun-21
V85
31.69
Hijiya Hisamitsu
17-Sep-16
41.58
Emiko Saito
12-Nov-17
V90
36.02
Hiroo Tanaka
23-May-21
55.62
Mitsu Morita
30-Jun-13
V95
48.69
Friederich Ernst Mahlo
10-Sep-07
1:12.99
Diane Friedman
22-Jul-17
Age group world records for 400m
Time
Male
Date
Time
Female
Date
World Record
43.03
Wayde van Niekerk
14-Aug-16
47.60
Marita Koch
06-Oct-85
V35
44.54
Chris Brown
30-May-15
49.46
Allyson Felix
06-Aug-21
V40
47.81
Enrico Saraceni
25-Jul-04
52.50
Geisa Aparecida Coutinho
09-Apr-21
V45
49.09
Allen Woodard
18-Mar-17
56.14
Angee Henry-Nott
23-Jul-21
V50
50.51
Juan Luis Lopez Anaya
16-Jul-21
57.66
Marie Lande Mathieu
14-Sep-07
V55
52.24
Charles Allie
12-Jul-03
59.36
Julie Brims
23-Jan-21
V60
53.88
Ralph Romain
22-Jul-95
1:04.3
Caroline Powell
12-Aug-15
V65
56.09
Charles Allie
18-May-13
1:08.0
Karla Del Grande
12-Jul-19
V70
57.26
Charles Allie
11-Sep-18
1:11.8
Barbara Blurton
10-Dec-20
V75
1:02.4
Guido Müller
28-Jun-14
1:19.5
Christa Bortignon
22-Aug-13
V80
1:10.0
Hisamitsu Hijiya
09-Sep-12
1:29.8
Rietje Dijkman
09-Sep-19
V85
1:17.1
Earl Fee
12-Jul-14
1:41.6
Emiko Saito
29-Apr-17
V90
1:29.2
Earl Fee
19-Jul-19
2:16.2
Melitta Czerwenka-Nagel
14-Sep-20
V95
2:21.8
Orville Rogers
12-Jul-13
3:21.0
Diane Friedman
27-Jul-19
It’s my guess that most runners, male or female, can’t even run the times being set by the 80-year-old women; let alone run close to the times for their own age or gender. It’s only when these runners get into their eighties that the times begin to noticeably degrade and I suspect this is as much down to circumstance, as it is ageing. There are fewer of these runners competing and most of them probably took it up later in life.
Lots of facts and figures so far but here’s a chance to enjoy watching M70 Charles Allie in action over 200m.
When I began parkrunning I was in my thirties. I’d never been a serious runner but my Saturday morning endeavours motivated me to get training and as I began my forties I started recording Personal Bests at all distances. As I approached forty-five I ran my first sub-40 10K. I was getting better with age.
Now as I move into the VM50-54 category at parkrun, I still believe there’s more to come. This is not to say that age doesn’t see a decline in your capabilities, only that I never fulfilled my potential when I was younger.
I’ve never believed the limitations of the human body are as pronounced as other people like to believe and in this five-part series of posts I’ll detail how fast older runners, both men and women, can be as they go up through the age categories and over different distances. I think you’ll be surprised to find out it’s much more than you can imagine.
There’s no doubt a fifty-something runner is not going to be capable of the times they could have achieved in their twenties, but there is a belief that this decline is rapid. It’s generally agreed athletes peak at around twenty-seven but it can be a couple of years either side. Becoming a world class athlete takes a decade of development and while the body finishes its growth by eighteen years old, there are still maturation processes going on within the brain and hormones that continue into the twenties.
Here’s a question to ponder for a moment …
If an athlete’s peak is twenty-seven and they begin to decline after this, at what age are they achieving the same standards as when they were seventeen? For example, if your parkrun PB at seventeen was twenty minutes and you continued training for the rest of your life hitting a lifetime best of fifteen minutes at twenty-seven; what is the age when you will last be able to record twenty minutes again?
I’ll give you the answer at the end of the article.
Ageing in sport is one of those myths that is slowly being deconstructed. In most professional sports, athletes are usually finished in their mid-30s with just the occasional highly skilled technician or specialist (think golfers, goalkeepers or quarterbacks) making it into their forties. I recall watching the Barcelona Olympics where Linford Christie became the oldest sprinter ever to win the Olympic Gold at the advanced age of 32!
In recent years we’ve seen athletes extending their careers into their late thirties despite professional sport now being played at a higher level than it was. In tennis we see Roger Federer and Serena Williams still near the top as they close in on forty; while sprinter Justin Gatlin won the World Championship in 2017 at age 35 and is still running sub-10 second 100 metres. Eliud Kipchoge just won his second Olympic marathon at 36.
As you’d expect these elite athletes are gradually losing their ability to compete at the top of their sports. I often meet runners who, having given up for twenty years or, never run when they were young, believe that because they’re older, the faster times are going to be beyond them. Now while well-trained elite runners are never going to be as fast as when they were younger, for those of us who start late, didn’t train or got poor coaching there’s every chance we can be faster and fitter than we’ve ever been before.
Within this series of articles I’m going to give you the facts and figures about what runners over the age of thirty-five are achieving. While you won’t necessarily be able to match them, what it should give you is a realistic view of how slow the decline is and how quick it’s possible to stay running well into what most people consider old age. I want you to come away from this series feeling inspired about what is possible. Whether you decide to get the best out of yourself is your choice, but age is not going to be an excuse if you don’t!
In part 2 I’ll examine the Masters sprinters (100m / 200m / 400m)
In part 3 It’s the turn of the middle-distance runners (800m / Mile / 3,000m)
In part 4 We’ll look at the long distances (5,000m / 10,000m / Marathon)
In part 5 I’ll give a brief overview of what’s happening as the body ages and what you can do to delay the effects
Answer to the quiz question – the old age equivalent of being seventeen is sixty-five years old. That’s right. Your physical maturity peaks at age twenty-seven but the decline is so gradual that over thirty years later you’re still capable of doing what you could at seventeen years old. This, of course, requires you to stay healthy and training.