Not Older But Faster
At 72, Ralph Swanson could barely run 100 yards without huffing and puffing. Fast-forward two years to last fall, when the 74-year-old retiree, who splits his time between Wisconsin and Texas, ran the Chicago half-marathon in two hours, 27 minutes, and 42 seconds.
Now he's training for a triathlon.
The standard wisdom is that the older you get, the slower you get. But new studies show the opposite: It's possible to get fitter, and faster, even as you age.
Swanson was among the sedentary seniors trained in a study conducted by cardiologist Benjamin Levine of the University of Texas Southwestern/Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. Levine's conclusion: "Anybody, no matter how sedentary or debilitated, can, given the appropriate oversight and instruction, initiate, sustain, and progress in an exercise program."
In fact, male and female runners over 50 are increasing their speed--at a faster rate than younger runners, concludes Yale medical school orthopedist Peter Jokl, from his analysis of the 415,000 runners completing the New York City Marathon from 1983 to 1999. "They're improving at a phenomenal rate," says Jokl. Women 60 and over as a group, he adds, are shaving off nearly four minutes from their finish times every year.
But you don't have to be 60 to improve. New York publishing executive Stacy Creamer says she didn't really blossom on the track until she hit 40, after more than 15 years of running. "Almost every race post-40 has been a personal record," says Creamer, now 45. Her favorite triumph: At 43, the breast-feeding mother of a newborn, she ran a metric mile (a little less than a mile) in under five minutes.
Yes, "there is an aging process, and I don't think anyone 70 years old will break the world record," Jokl notes. Nor will elite runners who set records in their 20s surpass them in their 40s or beyond. Marathoner Frank Shorter won the Olympic gold medal in 1972 with a time of two hours, 12 minutes, 20 seconds; at 57, he clocks the 26.2 miles at the slower but still impressive clip of a bit less than three hours.
Consistency is the key for runners of any age who want to get up to speed, says Shorter, author of the newly published Running for Peak Performance (DK Publishing, $15). Some training tips for taking those first steps:
Start slow. After getting the go-ahead from your doc, start nice and easy. Especially if you've been sedentary, at first walk rather than run, and set a goal of time (say, 30 minutes out) rather than distance, advises Conrad Earnest, director of the Center for Human Performance and Nutrition Research at the Cooper Institute. "You do not have to exhaust yourself to improve your level of fitness," says Shorter. "As long as you are able to comfortably carry on a conversation, you are at the right pace."
Go easy on your joints. Whenever possible, Creamer runs on dirt rather than concrete. "Even though packed dirt is hard," she says, "it's much kinder to your joints and muscles."
Don't overdo it. " People need to understand that their cardiovascular system will adapt at a much faster pace than their orthopedic system," says Earnest. Increasing your mileage prematurely can lead to stress fractures and other aches. To be safe, add no more than 10 percent to your training time each week.
Stretch and lift. Stretching can help prevent injury, as can a strength training routine.
Try intervals. To go beyond the speed plateau most runners reach after about a year, Shorter suggests weekly interval training, alternating fast spurts (from a few seconds to three minutes) with slower recovery jogs about twice as long.
Be realistic. In his 40s, Ken Sparks, director of Cleveland State University's Human Performance Laboratory, strove to slice his running times. Now, at 60, he trains "not to get slower." But that sure beats losing the strides you've worked so hard to gain.
This story appears in the April 11, 2005 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.