Get Older, Run Faster?

In a recent article in her New York Times Personal Best column, Gina Kolata writes about an interesting phenomenon – that older women often manage to outpace younger women in races:

Men, as might be expected, get slower as they age. At a recent five-kilometer race in Pine Beach, N.J., which drew nearly 1,000 runners, the fastest man was 24 years old and the men’s times increased with each five-year age group.

But the women were different — their times were all over the place with older women beating younger women in almost every age category. The fastest woman was 37 years old; the fastest woman in the 45 to 49 age group beat the fastest woman in the 20 to 24 and the 40 to 44 age groups.

. . .

And it’s not just a New Jersey effect. Others have noticed it elsewhere and when I did a random check of race results in California, I saw it there too. On Aug. 8, in a 10-kilometer race in Alameda, the 53-year-old woman who won in the 50 to 54 age group was faster than the woman who won in the 25 to 29 group. A 38-year-old woman beat every other woman in the race.

Gina talked to several experts in an effort to answer the question ‘why would this be?’. The answer I agreed with the most was that many older women are simply trying harder and training with more commitment. That is certainly true with me.

I think I ran my first official road race – a 10K – when I was in 8th grade. At that young age, a 10K seemed like a huge effort, so I really was looking just to finish, which I did. Through the years, I continued to run and enter races, eventually working up to running a couple of marathons in my 20s and 30s.

However, it’s only been in the past 5 years or so that I decided that I really wanted to commit to training harder and seeing what I was capable of. So, instead of just running ad hoc like I used to – making sure I’d run near the race distance at least a couple of times before the event – I began researching and following training plans and attending track workouts. The results have been great – even though I’ve gotten older, in the last few years, I’ve continued to get faster.

I know at age 42, it’s not likely that I’ll continue improving for much longer. But it’s sure fun to try. So, go ahead – train a little harder for your next race and see where it gets you. You may not end up running any faster – but I bet you will enjoy the effort.

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