Becoming a Master Runner: Secrets to Getting Faster with Age

Finn Melanson [00:00:10]: Hello, fellow runners. I'm your host, Finn Melanson, and this is the Run to the Top podcast. The podcast dedicated to making you a better runner with each and every episode. We are created and produced by the expert team of coaches at runnersconnect.net where you can find the best running information on the Internet as well as training plans to fit every runner and every budget. While conventional wisdom suggests runners may peak as early as in their twenties, Many amateur and elite runners alike are running their best well into their thirties, their forties, and even beyond. Some of these high performing athletes may not even start running until later in life, but they still manage to perform at incredible levels. These athletes are proof that you can find success at any age. Today's show is gonna explore how runners of all ages and experience levels Can find success at running.

Finn Melanson [00:01:08]: This one is for any runners out there whether you're a competitive high school athlete or retired and just taking up running for the 1st time. We'll go deep into what leads to long term success in this sport with topics including whether there's a peak age for running, how age affects Running including the ways your training should change over time, tips for masters athletes looking to perform their best, and whether you can run fast while taking up running at a later age. Most importantly, we'll cover how you can maximize your potential no matter where you are in your running journey. So let's get into it. Metabolic profiling, sometimes referred to as MetPro, is an advanced methodology created by transformation specialist, Angelo Poli. MetPro analyzes a person's specific response to diet and activity and adjusts based on their personal needs and goals. We'll talk more about it in detail later in the show. But if you're interested in seeing how it works and getting a free consultation, Check it out at metpro.coforward/rtt.

Finn Melanson [00:02:12]: That's metpro.c0 forward slash r t t t. Don't let runner's knee keep you from your final weeks of training or your big race. An innovative new product called New Knee has been clinically proven to deliver immediate relief from runner's knee. Head to runnersconnect.net forward slash newni to learn more and receive your 20% discount at checkout.

Cory Nagler [00:02:43]: Welcome, RC athletes and listeners. Today, we're looking at how runners can perform their best at any age or experience level. So whoever you are listening, I can guarantee this will apply to you. I'm super excited to be getting into this topic with coach Alex and coach Jeff. Thank you both for joining me today.

Jeff Gaudette [00:03:02]: Thanks, Corey. Excited to be here.

Alex Ostberg [00:03:04]: Me too. I'm really excited about this topic, and I think, the audience has a lot to learn here. I think it'll be really applicable information.

Cory Nagler [00:03:11]: Yeah. For sure. I think, luckily, running is a sport that can be enjoyed by all ages, whether you're you're young, doing it in high school, elementary as I got into it or if you're starting at a later age. So really excited to kinda dive into how the sport looks a little bit different as you progress through those ages.

Alex Ostberg [00:03:27]: Absolutely. I think it's one of those things where we've seen over the past, like, 30, 40 years, the average age of masters athletes, for instance, has started to go up by, like, You know, at least 5 years, I believe, was the most recent figure that I saw. And even if you look at the highest levels of the sport at, like, the 2020 Olympic trials, I think about 20% of the qualifiers were older than 35, and 1 in every 13 qualifiers were older than 40. So you can see that, At any level in the sport, but particularly even at elite levels, there's an opportunity to keep competing, the further you get along. So I think it's really exciting to To, to address that for our audience because I think we have a lot of listeners here who are looking to really flourish in the second half of their career.

Cory Nagler [00:04:06]: Yeah. I I love that because I think it means that, you know, there's a lot more people getting into the sport later. And that not only are they getting into it, but there's a lot of opportunity for them still to perform at a high level. So, maybe let's just jump right into to what that looks like. So, obviously, our learning is gonna change a little bit as we age. So, Alex, do you maybe wanna start us off with what are some of those actual physiological changes that that runners go through?

Alex Ostberg [00:04:31]: Sure. And and before I jump into the physiology, I think I'll just talk more about the broad trends that you see with with aging. I think it's an undeniable fact that as you get older, your performances will start to drop off. No one has been able to disprove that model yet. There's no supplement or medication you could take yet to shortcut that process. So generally, what we see is that running performance kind of starts to drop off in, like, a curvilinear way. So your your potential for peak performance Tops out typically around, like, 30 to 35 and then starts to decrease pretty modestly until you get to about age 50 or 60, then there's a more punctuated and steep decline after the age of 70. The main physiological drivers of this kinda fall into 2 major buckets, which I'll talk about in-depth.

Alex Ostberg [00:05:16]: The first would be a decline in VO two max, and then the second would be a decline in muscle mass, muscle cross sectional area, strength, and power. A lot of that would be grouped under the category of sarcopenia, which is age related muscle loss. Probably the more important one for our audience that we wanna dive into is the decline in v o two max. So just to throw a quick definition out there, v o two max is basically the measure of the maximum amount of oxygen that a runner can take in during intense exercise. And it's typically the gold standard that's used for measuring Cardiovascular fitness and endurance capacity. And there are several different variables that are inform what somebody's VO 2 max and this is determined by something called the Fick equation, which we don't need to dive in in too much detail. But basically, what it comes down to is it's your cardiac output, so how much blood can your heart pump per minute multiplied by the ability of your muscles to extract oxygen from the bloodstream itself. And when you think about these physiological parameters and aging, It actually starts to become a little bit more telling why we start to see these decreases in performance.

Alex Ostberg [00:06:20]: So first and foremost, for cardiac output, which is, again, the amount of blood that your heart can pump per minute. That's determined by your heart rate and your stroke volume. Your stroke volume is how much blood your your heart can pump per beat. And as you get older, the stroke volume of your heart starts to decline a little bit and that is because the contractility of the heart drops so it can't squeeze quite as hard, and you're pumping against a little bit more resistance. As you get older, you have something called atherosclerosis that's that tends to set in, which is when your vessels are not quite as elastic. So the heart's pumping not as effectively and against a little bit more resistance. The one thing is that In this, in this equation, what's what's modifiable is that you can actually change that stroke volume through training. One thing you cannot change is your heart your your maximum heart rate.

Alex Ostberg [00:07:08]: So what everyone will see as they get older is maybe in your your teens and your twenties, you were able to push a max heart rate of, like, 200 to 210. As you get older, that number is gonna start to decline pretty much in a trusty way year by year. So that's something that you have absolutely no control over. Even if you're more fit, that maximum heart rate is going to keep dropping. In terms of the other major predictors of endurance performance, Your lactate threshold does seem to, it does seem to be affected, but it it appears as though from the research that the VO two max is The stronger contributor to what kind of fuels those performance declines later on in life. And then interestingly, when it comes to running economy, which is basically you can think about it like the miles per gallon on your car. How efficient are you moving? What's what's the oxygen cost of your movement? That actually remains relatively unchanged. And in some cases, your running economy can actually keep improving as you get older.

Alex Ostberg [00:08:03]: So that is actually an interesting thing, When you consider masters athletes. I'll let Jeff talk about anything else he wants to talk about in terms of the the v o two max, and then I can jump into the the muscular declines that we see.

Jeff Gaudette [00:08:16]: Yeah. So I think I think you're spot on. I think those are the definitely the physiological changes that we see all the time in the athletes that we work with. What I actually find and you're gonna talk about this, so I'll let you dive into it. But what I definitely find more, attenuating for the athletes that we work with is The loss of muscle or the yeah. I guess the diminishing of muscle strength, muscle size, that kind of stuff. I think that is a more from a training perspective, That's a more prominent factor.

Alex Ostberg [00:08:44]: Absolutely. Yeah. And I can dive into that in a little bit more detail. So when it comes to muscle, there's several things that happen. The first is really a shift in, the reliance on different types of muscle fibers. So people in the audience might know that you have your type 1, which are your kind of endurance Slow twitch muscle fibers and then your type 2, which are your power and more explosive fibers. In, in in biology, there's this principle that's kind of it's called use it or lose it, like to refer to it as, which is throughout your life, you're kind of always innervating, de innervating, and reinnervating some of those muscle fibers. And if you don't actually use those type 2 power explosive fibers, then the body actually doesn't bother to reinnervate them throughout life.

Alex Ostberg [00:09:24]: So in general, there's there's more of a reliance on those slow twitch muscle fibers over life and over the course of your life. And, consequently, what happens is that the cross sectional muscle area, of those type 2 fibers really does start to go down, so you're gonna lose a lot of your power. The other thing too, the other consequence here is that Your your muscle quality starts to change a little bit too. So in a in a young healthy person, you're you're looking at, like, really high quality muscle. But as you get older, there tends to be a little bit more, like, the infiltration in the muscle, so the quality itself is not as good and that does impact the contractility of the muscle. And then lastly, There's a reduction in, like, the neural drive. So as a signal travels from your brain to the spinal cord to the motor neurons that innervate those fibers, The signal is not quite as strong as you get older so you can't generate as much force, when you're older as you were able to when you're younger. So I find this kind of interesting because when you look at What a master's running gait would look like.

Alex Ostberg [00:10:21]: Typically, one of the characteristics is the stride length decreases a lot and it's a load typically, they all have a little bit more of a shuffling stride. That's because, like, the calf musculature is one of the the biggest contributors to how we create the propulsive force off the ground.

Jeff Gaudette [00:10:37]: And through all

Alex Ostberg [00:10:37]: of the factors that I just discussed, right, the decrease in cross sectional area, the decrease in neural drive, and the increased reliance on type 1 fibers, you actually just can't Bound off the ground the same way you were able to when you were younger. So I find that pretty interesting.

Jeff Gaudette [00:10:52]: 100%. Yeah. So I think, you know, in all the research that I've seen, and especially this relates to what you're talking about, the calves are by far the most important factor when it comes to, The loss of muscle power in older runners, and they also there's a lot of research that shows they are the reason that a lot of masters athletes have calf injuries Because we are trying to keep up with that, that power generation in our calves, but we've lost a lot of the muscle strength. So you're also you're Forcing them to do more work than they're able to do, and that's why a lot of masters athletes get calf injuries. And I'll talk about that a little bit more in a second. But one thing I wanted to Kinda kinda just say and interject. You know, we've talked about a lot of the losses. So we talked about the diminishing of VO two max, you know, the diminishing of muscle power, muscle strength, etcetera.

Jeff Gaudette [00:11:38]: One thing that masters athletes have an advantage over is that, generally speaking, the aerobic system is going to be more developed. Now this happens obviously more in ath masters athletes that have been training for a majority of their lives, but the aerobic system is definitely a system that we've seen through research can be continuously developed. And unlike a lot of the other factors like VO two max, lactate threshold, etcetera, there's really no cap to aerobic threshold sorry, to aerobic, capacity. And there is a linear there is like a a point of diminishing returns, of course. It doesn't just Completely keep going up in a straight line, over time. But that said, masters athletes definitely have the advantage over younger athletes in that, generally speaking, their aerobic system is a lot developed. So I just kinda wanted to interject that because I didn't wanna seem like, you know, we're talking about, masters training and that kind of stuff that we didn't wanna assume, like, it's all negative, negative, negative. There's definitely some positives in there as well, so just kinda wanted to interject that there.

Cory Nagler [00:12:34]: Jeff, I'm I'm so glad you, chimed in with that because that was exactly gonna be my Question is, of course, we know we're seeing a lot of athletes perform really well later in life. So what are those physiological benefits you get, which I think is Exactly what you covered there is that you see a lot of those aerobic benefits, which makes sense if, if a lot of that success is at longer distances that that's what you see. So Mhmm. Bearing this in mind, it sounds like there's kind of this trade off or maybe you lose some of that that calf strength or or that explosiveness As you get older, but you also get a little bit stronger aerobically. So bearing in mind these changes, I guess, how does that then apply to athletes as it pertains to adjusting your training to maximize your performance at different ages.

Jeff Gaudette [00:13:14]: Yeah. So that's a great question, and I think that's what it all comes down to. Right? We can talk about all the changes that are happening from a scientific standpoint. But what we really what's really important to us is how do we adapt our training to overcome some of these things? So like I said what like I mentioned earlier, I think to me, the biggest, the biggest element that we need to overcome is the reduction in muscle strength and muscle power. And there's a bunch of different ways that we can do this. So first, there's obviously, as you get older, you just need to focus on doing more strength work. So in your younger years, you can just kinda rely a little bit more on your natural genetics and just being younger. As you get older, you're gonna need to supplement that a lot.

Jeff Gaudette [00:13:51]: And so, Strength work is is super important. The older you get, the more strength work that you need to do, both on the performance side. So from, you know, implementing strength work that, can help you increase your performance, but also on the injury side. So one of the things when you when it comes to muscle loss, muscle strength loss of muscle strength is that It's going to inevitably lead to an increase in injury risk. And one of the best and and the best way to mitigate injury risk is to be strong and to, do strength work. So it becomes doubly important. Like I mentioned earlier, the calves are probably the most important area that we need to pay more attention to as we get older. So I definitely recommend that all masters athletes should be doing, some type of calf strength work, 2 to 3 times a week.

Jeff Gaudette [00:14:38]: And that could most of the that calf strength flow is gonna be like eccentric declines. So, when most people think of a calf raise, we think of Starting with our kind of our heel below our our foot. So, like, maybe standing on a step and then dropping our heel and then raising it up quickly. What you actually probably should be focusing on is doing the eccentric, which is the opposite. So if you're standing on a step, starting on your tippy toes and then slowly lowering yourself, Kind of resisting the the urge to drop with your calf. That's called an eccentric calf raise. You can do weighted ones once you get kind of accustomed to this, so you can put it back back on and just add in some weight somehow. And you can do, eccentric calf raises that way.

Jeff Gaudette [00:15:17]: That's definitely one of the best, just simple calf exercises you can do 2 to 3 times a week. It's gonna dramatically increase, the not only your calf strength, but also your ability to keep your calves healthy as you continue to train. That's one big thing. Strength work. Obviously, Alex mentioned that a big part of what we lose is and that we don't do a lot as endurance athletes is we don't do a lot of speed work. We don't work those type, type 1 muscle fibers. So sorry. Those type 2 muscle fibers.

Jeff Gaudette [00:15:46]: We kind of just Especially as endurance athletes, that's what we wanna do. We don't wanna do sprint work. We don't wanna, you know, do, the stuff that that needs to take. The and you can kinda get away with that when you're younger. But as you get older, again, you just need to pay more attention to being able to to put that type of work in. Now what I recommend to masters athletes is to, quote, unquote, sneak speed into your training. And the 2 best ways that I like to do this are strides And, explosive hill sprints. So strides are basically anywhere from 20 to 40 seconds really being the max, 90% effort sprints at the at the end of your runs.

Jeff Gaudette [00:16:27]: So after you let's say you had a 6 mile easy run on your schedule, You complete the 6 miles. You take 5 minutes to kind of, obviously, let everything kind of settle down, and then you might do 4 to 6 times 32nd strides. So you would start out, basically, you know, starting out around 60% effort. Around 10 seconds, you would get to about 80% 70% effort. And then about 15 seconds, you're at 90% effort, and then you kinda start tailoring it down. That's really the best way to describe it. Basically, it's not an all out sprint. That's what we wanna avoid.

Jeff Gaudette [00:17:00]: We're not sprinting all out, but we're going at about 90% effort. And the idea here is that these and then you take a full recovery. So you want 2 to 3 minutes recovery between each stride. So if you're doing 4 of them, 2 to 2 minutes between each, that's an important thing to keep in mind. One of the mistakes that we see with athletes that do strides is that they just wait 10 to 15 seconds and then do the next stride. The goal of this workout isn't to be anything aerobic or anything where we're working on, anything where we're breathing hard, that kind of thing. What we're really doing is Teaching or kind of sneaking speed into our training. So getting a a short burst of speed where we can work on those explosive muscle fibers, contractions, etcetera.

Jeff Gaudette [00:17:41]: And then same thing with explosive hill sprints. So it's the same same principle, except you're going up a hill. So and generally, they tend to be a little bit shorter, so, like, 15 to 20 seconds. So you'd basically start at the bottom of a hill, sprint up it for 10 to 15 seconds, and then walk back down, take a nice 2 minute recovery, that kind of thing. The thing that if you haven't been doing those as a these as a masters athlete, then you wanna start slow. So, Start with maybe after 2 runs a week, after 2 of your easy days per week, try doing 2 to 3 15 to 22nd strides and really ease into them. Don't again, these these aren't all out sprints. They're just they're strides.

Jeff Gaudette [00:18:20]: So you're kind of opening up your think of it as like opening up your stride, Getting to about mile race pace effort, that kind of thing. Start with, again, 3 to 4, 2 to 3 2 times per week. And then once that starts to feel comfortable, you can start increasing it to maybe 3 to 5, 4 to 6 strides, and then you can increase the volume throughout the week. So you can start by doing 2 times a week and move to 3 times and then maybe even 4 times if you want. So Those are really easy ways to sneak speed into your training. It takes about 5 to 10 minutes. It's not gonna produce any type of Additional need for additional recovery. Again, because you're recovering between the intervals, you're only going for 20 to 30 seconds.

Jeff Gaudette [00:18:59]: It's not like a track workout, So you don't need to recover from them, that kind of thing. That negates the need to do, like, additional speed, like sprint work, VO 2 max work, etcetera, like, on the track. So So that's why I like to sneak those, speed into the training, that kind of thing. And then the 3rd component, to me, this isn't really training related, but it's Just in general, masters athletes need to pay more attention to recovery and to their diet. And that's just a factor of again, as we get older, those things become more and more important. I think all masters at I think all people that get older start to realize that. You know? When we're in our twenties, we can go and scarf down, You know, junk food and blah blah blah. And then the next day, we feel completely fine.

Jeff Gaudette [00:19:41]: Nothing, you know, nothing really changes. But I think I think everybody that gets older experiences, like, more and more The more damage we do to our body, the longer it takes to recover. And so just to be need to be more aware of that. So making recovery a more critical of the training overall training. So making sure that you're getting in, foam rolling or massage or things like that, doing some active stretching, From the diet perspective, making sure that you're getting your, micronutrients, making sure that you're eating healthy numbers, getting your protein intake, that kind of thing, Making sure that you're getting carbohydrates and protein after your run to make sure that you're giving the your muscles the fuel that they need to recover properly. So those are the 3 big things that I that I see that master's athletes need to work on more. I know I just kind of spouted off a lot there, so I'll kind of Let Alex take it from here if he has any things that he's seen with the athletes that he's worked with that works really well from a training perspective.

Cory Nagler [00:20:35]: You know, just before we move on to Alex, Jeff, just to capture those 3, so you had kind of in shorting those bursts of speed or explosiveness. You had the recovery standpoint. What was that 3rd piece?

Jeff Gaudette [00:20:45]: So yeah. So to recap, focus on strength work. Number 2, sneak speed into your training. And then 3, pay attention more attention to Recovery and diet.

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Cory Nagler [00:23:40]: Well yeah. So curious, Alex, if you have Anything to add to that for masters athletes or even as we're going through how, training varies with age, if there's any specific training considerations for younger athletes as well.

Alex Ostberg [00:23:52]: Sure. Yeah. I think what what Jeff added there was fantastic, very tactical, very actionable. I just wanted to expand on 3 ideas with Maybe a slightly different perspective. I completely agree with all the things he said, but just to bring in a slightly different perspective. The first thing as it pertains to to strength training, I think when everyone thinks about strength training, they think about bulking up and, like, gaining a lot of muscle mass. And, yes, like, muscular hypertrophy, so that's, you know, the growing in size of those muscle fibers, is one of the, of the effects that you get from strength training, but a lot of people also don't realize that strength training comes with a whole host of benefits that also impact the bone and the connective tissue. And a lot of this comes down to this idea of time under tension.

Alex Ostberg [00:24:31]: So when you're running, yes, you are loading your your muscles, your bones, your ligaments, and your tendons, But it's happening in these very monotonous and short bouts. So, like, for, like, every time you hit the ground and you load the the musculature and the skeleton, It happened in within, like, a millisecond or 2. Like, you're just doing, like, really quick load, really quick load, really quick load, and you repeat that, like, thousands and thousands of times. And that's beneficial in some ways, but I think what the research has has spoken to more recently is that, heavy resistance training with more Time under tension really gives you more pronounced benefits. So the idea is, you know, rather than these mountainous loading patterns from running, Let's say you're doing something like a squat. In that case, you're very slowly over the course of maybe 6 to 10 seconds, you're loading the patellar tendon, You're loading the articular cartilage of the knee, the quadriceps, and you're doing this in a very slow and deliberate way, and it seems as though that also has really Positive impacts for the connective tissue health. The last thing I'll say too is a a big consideration for elderly athletes, this is particularly important for women after menopause, is, osteoporosis and osteopenia. And, one of the best ways to protect against that is heavy resistance training, because the bones do respond to, like, jarring impacts.

Alex Ostberg [00:25:47]: So, like, instead of just going out for a 5 mile run, it would sometimes be, like, These explosive movement patterns, just like Jeff said, the the sprinting and and the explosive stuff is really good for the bones, but also strength training is too. And that sounds kinda counterintuitive, but you actually get some bone You get bone loading by just having the muscles pull on the bone ends itself. And that again, that sounds kinda counterintuitive, but it it's really important, for for that bone health and trying to avoid osteoporosis, osteopenia. One other thing, 2 other things I I should say Is, in terms of protein, I think Jeff or he talked he spoke on nutrition. I just wanted to highlight the importance of protein. I am kind of venturing into dangerous territory here because nutrition might be one of the most controversial things in distance running. But from what I understand and what I've seen in the research, Your your rate of protein synthesis, or basically your ability to take the amino acids from your food and turn that into Bodily tissues, is a lot is is really hampered. You you can't do that as well.

Alex Ostberg [00:26:47]: So one of the ideas is try and take in a little bit more of it. I'm not gonna like I I think there are probably individualized recommendations. And if you're working with a nutritionist, speak with them. But it's probably a pretty safe bet that you benefit from from more, Like grams per kilogram body weight protein when you're a little bit older, especially taking that in in regular intervals, especially sandwiched around exercise, and afterwards. And then the last thing I did wanna say too, I I I I don't wanna be portrayed as the villain on the podcast here to talk about all the negative things. I I did wanna say that if we take a broader perspective of of health and aging. Yes. We can talk a lot about the age related decrements in DOT max, lactate threshold, muscle mass, and all those things.

Alex Ostberg [00:27:29]: It's also really important to say that for those people who take exercise seriously, you're doing undeniably one of the best possible things you can for your overall health and longevity. Hands down, full stop. Like, that's what the research says. V o two max is one of the most predictive things that we've found in any of the medical literature that actually enhances your life in terms of functional capacity later on and allows you to live longer. Just to illustrate this with a quick example, I think one thing that people think of as being really bad for your health is smoking cigarettes. That's that's pretty, you know, well documented at this Well documented at this point in time. A person who smokes, if you look at, you know, the likelihood of dying from from Any at any moment from smoking, you have about a 40% increased risk of all cause mortality compared to someone who doesn't smoke, which is pretty significant. If you were to compare someone with below average v o two max, so let's say you're in the 25th to 50th percentile, and then you compare that to someone who's in The top quartile, so the 75th to the the 97th, you're actually cutting your risk of dying at any moment by half.

Alex Ostberg [00:28:34]: So that's more than cigarette smoking. Then if we take this to the extreme example, if you're in the bottom quartile for VOT Max, so the least fit person for your age, and you compare that to someone who's in The top 2%, it actually cuts your risk of dying if you're in the in the more fit group by 5 per 5 times, compared to those who aren't fit. So I think those numbers were were pretty staggering when I saw them, and it's, again, one of the most important things you can do for your overall health and longevity.

Jeff Gaudette [00:29:02]: That's an awesome stat. Thank you for sharing. I didn't know that. Thank you for sharing that. That's pretty pretty cool. Yeah.

Cory Nagler [00:29:07]: Yeah. Hey, Alex. You're, you're worried about being the villain here, but I think is a good news story for anybody who's training.

Alex Ostberg [00:29:13]: I I that's that's the message that I hope everybody can leave with today, is that, you know, Pretty much everything that people fear about in old age, whether it's, you know, cognitive decline, whether it's cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, I mean, all of these things are positively impacted by exercise. So above and beyond just performance, which I know is what a lot of people come here to learn about, Just know that you're doing incredible things for your health by continuing to exercise into older age.

Cory Nagler [00:29:39]: Yeah. Yeah. That's that's awesome. And I I think when you're talking about those who are I'm assuming that, most of our, our athletes listening to this, I'm assuming, would fall into this category. You're not just talking about the top 1%.

Alex Ostberg [00:29:51]: 100%. Yeah. And that's why I just wanted to illustrate to you the example of just moving from the 2nd quartile to the 3rd quartile, from the 25th to 50th percentile to the 50th to 75th. Even that has a meaningful reduction in in the risk of all cause mortality. So, yeah, even small steps you can take in the right direction have a huge impact.

Cory Nagler [00:30:10]: Alright. Well, that's awesome news for, for all athletes, I think, that, you know, doing the right training is gonna improve your lifespan and and make you I guess, coming back to the performance piece. I know we talked a lot about how you see a lot of these degradations over time with age, but, of course, we don't see a lot of 10 year olds breaking world records. So I'm assuming that there is some kind of peak age for running where your performance is maximized. Maybe, Jeff, do you have any thoughts on, kind of, Where that lies or maybe if there's any difference depending on the distance?

Jeff Gaudette [00:30:41]: Yeah. Absolutely. So this is where looking at elite athletes provides a lot of valuable data because they're obviously the peak of their profession, in in this case, running. Like, they are the specimens when it comes to running. So if we look at distances, generally speaking, the younger you are, the better you're going to be at the shorter distances. So, you know, talking about distance events, generally speaking, athletes that are competing in the 1500 are gonna peak right around anywhere from 24 to 30. You know, 30 usually starts to be the cutoff. And when I give you these age ranges, keep in mind that there are always out always outliers to everything.

Jeff Gaudette [00:31:18]: So, Yes. There have been some, elite milers. Off the top of my head, Nick Willis comes to mind who, is my age or just a little bit younger and was, you know, still was still recently competing at the Olympics and the World Championships. So there are always outliers, but just these are the kind of the general ranges. So 1500, anywhere from 25 to 30. You start getting up to the 5 k, you're talking, 25 to 35, you know, you can extend that a little bit. The 10 k, it usually stays in that 35 range. Once we get up to the Marathon, I think you start seeing some of the older athletes start to peak a little bit better.

Jeff Gaudette [00:31:56]: So getting into that 25 to 35 range or 28 to 35 range. And then in the marathon, you know, you still see athletes competing at world record levels, into their getting close to 40. And some athletes that are just a touch over 40 still competing, you know, talking about running 204, 205 in the marathon, which is Unbelievable. So, you know, again, the reason that we see that is what Alex talked about a lot is, Like we both mentioned, your aerobic system starts to increase or you I guess, you develop your aerobic system more as you get older. So that's why you see the, preference towards longer distances as we get older. And then, we start to machine in a lot of our explosive muscle power, that kind of thing, when via 2 max, which is predominantly what we need for the 1500, 5 k, that kind of thing. So that's why we start to see that. So most athletes will start to come into their physical peak, Between 22 to 25.

Jeff Gaudette [00:32:54]: That's generally speaking across almost all sports. When athletes start coming into their physical, peak when it comes to explosiveness, muscle strength, and in run-in this case, VO2 max. And then those Factors slowly start to decline, but our aerobics starts to go up as we get older. And that's why we start getting into those ultra those longer distances being better for the Masters athletes. And then even extending that further into, like, the ultra running scene, again, we see ultra runners in their 35, you know, 35, 40, 45 really being, Really at the top of the game. So you don't see a lot of 23 year old, 24 year old, elite ultra runners. You see those more in the 35, 40, 45 range.

Cory Nagler [00:33:37]: For sure. And I think part of that is the aerobic benefit. I'm sure part of that is an experience level as well, where those ultra distances, you really have to know how to Conquer different terrain and fuel. But another piece I'm kind of curious about is you have, our absolute age, and, of course, there's certain physiological changes that come with that. But I think a lot of times you also hear people for to your running age or how long you've actually been running. So I'm curious, do you have any thoughts for athletes who actually pick up the sport at different ages? Does that have any impact on those peak ages?

Jeff Gaudette [00:34:11]: Yeah. 100%. So in terms of peak ages, it actually doesn't really have an impact because we're talking about, Just general overall physiology physiology when it comes to that. However, there are advantages to athletes that have I've been running their entire lives. And there's also some disadvantages. And there are advantages and disadvantages to starting up running as you get if you are older. And really the biggest difference is that aerobic piece. So if you've been running your entire life, if you started when you were in high school and I've continued to run into your 40s, sixties, your aerobic development is going to be pretty much maxed out.

Jeff Gaudette [00:34:51]: And how that changes training is that As you get older, you need you don't need to focus quite as much on the overall total volume or overall total mileage. You can, you can start to safely drop that As you get older, because you've really maxed out your aerobic capabilities. The advantage of that is that it there's some I did it can help with recovery since you're not doing as a greater amount of total total overall work. And you can take that time to do more strength workouts, sneak more speed into your training, those types of things. So there's the advantage there. The advantage, or obviously on the opposite end, if you started training as you As an older athlete, obviously that aerobic development isn't quite there as well. So for athletes that did start later in life, I always recommend focusing a lot more on aerobic development, which means increasing easy mileage, and focusing more on Easy mileage then workouts. So that's where getting into that.

Jeff Gaudette [00:35:48]: I think match Matt Fitzgerald is the one that popularized this, split, but like the eightytwenty split Where 80% of your training is aerobic and then 20% is on the higher end like higher end stuff like VO2 max threshold workouts, that kind of thing. And so I think that's where that split makes more sense for athletes that are coming into life or coming into runner running later in life. And the advantage though is that you have less kind of mileage on your body. So I think anybody that's done anything For a long time, realizes that there's just some toll that things take. Like Alex mentioned when he talked about, you know, every step we take is a small, You know, kind of we're taking small impacts every single mile that we run, every step that we take. And that's just going to add up over time. There's going to be some detriment to your overall body when that happens. And, athletes that take up running later in life just don't have that accumulated mileage, accumulated Kind of wear and tear on their body.

Jeff Gaudette [00:36:47]: So that's the nicer thing. That's the advantage of of kind of starting a little bit later.

Cory Nagler [00:36:52]: Yeah. Alex, I'm curious because you kind of fall into that category of the peak age for a lot of the distances, what's your take on it?

Alex Ostberg [00:36:58]: I know. I'm feeling particularly inspired right now given that I am 26. That is encouraging. I did wanna share one interesting factoid that I picked up this morning. I ran a little analysis on, the average age of the US Olympic slash world championship team in the 100 meter dash versus the marathon. And so just for argument's sake, I took the the women's events. And between the Tokyo Olympics and the world championships that just finished in Budapest, the average age for a 100 meter dash Sprinter was 24, and for the marathon and you had someone as young as 20 in that age group. And then for the marathon, the average age was 33, nearly a 10 year age differential there.

Alex Ostberg [00:37:42]: And on the women's side in the marathon, you had Khaira D'Amato, at age 38, I believe, when I, well, she was I think she was an American record holder, several years ago in Houston. She set the American record in the marathon. But At the time when I took the data, she was 38, which I think is just pretty remarkable and shows what what Jeff was saying is that, you know, these development trajectories, They probably last a lot longer than people think that they do, and you're capable of more than you originally thought later in life, which is, I think I think pretty exciting. So anyway yeah. I just wanted to share that if anyone wants to impress anybody at their next dinner party.

Jeff Gaudette [00:38:17]: Mhmm. Another interesting thing about Kiara when it comes to especially when we're talking master's athletes is that she hasn't trained as an elite athlete her entire life. So she I mean, she did train when she was younger. So she Ran in college, ran competitively, you know, NCAA is that kind of stuff. But then after I think a few years after college, she pretty much stopped training competitively. So she went into I think she started doing real estate, started working about having a family, all the normal stuff that we do as we get into our late twenties. And she still ran, but not competitively. So she didn't train at a high, high level.

Jeff Gaudette [00:38:52]: And then I think in her early 30s, she ended up getting back into training competitively at a high level. And then obviously by within 3 or 4 years, she was an American record holder, Competing at the Olympics, world championships, that kind of thing. So, that's just an interesting factoid. I think it goes to show that that aerobic development, again, Doesn't go away. We can continue to build that and build that, and that's just such an important component, especially as we get older.

Cory Nagler [00:39:17]: Yeah. No. And I think here at the motto is an awesome example of how you can start running at later ages and and not just perform well, but at extremely competitive levels at, at The world stage. So, I'm actually jumping a little ahead here, in our in our plan, with, with Jeff and Alex. But I I'm curious if you you have thoughts, Alex, on maybe is this something you see a lot or is this further aware? And then also, I know we're focusing a lot on on older athletes and maybe Pulling back a little. If if you are fortunate enough to have that extra time and be starting early, what are some of the things you can actually do to to ensure longevity and that you're excelling yourself when you get to those ages?

Alex Ostberg [00:39:56]: Absolutely. Yeah. This is definitely a topic I'm I'm very interested in. So so thanks for bringing it up, Corey. I I think that, In terms of looking at, you know, skill development and, like, talent identification, we get a lot of things wrong, and I can go into a whole another conversation about that in a minute. But, when it comes to what you can do, in terms of, you know, ensuring that you can have a long Career, basically, is I think that everybody assumes well, let me let me take a step back. There's a great book everyone listening should read called Range by David Epstein. He was actually a runner in college.

Alex Ostberg [00:40:29]: He ran at Columbia. And the subtitle of the book is Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. And one of the case studies that he talks about in, Literally, the introduction is the, talent development development model of Roger Federer versus Tiger Woods. 2 athletes who are at their physical prime, in in the early to mid, 2000, and were both at the pinnacle of their sport. But they actually had completely opposite Developmental trajectories in that everyone probably knows the story of Tiger Woods where at 10 months, he was swinging a golf club. At 2 years, he was on national television. He shot a 48 For 9 holes at age 4, just this unbelievably precocious talent. And, you know, this was all micromanaged by his father who, You know, compared him to the likes of Nelson Mandela and Gandhi.

Alex Ostberg [00:41:18]: And, of course, he did become one of the most decorated golfers at all time, some would argue at with some cost. Then Roger Federer on the other hand, his his mother actually was a tennis coach, but she refused to coach him because she got too frustrated doing it. So she said rather than pushing him into into anything, I'm just rather gonna just, like, give him inspiration and let him choose his own path. He played, like, 10 different sports. He didn't specialize and choose between soccer and tennis until he was in his mid to late teens, I believe. And then he ended up, having a a a a, you know, a certain degree of career longevity that So many of his peers who started to specialize when they were 10 years old, they had already burnt out and ended their careers at age 30. He was still flourishing in his mid thirties. I think it really makes us challenge this notion of, like, how much does a head start matter? And if you kind of look at the scientific evidence, a lot of this was Popularized by, Malcolm Gladwell's book outliers, which was really the 10000 hour rule, which is that in order to be good at anything, you need to accumulate 10000 hours of work, and the earlier, the better, especially if it's deliberate practice.

Alex Ostberg [00:42:22]: But in this book, David Epstein really challenges that notion, and he says, Is that really true, or are the best people doing this? Are we just applying the tiger model of development to everybody instead of assuming, hey. Maybe the Roger Motter model has some credibility here? And when you do look at the evidence, it it's actually pretty interesting because for elite performers in any domain, whether that's chess or gymnastics or soccer, Most of them actually spend a little bit less time doing deliberate practice at an early age, and they spend more time doing a sampling period. So they try out a whole bunch of different things, before ultimately choosing on their path and then really going all in on that. And so I think the lesson that we can learn from this is Maybe there's more room for exploration than we previously thought. Yes. Like, early exposure matters. I don't think Keira D'Amato would be the American record holder 2 years ago, she hadn't run-in college. But maybe there's a little bit more time for exploration to try different things.

Alex Ostberg [00:43:14]: And at a minimum, it actually might protect you in some sense because We know from, like, the specialization literature and evidence that the more you do one task, the more likely it is you you are to get injured. And I would always argue that maybe doing a variety of different sports when you're younger, could be really protective later on, for your bones and your muscles to actually reducing your injury risk and giving you the advantage of potentially a longer career. So those are all my thoughts. I could talk about that for an hour. So hope please, Yeah. Hopefully I think that's good enough for today.

Cory Nagler [00:43:43]: Yeah. No. I I think that's great. And and just to come back to this if Advice piece for athletes who actually do have the good fortune of getting into it earlier. Is the advice then do less running and do more of other things? Or is it a little more nuance than that?

Alex Ostberg [00:43:58]: I mean, I think you're always gonna be going up against societal constraints and challenges, I think, because, You know, the US sports industry is a $19,000,000,000 industry that's run by, you know, competitive parents and field rentals and hotels and all I mean, These things, like, we're all forced into this model of what we think, you know, talent development looks like in the United States. I I would like to, like, kinda contrast the story to I'm I'm part Norwegian. My dad grew up in Norway. I think Norway's kind of been thrust into the limelight in recent years because they've had some incredibly successful athletes, and I think they have the most medals per capita, of any country, at least in in winter sports, and they're actually doing quite well in in summer sports. Many of the runners would know Jacob Engelbretsen and Karsten Warholme. And in Norway, they have this, like, completely opposite approach to to youth development, which is that nobody keeps score before they turn 12. Parents often participate with their kids rather than cheering from the sidelines and berating the referees. And And, also, the it's kind of this much more unstructured, like, free play environment, right, where they can kinda choose their own adventure.

Alex Ostberg [00:45:05]: They can feel like they have some autonomy here. And they tend not to specialize until they're later. So, you know, in Norway, like, a lot of people won't pick a primary sport until they're in high school, whereas the US, we have youth development programs starting at literally, like, age 5, I think. And so my advice might be, yeah, like, you're a parent, at least you can take this into consideration and maybe have your kid try different things. But even if you're younger, like, I would say avoiding early specialization, Well, it actually it you might think you're getting a short term disadvantage. I think it systematically gives you a longer term advantage in the longevity benefit from your career perspective that you could get.

Cory Nagler [00:45:41]: Yeah. Jeff, is that consistent with what you find with your own athletes that they benefit a lot

Jeff Gaudette [00:45:46]: of people. Totally. I I totally agree. There's and it's it's pretty nuance. You know, that that's I think anything we anytime we talk about training, You know, there's a big nuance to whatever we do, but, total I 100% agree.

Cory Nagler [00:46:01]: Cool. Very cool. Yeah. That's it it it isn't it interesting? Because I think we always talk about specificity and training for the event you're doing. But, of course, that's Very much in the context of a training block. So I think it's it's nice to kinda take this step back and and look at the bigger picture where where it might actually be more beneficial to have that breadth.

Jeff Gaudette [00:46:22]: Mhmm. Totally. And then I think the other big part is enjoyment. Right? So we focus so much on the physiological and, you know, getting ourselves physiologically to the peak and where we wanna be. But there's a huge enjoyment aspect to it as well. You know, running, I think for everybody that runs and has run consistently, running is more than just our performance. Right? We like to run because we like How we feel when we're out on the trail or out on the roads and it's just us or or with friends or whatever it is. Like, there's a big enjoyment piece there.

Jeff Gaudette [00:46:55]: And so, Whatever you can do to make sure that you enjoy it more, whether that be focusing on other sports at different times of the year, Coming and just running later, whatever it may be, or whatever race you might focus on, like that's a big component as well. And so we kind of need to keep always kind of keep that in mind is that enjoyment makes up a big piece Why we do this and, how we're gonna be able to continue doing it, for the rest of our lives.

Alex Ostberg [00:47:21]: I think that's an excellent point. And if you don't mind me jumping in, Corey, I have some thoughts there. There's I learned in psychology a few years ago in college that there's this, like, universal model for motivation, which says that you need 3 core things, which is autonomy, belonging, and competence. And I think that in particular, the US sports system focuses almost exclusively on competence, But it pays way less attention to autonomy and belonging. And I think coaches in particular and and parents for that matter need to realize that some athletes thrive on The connection that they get from other people or the sense of control they get when they're actually and and the boost in their self esteem they get when they're working towards a a a goal and making meaningful progress towards it. And so I I think, you know, we spent a lot of time speaking on, which is how do we nurture our talent? I mean, I would argue, and you can kick me off my soapbox, that we don't do a particularly good job of that in the United States, for for several reasons. But we also have to think about what Jeff said, which is, you know, we we also, I think, over index on physical talent at the expense of identifying, like, Psychological traits that actually really matter. You know? Like, when we look at physical talent, we look at a snapshot of what someone could do at one point in time.

Alex Ostberg [00:48:33]: But if you extrapolate that over the course of a career, What probably matters a lot more is just, like, your perseverance, your grit, your willingness to step up to challenges. And all of these things are just they can't be measured as easily because we care about the size of someone's engine or how fast they can run a 100 meter dash. But, like, over enough years and enough time, those psychological attributes, I think, matter way more. And I think that's something that people can also remember themselves, which is that maybe just because you were deselected from a sport earlier on or or you wanna get back into the sport of running now, like, there are certain traits that you might have developed and picked up over the course of your lifetime that might matter more than the physical attributes. So I would say don't get discouraged because Maybe you you got off the path early on and wanna get back on it now.

Cory Nagler [00:49:15]: Yeah. Yeah. And, the next topic I kinda wanted to touch on, As we start to wrap up is around the piece of, again, coming back to to running age, how long you've been training is is how newer athletes might train differently versus If you've been involved in the sport for a long time, regardless of your age, and I I I want to kind of open it up when I say train be beyond just, Just, beyond just running because I think is is both of you have, kind of, touched on. There's the, physiological standpoint, but then there's also the psychological Psychological piece and also other sports. So Jeff, I guess, turning it over to you. Do you have any thoughts in a broad sense how a newer athlete should be approaching the sport differently from more Grace once?

Jeff Gaudette [00:49:56]: Yeah. I touched on this earlier, but I think they should really be focused As much as they can on gaining an easy, easy mileage or easy aerobic volume. And I think I did a video or an article on this recently, but it's funny when you look at Let's say you look look at somebody like, I I use myself as an example. So when I started running, I was a freshman in high school. I probably ran maybe 15 miles a week for about a year. I did 15 you know, you start maybe in cross country and then indoor track, outdoor track. So for about a year, I did 50 miles a week. And then when I was a sophomore, I probably did 20 to 30 miles per week.

Jeff Gaudette [00:50:37]: And then the next year, throughout the year, I probably did 30 to 40 miles a week. And I think my senior year, maybe I did 50 or 60 miles a week. So that's over 4 years, you know, of increasing mileage. I think when we look at Younger athletes that start when they're older, you know, I think we see huge jumps in training and volume. Like, So they start and and this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but you know, how many people run 15 miles a week for a year? You know? And then their next step is 25 to 30 miles per week. And then the next step is 40 35 to 40. And then along the same lines, you know, we see a lot of athletes that jump in and been running for 6 months. And then all of a sudden, I what kind of speed workout should I do? What type of VO 2 max workout should I be doing, etcetera? You know, when you're that, new to running, the the biggest bang for your buck is going to be, getting more aerobic volume in.

Jeff Gaudette [00:51:32]: So I would say that again, just to wrap this up and make it quick. I think for athletes that start when they're older, there should be a much, much greater focus on, overall training volume like mileage Compared to speed workouts. It's just it's just so much more important. So that that would be the the main thing that I would suggest. And again, it flips for people that have been Training for their entire lives. As you get older, you can start decreasing that mileage a little bit because you've already hit your, you know, aerobic, point where the diminishing returns.

Cory Nagler [00:52:02]: Just, just one nuance I'm curious. And if you're starting as a master's athlete, Does that mean, though, those strides, those hills, and the explosiveness piece you touched on becomes a little less important? Or does it then become a bit more of a balance?

Jeff Gaudette [00:52:15]: No. I think I actually think that they are just just as important, but probably for different reason in the sense that, Again, because we want to be focusing on so much on aerobic volume and putting in mileage, that means you're not going to be putting in getting in the speed workouts VO2 max workouts because, Again, we want to focus on mileage. So it's a way to get in that speed component without sat without being without sacrificing that mileage. So on the opposite end, for somebody that's been running for a long period of time, sneaking speed in is a is a way To combat the fact that probably over the last 30 years, you haven't done a lot of sprint work. You haven't done a lot of speed training because you've been focusing on The marathon or endurance workouts, that kind of thing. So same out, same outcome, different reasons for, kind of, including them in the training.

Cory Nagler [00:53:03]: Got it. Cool. And and, Alex, any other thoughts on whether you're a newer athlete or more experienced athlete, how your training might change a little bit?

Alex Ostberg [00:53:10]: Sure. I I think one thing I just wanted to touch on and and maybe speak to a very certain segment of our audience, which is, you know, maybe let's say you have been Detached from the sport for some period of time. We spoke about Kiera D'Amato, you know, taking a step away, working in real estate, having a family. By the way, I I do wanna share a little a quick quote. I was doing some research on her prior to this podcast, and she said, she was a 4 time all American in college, And, you know, her, you know, running career was curtailed in college by some untimely injuries. And so she said, quote, I mourned the goals I didn't hit. I forgave myself, and I move I moved on. And she said, I think this is in 2016.

Alex Ostberg [00:53:46]: I never thought that, I would have competitive goals again. In 2016, when I was pregnant with 1, with my son, friend asked if I if I'd ever run competitively again. I was 8 months pregnant, feeling the most out of shape I ever had, and I laughed and I said, no. No. I can guarantee you I'll never run competitively again. And I I think, obviously, this is an edge case. She's she's the one of the best that I've ever done it. So generalizing lessons from Kira Damato might be a little bit difficult, but it does, I think, teach people that Taking a step back and then coming approaching the sport with a beginner's mind, not necessarily a beginner's mind, but a a developed mind.

Alex Ostberg [00:54:20]: Like, you've collected a whole bunch of life experiences. You're approaching the problem from a new angle. I think it's it's really important. I had a professor in college who, was studying exercise physiology, and she was interested in, why masters athletes are particularly good at the ultra marathon. And one of her arguments, one of her hypotheses was that they've just lived through enough life and gone through enough challenges to know that no matter how hard an ultra marathon gets, The sun will always come up again tomorrow morning. And, like, you know, the younger athletes sometimes lack that lack that perspective. So I think a lot of times, there's there's a lot of friction associated with with starting up again or or resuming a plan, but, you know, you can't make a comeback if you don't start. And even the best to have ever done it, struggled to start and just know that, like, you know, just taking the next step forward is really beneficial on that long term journey, and you never know where it'll take you.

Cory Nagler [00:55:12]: Yeah. Couldn't have said it better. Jeff is, Well, what what do you think about, about those pieces?

Jeff Gaudette [00:55:21]: Oh, a 100%. No. Totally. I know my Personal journey in running changed a lot too. Once I stopped being competitive and then started looking back and thinking about training in a different way. I was so focused on performance that it really took a lot of the joy out of running. And Now that I'm older, there's so much more perspective on life that I find a lot more joy in running and training Than I ever did when I was younger. And the performance side of things, I mean, I don't compete like I did, but the performance side of things is better because of that.

Jeff Gaudette [00:56:00]: Because I I have the perspective and, it's a it's a big it's an important point for sure.

Cory Nagler [00:56:06]: Yeah. I, I think that's a great way to conclude because I I can't think of a better way to wrap up our podcast on, performing well at at any age than with the thought that at the end of the day, sometimes Having those bigger considerations and the fact that there's more to life than performance is actually what's gonna make you a better runner. So, this was phenomenal. I hope whether you're Listeners at home, whether you are that that that 10 year old competing in elementary school or or you're well into your seventies or eighties, that this was useful for you. Jeff, Alex, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your wisdom.

Jeff Gaudette [00:56:39]: Thank you for having us, Corey. And thank you for everybody for listening. It was Great to chat with you today, and, hope you keep listening and learning more.

Alex Ostberg [00:56:46]: Yeah. My pleasure. I look forward to the next one, Corey. It's always a blast.

Cory Nagler [00:56:51]: Awesome. Thank you both, and everyone listening. Happy running.

Finn Melanson [00:57:09]: Thanks for listening to the Run to the Top podcast. I'm your host, Finn Melanson. As always, our mission here is to help you become a better runner with every episode. Please consider connecting with me on Instagram at Wasatch Finn and the rest of our team at Runners Connect. Also consider supporting our show for free with a rating on the Spotify and Apple Podcast players. And lastly, if you love the show and want bonus content, behind the scenes experiences with our guests, and premier access to contests and giveaways, and subscribe to our newsletter by going to runnersconnect.netback/podcast. Until next time, happy