u/neurobassism

I am 60 year old man. Running as a hobby for the last ten years. I undergo regular medicalized effort tests in the threadmill and they have always turned Out fine. Nevertheless, I frequently wonder at which point I will have to give up running? Will it happen all of a suden due toman injurybthat will never heal or will I experience a progresive decline in my tempo until there will be no difference between running and walking and I will simply walk from that moment on?

Could you post your experiencies on this?

The number of days per week that people run seem to vary a lot and I wonder if this changes over age 50.

I’ve been running consistently for the past 25 to 30 years and I tend to run six days a week for half the year and five days a week the other half though I cross train on the sixth day.

Wonder what others do? Do we have any daily runners over 70, 80?

As a runner for 30 years when I go into marathon training season I do a lot of extra stuff like speedwork , fast finish long runs etc. When I was younger I'd see pretty significant training effects on my regular running pace/RPE At this age ~60, the effect seems less dramatic. I wonder if others have seen the same thing?

I'm M77 (78 in 3 weeks) and still running - or at least what I call running. I know that my feet and arms are still moving up and down the same way that they did when I was 34 and ran a 7:20 pace NY Marathon (3:12). My watch shows my RHR at 49, my VO2 Max 41. My BPM during most of my "runs" is in my Vigorous (117-144) to Peak (145 -) zones, averaging in the 121-128 bpm range.

But these days walkers pass me (heck I can walk faster than I run when I try it) and my watch says I average 16-18 min a mile on my 2-3 day a week 3-5 mile "runs". Years ago, I wouldn't have considered that even a jogging pace. So am I still a runner? Should I be/try to runniing faster? Or should I just give up and join r/Slowjogging?

At last year’s New York City marathon, I ran into a guy who was 85 years old and he had been running it for over 20 years. He said he had a very weak heart, but he never stopped. This guy was inspirational for me

I train for one marathon per year, but I try to do one long run per week all year of 10 miles. Wonder if that is true for a lot of runners over 50?

Of course we don't know exactly how long we'll live, but around 80 seems reasonable for fit health conscious people. Do you plan to run until the end? I hope to for sure.

I’ve been running for 30 years and I keep going and I see lots of people my age will run regularly. I also see people much older than me in their 70s 80s and 90s even finishing races.
So I wonder is there anything different about running over 50 then before 50?
Have you noticed any changes?

Anyone ever check their DHEA level? Though it declines with age in everyone the effect may be much greater in endurance athletes.

Mine was pretty low - starting taking supplemental FWIW

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Though subtle, something about our running seems to change with age.
This study tried to tease out the details.
Main findings - calves weaken, hip extension increases, stride shorten and knees remain the same.
Suggest calf strengthening may be important training tool

Klein M, Patterson C. Changes in running biomechanics in master runners over age 50: a systematic review. Sports Biomechanics. 2023;24(5):1168–1196.

I think I first read in the competitive runners handbook about the 10% rule suggesting that you shouldn’t increase your weekly mileage or your long run by more than 10% per week to avoid injury.

I found out that the data on that is actually pretty sparse

Perhaps those of us over 50 need to attend to it or perhaps not.