Some "Old Age" Running Wisdom

WOW! It's two weeks since my last blog entry. Time flies. Since running the Townsville marathon and the Tan ultra 50km on consecutive weekends (7 Aug and 14 Aug), I've had two weeks of modest running. The first week post those two events I ran short and slow each day. Then last week I started working back into my normal training routine minus 25% of my normal volume. Now it's time to make some decisions about "what next?", re-shape my training accordingly and get back into it properly. I can only muddle along for a short time and that time (ie, 2 weeks) is up. I like to have firm running goals and a definitive training structure.

And now to the title of this blog entry - ie, some "old age" running wisdom. Last Friday I was running on the Mt Majura trails around home when I caught up with World Mountain Running champion, Vanessa H, and her very fit running dog, Eric. We ran together and chatted for quite awhile. Vanessa said that for the first time since she'd become a serious runner her running performances had not improved this year. In fact, her performances had dropped off a bit. She speculated that that could be because of other demands on her time and energy, and/or that she was getting older. Now a drop off in performance and the reasons for it is one of those issues which preoccupies the vast majority of long-term/lifetime runners, and it is certainly an issue that I have thought about a lot over my ~30 years of running. I have definitely come to the conclusion that we only have one bucket of energy (physical and mental), and that if there are lots of non-running demands on us, particularly if they last for a long time, then the energy that is left in the bucket for quality running will decrease and so too will our performances. And with the ageing and running issue I am reminded of a theory my non-running mum has always had and that is that barring any health or life limiting occurences, you are older for a lot longer than you are young(er), and so the point of highest youthful potential as a runner is limited. Of course while both theories may be true the grey areas are: how many non-running demands can we accommodate and over what period of time before they impact negatively on our running? And at what point does age start to have a serious impact on our running so that we either have to train differently to keep improving or we have to accept that a plateau followed by a gradual downhill is on the horizon?

From where I sit I'd say that at 34yrs Vanessa has plenty of time to wind back her non-running demands and tweak her training to continue to run first class personal bests. And also from where I sit I'd say that being just over a year away from turning 50yrs I'm glad there are age and gender relative running goals to aim for, and that I'm still running okay for a "little old lady" :)

Finally, this quirky photo made me smile. It's kind of symbolic of the many years of running we can all do and the many pairs of running shoes we can all go through if we look after ourselves and just keep putting one foot in front of the other.