Track and field athletes in their 40s to 80s share tips for staying active as you age
Here’s some advice to keep you moving in your 40s, 50s, and beyond.
Emphasize rest and recovery
An important part of masters running is listening to your body. When 78-year-old Roger Pearce was young, he thought he could train with injuries. not anymore.
“As you get older, you really have to be conscious,” he says. “When you have pain, you have to deal with it. Treat it, rest it, don’t try to force it.”
Pierce is retired and lives in Raleigh, Massachusetts. In high school, he ran cross-country and track, and was a sprinter at Northeastern University in Boston. He started running the Masters track at age 39 after being out of the sport for about 15 years. and set some world records by age.
“Recovery is as important as training,” he said. “It’s okay to take a few days off for recovery.”
Charles Alley, 75, a former retail store teacher in Pittsburgh, agrees. The former Hampton University track and field athlete said it was important for him to understand his body. “You have to do what works for you,” he said. “Know your body and know what you can do. You don’t have to practice every day.”
focus on injury prevention
To prevent injury, some masters runners incorporate other forms of movement into their routines. Jen St. Jean, 48, of Darien, Connecticut, does preventive exercises like yoga, core training and foam rolling. University of Massachusetts Amherst track and field graduate and former Reebok professional runner Saint Jean also sees a physical therapist once a week.
Saint Jean, mother of two, have had a hysterectomy About ten years ago. “It opened my mind to the fact that there is so much more to do than just running every day,” she said.
One of St. Jean’s Central Park Track Club teammates, Natalie Jones, does weight training as part of her injury prevention routine. “I never liked weight training, but a meniscus injury only allowed me to start four years ago,” said the 48-year-old Manhattan man. “Leg curls, squats, hamstring curls. I do a lot of glutes and core weight training.”
Masters runners take their warm-ups seriously, as some track events require explosive movement. For William Yelverton, 62, of Sewanee, Tennessee, that means doing lots of “dynamic stretches,” like leg skips and leg swings.
“Muscle activation is important,” he said.
Take care of yourself even if you can’t run like you used to.
Andrea Collier, 56, graduated from Florida State University with a doctoral degree. 4-time U.S. Champion Competed in the 100m at the 1988 US Olympic Athletics Championships. The Orlando resident works as a security manager for the Federal Emergency Management Agency and now has different goals and expectations.
“You have to realize that you’re getting older and that you can’t do the things you used to do when you were younger,” she says. “In my case, I have a mentality of just being mentally competitive. I want to win as much as I did when I was younger, but within reason.”
She finished third in the women’s 40m and 100m last month in 13.68 seconds, a competitive time for her age but still several seconds short of her college record.
“Don’t try to compete with your 20-year-old self,” says Collier. “Set goals for where you are and keep building from there.”
Lack of sleep can impair bodily functions. Easter Grant, who turned 40 in March, tries to get nearly eight hours of sleep each night. An application programmer in Tony, Alabama, she competed at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, but when she was younger, she “did a few hours of sleep, partyed all night, and in the morning I was able to do track and field events,” he said. “
Not anymore.
“If you don’t get enough sleep, you start running like garbage,” she says.
Some masters runners start the sport later in life.
Racing in the Penn Relay, which includes high schoolers, college athletes, Olympic hopefuls and Masters athletes, has been on Nyokken Lim’s to-do list since moving to Philadelphia in 1970. But for decades, Lim thought the Masters race was the Masters race. Limited to runners aged 80 and over.
“So I waited until I was 80,” said the 81-year-old from Malaysia.
Lim participated in this event for the first time last year. “I was more or less competing with myself,” she said. Lim was the only woman over 80 this year, although she finished seventh of seven competitors in the women’s 100m over-60s.
Josh Buck, 86, started playing tennis in his mid-60s, but it would be another decade before his first Masters track event. “We must always be looking forward to doing new things,” said Bouffe, professor of finance and international business at La Salle University. “Now I’m hooked.”
The oldest runner this year was Ed Cox, 96, who finished sixth out of seven in the men’s 100 meters over 85 in 24.04 seconds. The winner, 85-year-old Bob Williamson of Lawrenceville, New Jersey, finished in 17.50 seconds. This is a time a runner a quarter of his age would be happy to run.
“Don’t count your age. Forget what number it is. It’s mostly in your head, so that’s what matters,” Williamson said. “Recognize that the key to aging is to keep moving.”
