Maintenance

This week Freakonomics Radio posted a podcast entitled “In Praise of Maintenance,”  In which they discussed the difference between developing new things (i.e., innovation) and maintaining, maybe even improving, those things we already have.  Some of the discussion considered public infrastructure, such as roads, bridges, airports, and waste water systems.  They also discussed how upkeep of IT infrastructure. including security protections, is crucial in enabling the development of innovative products and ideas.  The guests lamented on how long it takes and costs to repair roads and bridges, suggesting there had to be ways to streamline those processes.

During this podcast I was asking myself, “what about maintenance of our running bodies as we age?”  We know the things that happen: declines in muscle mass and quality and bone density; reduced maximal heart rate and VO2 Max; cellular and genetic degeneration; and fibrotic cross-linkage affecting range of motion.  Senior Distance Running Essentials aims to provide ideas/options to counter some of these aging influences.  The premise is we can’t stop Father Time indefinitely but we can slow the progression.

Which had me wondering how much of our time do we spend in activities of maintenance vs. those aimed at improving.  In younger years we were probably focused on getting faster.  Long and tempo runs, tough hill workouts, track intervals, regular racing at various distances, and total weekly mileage all played into that goal.  If we were thinking long term, we also found time for regular strength training and flexibility work. 

Aging changed some of this.  We ran fewer miles on fewer days, likely raced less, and had more of a gap between the most intense workouts.  If we did that, we ideally staved off the worst injuries.  If we did not, we probably found ourselves on the IL more that we liked.  And as we know all too well, in athletes the use-it-or-lose-it adage is more than folklore.

The first three synonyms of maintenance in the Oxford Dictionary are preservation, conservation, and continuation.  All of these words say something to me about what we are trying to do in our senior years.  One practical goal might be to maintain our age-grading percentage.  Afterall, this presumably ratably tracks expected decline with age.  If we were seeing 78-80% age-grading results in our 50s and continue to see them into our 60s and beyond, our decline in times are in step with the world best runners.  This begins by staying in the game.  Time off due to injury is a killer – we simply don’t bounce back as quickly.  Strength training and flexibility are arguably the most important practices along with adequate recovery and quality sleep.

My benchmark annual mileage used to be 2,000 miles, an average of around 40 miles per week.  Running five times a week resulted in average runs of 7.5 to 8.0 miles. This is admittedly much less than most of my peers ran in their younger years.  In 2024, at age 76 my target is 1,300 miles, or 25 miles per week, on an average of 4.25 runs, or 6.0 miles per run.  I typically do two hard workouts – one distance of 8 to 10+ miles and one speed/hills  – plus two easier ones.  I do stretching every day and go to the gym for strength training 4-5 times a week.  On non-running days, I generally water run or StairMaster.   I’ve only missed doing some kind of workout a couple times a year.

Is this the right amount of training to maximize my race performances?  I am inclined to think this may be light and now that I have healed from injuries that limited me to 830 running miles in 2023, am considering ramping this up in 2025 to 1,400 miles on 225 days – 27 mile weeks with 6.2 miles per run.  I’d rather err on the side of less and stay healthy. Naturally, rest, sleep, and diet are key components to this approach.

I find the notion of maintenance an intriguing prerequisite for staying healthy and maximizing race performance in our senior years.  The portion of workouts that fall into this category will likely increase with age.