Senior Distance Running Essentials Series
Authored by Gordon MacFarland
Chapter #1: Introduction (May 2024 Update)
Welcome to Chapter 1 of the Senior Distance Running Essentials Series! This is an A-to-Z consideration of distance running aimed at those of us age 60 and older, which for this series and TheSeniorRunner.com, is how “senior” is defined. Topics are listed on the series home page. These will be expanded on below.
The original intent was to present this in YouTube format. While there will be some video content, most material in this edition will be written. Video presentations may later replace or accompany the written chapters. Subscribing to TheSeniorRunner.com will enable us to alert you when new chapters, videos, and blogs are posted.
Target Audience
The target audience includes the 150,000 seniors who run road races each year and find running a vital part of their lives. Admittedly, the series is unlikely to interest the casual runner. That said, it may appeal to those who are not now racing but are ready to amp up their training and in doing so perhaps return to a prior level of performance. The ultimate goal of the series is to support maintaining a high level of fitness as we age through the lens of running.
Consistent and Rigorous Training
Regardless, this series is geared toward those committed to a program of consistent, rigorous training. Consistent means at least five days a week of aerobic training, ideally with at least three and no more than five days of running. Rigorous means on two of those days putting in an extra effort — primarily with up-tempo running and/or hills.
Smart Training
But this series is not just about training harder. Rather, as seniors we must be smart runners. As we will explore, while the same training principles that apply to younger runners also apply to seniors, we have less margin for error. Bottom Line: if we push faster and harder than our bodies can adapt, we will find ourselves injured.
I’ve been a recreational runner since 1977. Back then, information on training and race strategy was scant and everyone learned from each other. Shoes like the Nike Waffle Racer were introduced – you have to be a senior to remember those!
We tried everything we thought might make a difference. Running Times magazine, now extinct, became our go-to resource for training tips.
Information overload!
Now, with the proliferation of the Internet, there is almost too much to sort through. In fact, there is too much! I hope this series will help you better navigate that sorting process.
My aim is to present the essence of what is currently known about the impacts of aging on our running. I will draw upon my own experience of having run over 800 road races as well as academic and professional study. The level of detail will vary by topic, but the hope is to provide enough background to allow you to better interact with exercise and medical professionals you may be working with as well as help you discern what might be helpful in your training and racing through your own reading, research, and experimentation.
Individualized needs
The reality is we senior runners have, increasingly, individualized needs. One-size-fits-all approaches may have worked in earlier years. Much less so in our 60s and beyond.
The series will cover a broad range of topics, presented in two parts.
Part 1: Background and Context: A Tour of Our Amazing Bodies!
Part 1 aims to provide background for what is discussed in Part 2, the applied portion of the series. I find every time I look at how our intricate parts seem to almost magically work together, I am in awe! And am reminded that our bodies need us to make good decisions about how we stress, fuel, and rest them. This first chapter is an introduction to the series.
Chapter 2: Why We Run; Why We Stop
The second chapter will explore various reasons why we make space in our lives for running. I plan to have some video clips from a number of senior runners briefly giving their reasons. We will also look at the main reasons why runners drop out of the sport.
Chapter 3: How Runners Age
This chapter will discuss various theories and processes involved in aging and most importantly what we as seniors can do to manage these processes. Spoiler alert – there will be no magic bullets presented. Aging is complicated – it affects each of us in different ways and rates. But it is happening and I suggest it’s better to know the signs than pretend they are not there.
Throughout the series I will attempt to point out how aging differs for men and women senior runners.
Chapters 4 & 5 — Biomechanics: Fundamentals & Applications to the Lower Extremity
Two chapters on biomechanics explore the science behind human movement. Let’s consider the sheer number of our moving parts: Typically, we have 206 bones, 360 joints, 640 muscles, over 900 ligaments – which connect bones to other bones – and about 4,000 tendons – which connect muscles to bones. This is a lot of hardware!
All of these parts must work together to create what is called the kinetic chain, something we will refer to throughout this series. Chapter 4 will review general principles of biomechanics while Chapter 5 will focus in on the lower extremity: our hips, legs, knees, and feet. Naturally, this is where most of the action is when we run!
Chapter 6. The Cardiorespiratory System
The sixth chapter covers our cardiovascular and respiratory functions, known together as the cardiorespiratory system — our heart, blood vessels, lungs, and airways. Much of our training is geared toward beefing up these systems.
The Human Highway
Collectively, I call these systems the human highway since the fuel and oxygen needed for running and the removal of wastes from that effort travels along the 60,000 miles of blood vessels in our bodies – that’s over two times around the equator! There is a ton of research on how aging affects these systems and preventative actions we might take. Suffice it to say, we will cover a lot of ground in this chapter!
Chapter 7. Nervous, Endocrine, and Immune Control Systems
Chapter 7 considers our control systems – the nervous, endocrine and immune systems. The 45 miles of nerves throughout our bodies drive all movement. When we decide it’s time to run, our brain sends signals through these nerves to our muscles to act!
Homeostasis
When running, and while we are recovering, these systems adjust energy, temperature, and hormone levels to keep us within a fairly narrow, acceptable range, often called homeostasis. Like everything in our bodies, these control systems change with age, generally resulting in slower reaction speed or less output of vital substances produced. Being aware of these changes can help us develop realistic training plans that allow for adequate recovery.
Bottom Line: Our Human Bodies are Amazing!
I expect our review of these various structures and systems will reinforce what you probably already know — the human body is absolutely amazing! And it behooves us as senior runners to understand how each system changes with age and what proactive actions we can take to support them.
Chapter 8: Nutrition
Next, we’ll look at a huge topic — nutrition.
The Key Metabolic Challenge
We start by considering the challenge our body seeks to manage: we need energy and other nutrients throughout our bodies continuously but only ingest food periodically. This requires fine-tuned mechanisms allowing for storage and delivery.
While our brain and nervous system generally only use glucose, our muscles can also draw fuel from fats. At a basic level, this chapter will look at how this happens and how the metabolic processes involved are affected by age.
Then we dive into practical questions of what and when we should eat, and in what quantities. We’ll take a look at FDA-prescribed food labeling, as shown below. While there are important individual differences in needs and preference, this presentation will be limited to some basic principles that will hopefully help you in making food choices.
Part 2 – Effective Training, Recovery, and Rehab
Part 2 is the applied portion of the series and examines how we might use the knowledge in Part 1 in our running. We will cover strength training as well as training, racing, and recovery strategies. And if we find ourselves in rehab, which we senior runners are ought to do, how we might approach that process too.
Chapters 9 & 10: Strength Training
Two chapters focus on strength training. Runners tend to put strength training at the bottom of the priority list. Maybe in younger years we could get away with that. As seniors we can’t! Chapter 9 looks at fundamental principles; Chapter 10 involves demonstrations.
Strength, not bulk
The goal is strength, not bulk. And since running is a sport with repetitive motions that rely on healthy joints, we need to make sure all the muscles surrounding our key running joints are strong and stable and able to withstand that repetitive motion.
Mobility & flexibility
Effective strength training supports joint mobility and lower extremity flexibility through a full range of motion. We will consider modalities and practices that can help meet these objectives.
Strength training demonstrations
Chapter 10 will find us in the gym. I look to eventually have videos of these demos for you to view. These are practical exercises you might wish to incorporate into your training, some of which can be done in your home in between days at the gym.
Chapters 11 & 12. Training and racing strategies, Part 1 &2
These two chapters present a curated selection of training and racing strategies. This is the fun stuff! However, do not expect cookie-cutter approaches. Rather, we will honor the assumption that we each have unique constitutions and running history. The approaches presented are ones I have personally found useful over many years.
Chapter 11: Goal setting, Training Logs, Age-Grading
This chapter discusses three strategies: goal setting, training logs, and age-grading. These are related – if we’re going to set goals a log helps us know if we met them and how they might be adjusted. And age-grading allows for comparing performances across time and different ages and gender.
Chapter 12: Periodization, Running Equivalents, Plyometrics, Warm-up and Cool-down
This chapter begins with Periodization, which is an effort to space out our training to remain fresh and build toward peak periods of performance. We may still race throughout the year – our favorite races are not scheduled around us! But athletes of all ages, and perhaps seniors in particular, should be aware of the benefit of incorporating oscillating cycles.
We then look at the value of planning for and tracking Running Equivalents, or REQs, which are aerobic activities such as water running, StairMaster or the elliptical, that are not running, per se, but to a large degree follow the natural running motion. It’s a rare senior who can run every day and avoid injuries.
Plyometrics are an underutilized training strategy aimed at maintaining and enhancing our running gait. Properly employed, plyometrics emphasize the two components of speed – stride length and cadence – by incorporating jumping and skipping drills that mimic the running range of motion. To minimize the chance of injury, the demonstrated drills have been modified from what is practiced by college and professional athletes.
Last, we will look at the importance of warming up before and cooling down after our runs and races. This is an area often short-shifted by runners of all ages. As seniors we have an increasing need to pay attention to these activities.
Chapter 13: Recovery
“Train Hard + Recover Harder = Better Performance”
Chapter 13 is dedicated to recovery strategies. Peter Reaburn suggests it’s hard to overstate the importance of recovery for aging runners and offers the following adage in The Masters Athlete: Train Hard + Recover Harder = Better Performance. Recovering harder means paying very close attention to how our bodies feel and giving them enough time to rebound from intense efforts.
Stretching, massage, hydration, and yoga
We will briefly look at the importance of stretching, massage, hydration, yoga, and other injury preventative measures.
Sleep
We will also examine what is being learned about the importance of sleep for the senior runner. Convincing evidence offered in Outlive by Peter Attia and by Matthew Walker in Why We Sleep will be considered.
Chapter 14: Injury Rehabilitation
The last content chapter is about something we’d rather avoid: injury rehabilitation. We will consider the importance of accepting that we are injured as well as the importance of an early assessment of the problem. Too many of us hope things will resolve and their own and/or try to run through injuries. This only delays the healing process.
We will consider what has been called the rehabilitation pyramid, which shows the steps on which a successful return to sport builds on. Fittingly, the last topic will be prehab — which describes steps we can take to head off rehab. Actually, much of what we’ll have looked at: good nutrition, proper technique, strength training, rest and recovery are essentially prehab and we’ll draw from those topics.
The Takeaway
So, that’s a rundown of what is covered in this series. Due to the broad scope, there will be more breadth than depth. But I’ll aim to dig into some of the key topics.
I am hoping to complete the series with video or audio interviews with two people who have been key contributors to the development of this series.
Dr. Peter Reaburn.
Peter is an Australian-based author of The Masters Athlete, referred to throughout the series, and editor of Nutrition and Performance in Masters Athletes. In fact, it was reading The Masters Athlete that hatched the idea of producing this series. Peter has been involved in research on aging and performance over several decades and has guided the academic careers of many entering the field.
Peter has provided guidance as the series has been developed. He continues to train and compete in triathlons well into his 60s.
Dr. Karen Westervelt
Karen is an associate professor at the University of Vermont, where she teaches in the doctor of physical therapy program and is education director for the Integrative Health Program. Karen has supported development of this series in various ways, including serving unofficially as my advisor as I developed a research protocol involving plyometrics as a means to enhance running gait in aging runners.
Reviewers
I also want to thank the following senior runners who reviewed drafts of this material and served on focus groups that provided invaluable feedback and support:
John Barbour, Ruth Blauwiekel, Liz Champagne, Jan Holmquist, Norm Larson, Bob Mildrum, Rob Peattie, Bill Pine, Ken Schatz, Jon Waldron.
So, let’s get started!
You may wonder why 60 was chosen as the cutoff age for “senior.” The reason can be found in our own running. No doubt in our 50s and certainly by age 60, training and racing became harder and race times slowed. Granted, this is quite individual and depends on how long, how much, and how hard we’ve been running and racing over the years. We’ll look at this in more depth in Chapter 2 when considering training age. However, with rare exceptions, by age 60 our best times are behind us.
As we embark, let’s think about how we might we define “success” in our running as seniors.
One simple measure is just being able to continue this sport that has meant so much to us! For each 60+-year-old toeing the line at races, there are another five or more who are no longer competing or even running. Another measure is not slowing down as much as expected. To explore this, we’ll consider the use of age-grading tables, mentioned earlier, a system that has been around for about 30 years. And perhaps the mostcritical measure of success is how much we enjoy our running. If running does not bring us joy we will eventually move on to something else that does.
Extended healthspan
For the most part, runners are realists — we know aging is a part of life. The goal these days is healthy aging, extending what is now being called our healthspan, defined as the number of years without debilitating conditions. The plethora of products and practices to that end are boundless. We probably take note of those things – maybe they will help us. But this series is not about quick fixes. Rather, my focus will be on time-proven strategies that support life-long running.
I do not suggest we will address all your running issues, but I do feel it’s important we remain optimistic about being able to continue running for many more years. We will look at reasons that justify this optimism. However, for our own sanity and health, it’s best to be realistic and understand what is going on in our bodies as the years pass. If this is our approach, it will likely help us accept changes we see in race times. And allow us to proactively adjust our training to give us the best chance of staying in the game.
Here’s an example of what we’ll cover.
I suggest watching this video of Ed Whitlock, running in his 70s.
Hardly a casual runner, Ed, who unfortunately died at age 86 from cancer, still holds world age-class records at various distances. Notice the fluidity and grace of his stride. We are seeing a constellation of bone, joints, muscle, and nerves functioning in a coordinated way. When we’re running, we’re relying on all these components, networks and plumbing to work together! Ed provided an example of the kinetic chain in action. And the joy we see on his face after he finished!
Yes, with age, our parts don’t work as smoothly as they did in younger years. Throughout this series we’ll look at ways to support our vital functions. The goal is to help you better understand how the stress and strain of training and racing is accommodated by our bodies and how age affects this.
Let me finish this chapter with a few words about why I am doing this. Recreational distance running has been a big part of my life, now for a continuous 47 years. When I started, I had no idea it would turn out this way. The places I’ve gone and the people I’ve met through running have enriched my life beyond anything I could have imagined. Something about the sport grabbed me and has not let go!
Along the way, I have learned a fair bit from reading, study, and mostly through my own running about what it means to age as a runner. To the extent I’ve learned things that will benefit others, I wish to share that. There is no charge for viewing this content. I encourage you to pass it on. I also hope to attract others who will add to The Senior Runner website site by blogging, adding resources, and helping to broaden the reach of the Senior Distance Running Essentials series. If that might include you, please reach out!
Meanwhile, please subscribe to The Senior Runner so you can be alerted you when chapters, blogs and videos are released. And great if you send a link to those you think might be interested.
More about my background and credentials can be found on the About page of TheSeniorRunner.com
Happy running and welcome to Senior Distance Running Essentials!