Yale Bulletin and Calendar

September 24, 2004|Volume 33, Number 4

Older marathon runners are making greater strides in the sport than younger athletes

Marathon runners 50 and older, and female athletes in particular, are showing greater improvement in running times than younger runners, according to a study by a Yale professor.

Dr. Peter Jokl, professor of orthopedics, and his co-authors, Dr. Paul Sethi and Andrew Cooper, all of the Yale School of Medicine, looked at the running time, age and gender of all of the runners in the New York City Marathon from 1983 through 1999. They also evaluated the performances of the top 50 male and top 50 female finishers by age categories. There were 415,000 runners in all. Master athletes were classified as those 50 and older.

Jokl says female marathon runners ages 50 to 59 improved their average race time by 2.08 minutes per year, which was substantially greater than male runners of the same age, whose running time improved on average about eight seconds per year.

The older male runners, in turn, increased their running time at a much greater rate than younger male runners. The younger runners, males and females ages 20 to 30, did not significantly improve their running times during the period studied. The most significant trends in improved running times noted in the top 50 finishers in the male category occurred in the 60 to 69 and 70 to 79 age groups, and for women in the 50 to 59 and 60 to 69 age groups.

"Our data reflect the potential for improvement of the general health status of our aging population," Jokl says. "It is not surprising that the number of participating master athletes continues to rise. There is a general trend towards increasing numbers of our aging population who are in good health and physically able to participate in these types of strenuous competitions."

He notes that the performance limits of master athletes appear to be greater than predicted by previous physiologic studies.

-- By Jacqueline Weaver

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