A good goal for any beginner is to work up to walking and jogging a total of two miles after about a month of training. In fact, you may need to be more careful than a true beginner, because you remember how you used to train and may push too hard too soon. And if you were a runner in school, but haven't run recently, you need to act like a beginner, too. If you're a beginner, you need to start slowly with a mixture of walking and jogging. After 30-plus years of successful masters running, these are the lessons I've learned. You need to structure and maximize your training. The key to maintaining running fitness, no matter which birthday you're staring down, is to train more intelligently. This approach may work initially, but almost certainly will lead to injury, also accelerating your decline. Or you can start training even harder, piling on the miles in an attempt to outmuscle Old Man Time.

If you let your slower times discourage you, you're likely to run less frequently, which will ensure a swift decline. That decline, however, can be either dramatic or subtle. Research suggests that most runners approach their physical peak in their early twenties and remain near that 'best' into their late thirties. Theoretically, improving running performance becomes improbable once you pass the age of 40. I wanted to be able to move with the same fluidity and still compete when-and if-I reached his age. The Scot was 91 years old.Īlthough even older participants would appear in future World Masters Championships, MacLean was one of my role models as I continued to compete as a masters (that is, over 40) runner. MacLean's time of 21.27 was not what grabbed everybody's attention-it was his age. But the hero of the championships was Duncan MacLean of Scotland, who won the 100 meters in his class. I won the 3000-meter steeplechase and set a world record for my age group (M45). In 1977, I traveled to Gothenburg, Sweden, to compete in the World Masters Championships.

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